So where do Wesleyan students go once school lets out? To Kenya to work at Shining Hope for Communities? To New Orleans to research the Gulf Coast oil spill? To work at their summer camps? To Russia/the South of France/Sweden? Yes, Wesleyan students will go to all of those places this summer, but first, they go to New York City, the home of a plethora of students and the future home of many more.
This summer, as I return home to the city, I find myself reuniting with friends from school. Last week, Emily Klein ’14 and I went to explore the latest installment of the High Line, which goes from West 20th to West 30th Streets. Originally constructed in the 1930’s for the elevation of freight trains, it was resurrected in 2009 with the opening of Section 1, which goes from Gansevoort to West 20th Street. It is an elevated park that features public art and an aerial view of the city.
The High Line is known as one of the rare places where New Yorkers go to do nothing. For two Wesleyan students, it is the equivalent of Foss Hill during finals week, an oasis in the midst of chaos. And it even looks like a campus in the sky, green and fresh plants balancing out the concrete we walk on. As we crossed the newest section of the High Line, we talked about the year to come and how we didn’t know why, but the experience of how being in the relaxation epicenter of New York reminded us of being at Wesleyan, surrounded by interesting people who spend their time in some of the most creative ways possible. What a great segue from a first year on campus to a summer in the city!
Abigail Horton ’11, Wesleyan Summer Session Teaching Assistant, describes her experiences in Louisiana.
The students will present an open rehearsal of their works in progress, which have developed out of their research in the Gulf, on Friday, July 1, 2011, from 1pm to 3pm in Woodhead Lounge (Exley Science Center).
Samuel Sontag '14 and Eli Timm '13
Seven students of the class The Deepwater Horizon Tragedy: A Scientific and Artistic Inquiry traveled to the Gulf Coast of Louisiana to explore the Deepwater Horizon oil spill almost a year after the spill occurred. The class was structured as an investigation – a scientific, artistic, and human investigation into Louisiana’s relationship with the oil industry, how it led up to the Deepwater Horizon tragedy, and how the people of Louisiana deal with it a year after.
The students interviewed over twenty people who were involved with the oil spill: An oysterman whose ninety-year-old family business was wiped out by the governor’s actions during the oil spill. A woman who would abandon her beloved Louisiana in order to save it. One biologist who concludes that we have turned the page since the spill, and a different biologist whose experiments conclude that there are lasting effects from the oil spill. The politician who dealt directly with President Obama during the spill. The first female oilrig worker in Louisiana, and many more passionate, interesting and conflicting voices of the story that is Louisiana, the oil industry, and the oil spill.
The class explored the southern-most rural areas of Louisiana and went to the coastline that was first affected by the spill. We talked to professors and experts at Nicholls State College and Louisiana State University. In boats, the students went out to the wetlands where oil is still caked on the coastal sands, witnessing first-hand the power of the substance to destroy land. Out in the Gulf, we saw the clean-up crews still slowly working to clean the wetlands. The class got into the Gulf and helped professors from the University of New Orleans troll for shrimp and fish to take data on the ecosystem. The class explored New Orleans, and enjoyed the Gulf seafood that Louisianans are so passionate about. Through all of out explorations, we learned how deeply embedded the oil industry is with Louisiana’s history and culture and the complexity of the story.
Perhaps one of the most powerful moments for the class was when we met with a New Orleans-based artist and activist. Her art has examined the environment, the oil spill, and how nature is trying to recover. She looks at the fragility of the landscape and humans’ role in shaping that. She told the students, “make art about what pisses you off and what blisses you out.” This artist demonstrated to the students how powerfully art can communicate the environmental issues taking place along the Gulf coast, exactly what this class is striving for.
As the teaching assistant for this course, I was able to watch the students delve into this subject with curiosity and sensitivity. As the trip went on, the students became more involved and invested and came to understand the intricacies of the science, human, and political sides of the story. It was an incredible experience for all involved and it is clear to me the students’ dedication to telling the story of the oil spill with accuracy and thoughtfulness.
Submitted by Erinn Roos-Brown, CFA Program Manager
On June 5th, seven Wesleyan students arrived in New Orleans for a 10-day trip that will include interviews with local scientists, fishermen and rig workers. The goal is to learn from these perspectives about the effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which flowed for three months in the summer of 2010. They also plan to take a boat into the bayou to see the lingering effects of the oil spill, including a location where dolphins and other wildlife were reported dead from the toxic exposure. This trip is part of a Summer Session course The Deepwater Horizon Tragedy: A Scientific and Artistic Inquiry. It’s designed to provide the students with a toolbox for exploration of the science behind the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and began that process prior to leaving by spending four days on campus learning artistic and scientific tools.
