Two UO students and two UO faculty won the 2021 awards for research and teaching related to ice, society, and climate justice in the Pacific Northwest, with funding from the Andrew Mellon Foundation through the Just Futures Institute.
Students Jessica Gladis and Anna Mattson won the 2021 Undergraduate Summer Research Awards. Jessica’s project involved research on “Hermeneutic phenomenology: How perceptions of place form differing attitudes towards agency and climate change” focused on the Mount Rainier region to uncover climate values and experiences with glaciers. Professor Barbara Muraca (Philosophy/Environmental Studies) served as her faculty mentor. Anna’s project focused on “Glaciers, salmon, and environmental justice in Cordova, Alaska,” from a journalistic and storytelling perspective. Her faculty mentor was Professor Torsten Kjellstrand (Journalism).
Faculty members Casey Shoop and Gordon Sayre won the 2021 Course Development Grants for Ice and Environmental Justice. Professor Casey Shoop plans to teach a Clark Honors College course on “The Ice Archives,” which will grapple with how “glacial ice is both a medium of storage and the material of storytelling.” The course will ask students to explore not only how ice records the past but how stories, meaning, and even injustices are embedded in ice and what we say about glaciers. Professor Gordon Sayre plans to teach an Environmental Studies/Folklore course on “Ice and Fire in the Cascades: Memory, Energy, Recreation.” This course, to be taught in Spring 2022, aims to put knowledge about “glacial and geophysical deep time into a productive relationship with the modern timescales and methodologies of folklore and environmental humanities.”
More course development and student research awards will be offered for Summer 2022, so stay tuned for future calls. Congratulations to Jessica, Anna, Casey, and Gordon!