“We Built This City: The Contradictory Implications of DIY Public Space Activism”

Donovan Finn

Sustainability Studies Program

 DIY urbanism is an umbrella term to describe citizens reshaping public spaces without official sanction. Informal settlements, alternative street signs and unauthorized art installations challenge the relationship between citizen and the state. Finn will discuss how these interventions complicate notions of social equity, public participation and democratic decision-making.

 Donovan Finn is an Assistant Professor in Sustainability Studies, SoMAS. His research, including a current project funded by the National Science Foundation, examines how citizen activism informs local policy creation for sustainability, resilience and disaster recovery. He holds a PhD in Regional Planning from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

David Taylor

Sustainability Studies Program

While Teatro Tuyo's play GRIS borrows from traditional forms of Cuban children's theater – clowns, mime, and physical humor – to engage the audience in a story about environmental awareness, the performance is clearly for ​​adults as well. Taylor will discuss how GRIS serves as artistic engagement across multiple ages and audiences.

 David Taylor is an Assistant Professor in the Sustainability Studies Program, SoMAS, at Stony Brook University. He is the author and editor of six books. Over the last four years, Taylor has traveled to Cuba multiple times to work with Artes Escenicas Cubanas (Cuba's performing arts organization) to document forms of environmental engagement through the arts.

“Climate and Societal Change Transforming Traditional Pastoralism in the Andes”

Karina Yager

Sustainability Studies Program

 Traditional Andean pastoralism began several thousand years ago and peaked in the 15^th century during the Inca Empire. Today, few indigenous communities practice traditional pastoralism, but many face rapid societal change coupled with climate change. Yager discusses current challenges and future trajectories of Andean pastoralism given unprecedented, rapid socio-ecological perturbations.

 Karina Yager is Assistant Professor in Sustainability Studies, SOMAS. Her interdisciplinary research examines the impacts of climate change on mountain ecosystems and society. Her current NASA research is focused on deciphering climate and societal drivers of land-cover land-use change in the Andes. Yager has a PhD in Anthropology from Yale University.

Faculty Lunchtime Talks

Humanities faculty from the College of Arts and Sciences talk about their current work

Wednesday, Sept 28, 2016

1-2:30pm, 1008 Humanities

"Translation of the Arab Spring: Fiction and Nonfiction."

Rita Nezami

Program in Writing and Rhetoric

 In his novella By Fire, Moroccan writer Tahar Ben Jelloun tells the story of the young Tunisian, Mohamed Bouazizi, whose self-immolation is said to have triggered the Arab Spring. Ben Jelloun attempts to understand what pushed the young man to this. Nezami will talk about why she decided to translate this and other works on the Arab Spring, the translation process, and how her critical introduction to the book will provide readers with strategies on how to approach these texts.  

Rita Nezami teaches in the Writing & Rhetoric Program at Stony Brook University where she focuses on global issues, global literature, visual rhetoric, and the personal essay. Nezami earned her PhD in postcolonial Francophone literature and its translation. She has published translations from French of several works by Tahar Ben Jelloun.