By asking the questions: what is oil? How is it processed into energy? Why is it still the leading energy source? The students will hunt for answers that will enable them to understand the science at a deeper level, and make their research more visible to an audience through their art, which will be produced at the end of the course as final projects.
The class is co-taught by the chair of the College of the Environment Barry Chernoff and playwright and director Leigh Fondakowski. Leigh was the Head Writer of The Laramie Project and has been a member of Tectonic Theatre Project since 1995. She is an Emmy nominated co-screenwriter for the adaptation of The Laramie Project for HBO. Her latest work, The People’s Temple, has been performed under her direction at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Perseverance Theater, and The Guthrie Theater, and received the Glickman Award for best new play in 2005.
This course is made possible by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Come back later to read more about the final projects and hear from the students about their experience!
Upon first coming to Wesleyan, I had no idea what I wanted to major in. All I knew was that I wanted to continue writing. My first semester, I took three writing and reading intensive classes, but none of them under the English department or creative writing-based. I missed fiction. A lot.
So, second semester, I decide to be ambitious in employing my creativity in an academic setting. I signed up for an English class (Zora Neale Hurston and the Rise of Feminist Fiction) and a creative writing class (Amy Bloom’s Reading and Writing Fiction). Why two English classes? Actually, I soon discovered that I was not taking two English classes. I was taking one English class, which was cross-listed with a plethora of other departments, and one class that falls under what I have come to know as the Writing Certificate.
The Writing Certificate, while not a major itself, offers classes in creative writing or what I fondly refer to as the profession of writing. Under its title are classes in fiction, journalism, and even more esoteric subjects like television writing and science fiction. Some are taught by visiting writers/authors-in-residence. While the English major contains courses that are cross-listed with other departments, the Writing Certificate offers courses independent of other majors.
This isn’t to say that there isn’t a lot of overlap. On the contrary, students who pursue the Writing Certificate are required to take at least one course listed under the English department and the College of Letters that is an entry-level techniques course. In addition to that, three electives are required. There is such a wide range of these that students have the opportunity to use writing as a lens through which they can pursue their personal interests.
But there is still some confusion: Why are the Writing Certificate and the English major separate?
I asked Katherine Ann Eyster, Ford Writing Fellow, about the certificate. Here’s what she had to say:
I think that students pursue it partly as a sign of their skill and success in writing, and partly to gain access to writing courses and the senior capstone Certificate writing course, which is only for people pursuing the Writing Certificate. I don’t think that all of the classes under the Certificate umbrella should count towards English– the English department has its own rubric, and if writing classes fall outside of that it is understandable. The purpose of the Certificate is to help untangle “writing” from “English writing,” aka the false idea that writing only happens in the English major, so making all of the writing courses count towards English might be counter-intuitive.
Makes sense to me. This goes back to my initial discovery concerning writing within a liberal arts curriculum. No matter what field you are studying – be it Biology, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, or Economics, knowledge of writing – and more importantly, writing well – is absolutely necessary. The Writing Certificate blends those interests with courses that complement the ones required for a major. But, because it is not a major, students are given more freedom with which writing-related courses they pursue.
An interview with composer Glen McClure, and footage from a rehearsal of “Fascinating! Her Resilience”, by Elizabeth Holden ’11.
Celebrate the Earth this Friday and Saturday night at Wesleyan! Two free events will bring science and art together through multi-dimensional live performances that tackle questions about global environmental issues.
As a poet/performance/multimedia artist, Professor of Anthropology Gina Ulysse is dedicated to performing anthropology through spoken word. As a member of the College of the Environment think-tank, she will be performing as part of the Earth Day Celebration on Friday, April 22 at 8pm in Crowell Concert Hall. The multimedia performance project Fascinating! Her Resilience will explore the multiple significations in the word “resilience”, and how it has been used in different narratives about Haiti, especially since the earthquake of January 12, 2010. In collaboration with Val Jeanty, percussionist and sound engineer, the project will be expressed through both a live and electronic remix (using DJ techniques) of different theories of resilience from a range of disciplines. There will be bits of history, personal narratives, theory and statistics in spoken word, with Vodou chants interwoven with quotations from subjects interviewed in Haiti and other experts in this country. Moreover, it will explore how in dominant narratives, such meanings keep Haiti in a liminal state somewhere on the border between dehumanization and superhuman.
