By Roan Hollander
Colton Klein, History of Art PhD and Environmental Humanities Graduate Coordinator, delivering welcome remarks.
This past Thursday, Yale Environmental Humanities hosted its Fall Symposium for graduate students to share their research. Together, they painted a picture of the diversity of the environmental humanities field. Presentations covered the rights of nature, the history of the black locust tree, and performance art from Guatemalan artist Regina Jose Galindo, among others, in both conference-length and lightning talk formats.
Raffaele Sindoni, Yale School of the Environment PhD, “The Ruse and Reach of (Nature’s) Rights”
The symposium began with Raffaele Sindoni, who presented a compelling picture of the complexity inherent within the “Rights of Nature” movement. He explained that the “Rights of Nature” movement is highly influenced by the ontologies and legal, political, and cosmological terrains in which it is being implemented. Sindoni’s research asks the questions: What forms of knowledge does a river with rights disrupt? Whose claims about humans and nature does it unsettle? What forms of property, personhood, and power might it dismantle?
Mitchell Herrmann, History of Art PhD, “Precious Okoyomon: Towards a Naturgeschichte”
Mitchell Herrmann presented his research about the Nigerian-American artist and poet Precious Okoyomon’s inclusion of kudzu in installations. Okoyomon’s art explores the entangled histories of enslavement on sugar plantations and kudzu, which was brought to plantations to repair degraded soil. Herman argued that the histories, memories, and stories of migration of enslaved peoples forced to labor on sugar plantations are inseparable from the movement of kudzu.
Sofía Fernández González, Spanish and Portuguese, PhD, “CAPITALISM IN THREE ACTS: Regina José Galindo’s Performance Practice”
Sofía Fernández González considered Guatemalan performance artist Regina José Galindo’s works representing colonial extractivism, situating three pieces as part of a three-act series on capitalism. González analyzed how Galindo shows Guatemala’s natural resources being removed and transported overseas, ultimately to be discarded without benefits to Guatemalans.
Sam Blair, Yale School of the Environment, MESc, “Cultural Contingency and Arboreal Identity: The Puzzling Case of the Black Locust (Robinia pseudoacacia)”
Sam Blair kicked off the two lighting talks of the symposium with a presentation on the uncertainties surrounding the history and range of the black locust tree in the US. He explained that, while it is simultaneously a native plant to many regions, it is invasive in others, but no one truly understands its original range. The black locust tends to appear where it is ‘unwanted,’ in desolate rural areas and abandoned farms, but it was once considered desirable for the strength of its wood.
Julia Soule, Yale School of the Environment, MEM, and Yale Divinity School, MA, “Soteri-y’all-ogy: American Salvation in Recreational Lands”
Julia Soule concluded the presentations with a discussion of the relationship between nature and salvation within transcendentalist writings. Soule’s research explores the use of Christian language to describe and design human relationships with nature in recreational lands in Arkansas and the broader United States.
Thank you to all the symposium presenters and to everyone who attended the event!
