Field Station 2 | Walking and Learning the Land
This traveling seminar considers the ongoing geological, biological, and social formation of the Midwest in order to locate the historical, political and philosophical roots of the environmental crisis as it manifests in this territory. The seminar unfolds over five days in the landscape marked physically by the action of glaciers, shaped by the enduring presence of Indigenous nations, and defined politically by the colonization that intensified after the 1832 Black Hawk conflict. Bringing together Native leaders, local residents, scholars, activists, and artists for a series of lectures, tours, and conversations, the seminar aims to understand the origins and effects of the present engineered landscape and build alliances for more just and sustainable futures.
The seminar heads outdoors to explore the landscape on foot and to consider the ways of learning and knowing that such embodied inquiry allows. We gather at the site of the former Badger Army Ammunition Plant to learn how the Ho-Chunk are restoring a heavily contaminated 20th century military site before heading to the Ice Age Trail at nearby Devil’s Lake for exercises in observing, moving, and thinking from the Ice Age to the Anthropocene.
- Friday, Sep 27, 2019
11:00 am - 1:00 pm
Tour of former Badger Army Ammunition Plant
Former Badger Army Ammunition Plant, North Freedom, WI 53951Randy Poelma, Ho-Chunk Division of Environmental Health
Multimedia > StoryMap with background information on the Badger Army Ammunition Plant 1
This event is limited capacity; email Sarah Kanouse – s.kanouse@northeastern.edu – to inquire about space.
2:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Walking Activity on the Ice Age to Anthropocene Age Trail
Devil's Lake State Park, Park Road, Baraboo, WIStephanie Springgay, Walking Lab and University of Toronto
Toby Beauchamp, University of Illinois, Urbana-ChampaignToby Beauchamp is Assistant Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies and affiliate faculty in the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. His book, Going Stealth: Transgender Politics and U.S. Surveillance Practices (2019) shows how the scrutinizing of gender nonconformity is motivated less by explicit transgender identities than by the perceived threat that gender nonconformity poses to the U.S. racial and security state. Beauchamp’s new research brings trans studies into conversation with the environmental humanities to consider topics such as the transnational production and circulation of synthetic hormones, U.S. border patrol and ecological destruction, and the creation and maintenance of long-distance hiking trails. His writing has appeared in journals including GLQ, Feminist Formations, and Surveillance & Society, as well as several edited book collections.
Stephanie Springgay is an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto. She is a scholar of research-creation with a focus on walking, affect, queer theory, and contemporary art as pedagogy. She directs the SSHRC-funded research-creation project The Pedagogical Impulse which explores the intersections between contemporary art and pedagogy. As a site for artistic-research it has initiated a number of experimental, critical, and collaborative projects including: a series of artist-residencies in K-12 classrooms; the creation of curriculum materials and resources on social practice art; and a series of curatorial projects including Instant Class Kit—a mobile exhibition and curriculum guide. With Sarah Truman she co-directs WalkingLab— an international network of artists and scholars committed to critical approaches to walking methods. Other curatorial projects include The Artist’s Soup Kitchen—a six week performance project that explore food soveriegnty, queer feminist solidarity, and the communal act of cooking and eating together. She has published widely on contemporary art, curriculum studies, and qualitative research methodologies.
This event is limited capacity; email Sarah Kanouse – s.kanouse@northeastern.edu – to inquire about space.
7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Walking research-creation with diverse publics
Ice Age to Anthropocene Age Trail at Indian Lake 1 8381 State Highway 19 Cross Plains, WI 53528Lecture by Stephanie Springgay
Feminist scholars argue that we need research practices that break with ableist, racist, extractive, and settler colonial logics, and instead focus on ones that are situated, relational, and ethical. This means troubling our relationship with institutions and transforming the kinds of value we allow for particular forms of knowledge. We need to alter our practices from ones based on extraction of data or as a means to correct a wrong. As such researchers are urgently turning to new ways of doing research that create conditions for other ways of living and learning, and which materialize new kinds of research relations and questions. It is fundamentally about practicing an ethics based on response-ability, stewardship, care, and reciprocity that centre relationships to land, territory, human and more-than-human bodies. This paper/presentation will take up these important ethical dimensions of doing walking research and share some exemplifications from my research-creation practice.
Stephanie Springgay is an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto. She is a scholar of research-creation with a focus on walking, affect, queer theory, and contemporary art as pedagogy. She directs the SSHRC-funded research-creation project The Pedagogical Impulse which explores the intersections between contemporary art and pedagogy. As a site for artistic-research it has initiated a number of experimental, critical, and collaborative projects including: a series of artist-residencies in K-12 classrooms; the creation of curriculum materials and resources on social practice art; and a series of curatorial projects including Instant Class Kit—a mobile exhibition and curriculum guide. With Sarah Truman she co-directs WalkingLab— an international network of artists and scholars committed to critical approaches to walking methods. Other curatorial projects include The Artist’s Soup Kitchen—a six week performance project that explore food soveriegnty, queer feminist solidarity, and the communal act of cooking and eating together. She has published widely on contemporary art, curriculum studies, and qualitative research methodologies.
RSVP via Eventbrite: http://bit.ly/SpringgayBeauchamp
7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Understories: On the Politics of Long-Distance Hiking
Ice Age to Anthropocene Age Trail at Indian Lake 1 8381 State Highway 19 Cross Plains, WI 53528The well-established outdoor ethical principle of “leave no trace” promotes environmental protection through minimizing human impact: in its most idealized form, ethical outdoor recreation will leave behind no indication of human presence on the landscape. This talk uses the concept of “leave no trace” as a springboard for consideration of hiking trails. Rather than imagining these paths as tools for removing human presence, the talk seeks out the social, historical, and political traces that hiking trails can both illuminate and obscure. It pays close attention to specific long-distance trail systems, including the Ice Age Trail in Wisconsin, to discover how these trails can transmit complex stories about militarism, restoration, redistribution, and belonging.
Toby Beauchamp is Assistant Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies and affiliate faculty in the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. His book, Going Stealth: Transgender Politics and U.S. Surveillance Practices (2019) shows how the scrutinizing of gender nonconformity is motivated less by explicit transgender identities than by the perceived threat that gender nonconformity poses to the U.S. racial and security state. Beauchamp’s new research brings trans studies into conversation with the environmental humanities to consider topics such as the transnational production and circulation of synthetic hormones, U.S. border patrol and ecological destruction, and the creation and maintenance of long-distance hiking trails. His writing has appeared in journals including GLQ, Feminist Formations, and Surveillance & Society, as well as several edited book collections.
RSVP via Eventbrite: http://bit.ly/SpringgayBeauchamp