The next night, in collaboration with the inaugural year of the College of the Environment, the Center for the Arts will present the world premiere of Dear Mother Earth: An Environmental Oratorio by composer Glenn McClure on Saturday, April 23 at 7pm in Crowell Concert Hall. I sat down with Glenn McClure to discuss his commissioned piece for Wesleyan’s Feet to the Fire initiative.
Glenn McClure
As part of Feet to the Fire, which seeks to explore the topics of global climate change, Dear Mother Earth began as an extracurricular art activity with school children across the world, including Middletown’s MacDonough Elementary. Mr. McClure, composer of the oratorio and an arts integration specialist, asked school children in Ghana, Nicaragua and Middletown to write letters to the Earth. “While each letter is unique, they all share the central themes of celebrating beauty, thankfulness, compassion and a call to action,” said McClure. “Just as a flock of individual birds turn together in the wind without any discernable leader, these children have expressed these themes in their letters and illustrations.”Mr. McClure then integrated the themes of the letters with a musical model of the bio-mathematics concept of “emerging complexity” to create a series of musical movements centered around the common environmental hopes of the children.
The resulting piece uses sections of the children’s letters along with a mixing of musical forms, such as a traditional string orchestra with the dynamic percussion of Ghana. McClure states that “by bridging gaps between the different dimensions of music, we are establishing a creative process that brings people together.” McClure fuses the Wesleyan University Orchestra, the Middletown All-City Grade 4 and 5 Chorus, and Caribbean steel drummers together in the first movement to open the overall themes that emerged from the letters.
Barry Chernoff, Professor of Biology and Director of the College of the Environment, believes that Wesleyan will be the place for students to solve climate change issues. Designed to seek solutions to the greatest environmental challenges of our time, Dr. Chernoff stated “we are not afraid of failure, we only fear no one will try.” By thinking creatively and collaboratively, we are one step closer to finding solutions to these complex issues. The remaining movements of McClure’s work range from woodwind quartets and Ghanaian drummers to the full orchestra, painting a soundscape through the flowing stream of data collected by Chernoff’s student lab since 2006.
The message of this performance is universal in its approach towards understanding the complex layers of climate change. Through its practical idealism, Dear Mother Earth is intended to spark a conversation about what we can do about the environmental issues that we face. The project will continue after the world premiere on April 23 through the website www.letterstomotherearth.com, encouraging other classrooms to engage with the project and to continue the process of submitting letters addressed to the Earth.
Because of Mr. McClure’s combination of childrens choir and orchestra in his composition, the sound of the music is approachable in terms of being a traditional oratorio, but he also adds into the piece a diverse layer of unexpected ensemble sounds, such as Taiko and Ghanaian drumming. I am excited to see the full composition performed because of its consciousness of Wesleyan’s power as an innovative engine for creative solutions. I am sure Dear Mother Earth will foster a sense of communal experience between the performers and the audience.
Wesleyan Earth Day Celebration Including the performance of “Fascinating! Her Resilience” Friday, April 22, 8pm Crowell Concert Hall Free admission
Wesleyan University Orchestra and Wesleyan Ensemble Singers Concert Featuring the world premiere of “Dear Mother Earth: An Environmental Oratorio” Saturday, April 23, 7pm Crowell Concert Hall Free admission
Gina Ulysse, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Wesleyan University, and composer/turntablist Val-Inc invite you to attend the free Wesleyan Earth Day Celebration on Friday, April 22, 2011 at 8pm in Crowell Concert Hall:
Gina and Val will perform “Fascinating! Her Resilience” about the significance of the word “resilience” in relation to the different narratives about Haiti in the post-earthquake cultural environment.
The celebration will also feature students and faculty participating in the College of the Environment‘s inaugural think-tank on the topic “Vulnerability of Social, Economic and Natural Systems to Environmental Stress”. College of the Environment Director Barry Chernoff will introduce reports by Jeremy Isard (College of Social Studies), Dana Royer (Earth and Environmental Sciences), Phoebe Stonebraker (Biology) and Gary Yohe (Economics).
