Please join me at my new site: http://christinefolch.com/
About Me
- Christine Folch
- I write about sustainability, environment, food, and culture.
Colorado & Brazil mine disasters kill two rivers in 2015.
.jpg#/media/File:Contaminated_Rio_Doce_Water_Flows_into_the_Atlantic_(23414457121).jpg)
NASA Earth Observatory image shows toxic mud reaching Atlantic Ocean.
Contaminated Rio Doce Water Flows into the Atlantic. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Commons.
The Basics to understand 2 of the worst environmental disasters from this
year. The short of it is that twin mining disasters have killed two rivers. The long-term punchline is this: figuring out how to respond to these disasters will shape the future because of how they affect trans-boundary water systems and the $$$ involved.
Animas River Before & After (Durango Herald)
- August 5, 2015: EPA employees & contractors, working on cleaning up an abandoned gold mine in Colorado, instead release toxic waste water from a breached dam. Contaminants from Gold King Mine flood Cement Creek and then the Animas River, turning the whole thing bright yellow.
- November 5, 2015: a dam holding back waste from an iron ore mine ruptures, sending toxic mud into the Doce River in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. More than a dozen people die immediately and the river is turned bright red, killing all forms of wildlife. Contaminants from the Brazilian-English/Australian Samarco Mineração mine travel down the Doce and reach the Atlantic Ocean on November 22, 2015. This means that the southern Atlantic Ocean will feel the detrimental impacts.
- ### years: the EPA is keeping quiet, but it's going to take years before the Animas River will be cleaned up. During that time, communities that live on the basin will face potentially lethal contaminants and the farming/ranching industries fed by the river are done.
- 100 years: Brazilian marine biologist Andres Ruchi told the BBC to expect that the southern Atlantic Ocean (!!!) and the Doce River would be compromised for at least 100 years.
- Navajo Nation rejected by FEMA: the EPA-caused spill has flowed into Navajo land, which means that ground water is contaminated and houses near the river are not suitable for human habitation. But FEMA has rejected tribal president Russell Begaye's request to help with clean-up.
- Doce River Species Extinct: "The biodiversity of the river is completely lost," said Rio-based researcher Aloysio Ferrão. "Several species, including endemic ones must be extinct."
- $### : the EPA isn't saying how much it's going to cost to clean up the Animas disaster.
- Brazilian gov't sues for $5.2billion: $260million pledged by Samarco Mining Co. is not enough, according to the Brazilian government, which has initiated a $5.2billion lawsuit against Samarco and its two parent companies: BHP Billiton and Vale.
"Flooding after Bento Rodrigues dam breach" by NASA - http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=86990. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons.
Posted in
Brazil,
mining disasters
1 Comment
Paris & Rest of World Get Much-Needed Good News: UN Climate Accord Passes
 | ||
| Watching French President Hollande Praise the "Ambitious" COP21 Agreement. Like many in France, we celebrated with Bordeaux and conversation late into the night. |
"The Paris Accord passes," said Laurent Fabius, triumphantly describing the successful outcome of COP21 Paris Climate Conference he oversaw as its president. As his green gavel struck the table, thousands of cheering delegates leapt to their feet.
195 countries and the EU approved the COP21 Climate Agreement on Saturday, December 12, 2015--a historic global accord to stop global warming and tackle climate change.
Though negotiations stretched 'til Saturday, at the end, no one seemed to mind much that an extra day had been added to the already-long COP. And the good news was much needed in Paris, nearly one month to the day of the horrific November terrorist attacks.
The UN Climate Agreement is just the beginning of an uphill battle--imperfect and requiring a lot of work from all countries in order to make a difference. Here are major points:
• 2050 deadline for halting the temperature rise. De facto, this is also the deadline for the transition to renewable energy sources.
• The principle of "differentiation" (common but differentiated responsibilities) which holds that, while climate change respects no national boundaries and must be tackled globally, not all countries equally contribute to global warming. And so, developed countries are encouraged to invest in "technology transfers" to developing countries to help offset the hurdles and costs of not using quick & cheap fossil fuels.
• Human rights, indigenous rights, and climate justice have been shunted to the Preamble, not the actionable part of the agreement... or entirely omitted from the text.
• The $100 billion funding mechanism is a start, but pledged dollars/euros/yen/etc. still have to come in by 2020, the formal start date of the Paris Accord.
 |
| The Green Zone |
Posted in
climate change,
COP21,
human rights,
Renewable Energy
Leave a comment
Big News: COP21 Climate Agreement Draft Unveiled Today; Approval Tomorrow?
 |
| Key text from the newly released COP21 Agreement Draft |
The COP21 Paris Climate Conference has unveiled the final draft of a global agreement to fight climate change by cutting back on greenhouse gas/carbon emissions. Bureaucrats and negotiators are expected to work deep into the night to hammer out the sections that are still up in the air. And we might even get a final decision by end-of-day Thursday.
One of the biggest advances made is in a seemingly small number: the difference between 1.5° and 2° Celsius. Climate scientists and advocates have successfully pushed for the inclusion of a 1.5° cap on global warming and not the previously planned 2° cap. Their suggestions have made it to the final draft of the "actionable" part of the agreement (i.e., the Articles).
Given how other crucial concerns like indigenous rights and human rights have been relegated to the Preamble, which is less actionable than the Articles, this is promising--though only very tentative--news.
 |
| Deforestation in Paraguay & Brazil contributes to global warming |
Posted in
climate change,
COP21
Leave a comment
Success! Got my Antarctica World Passport at COP21 Paris
 |
| And I just *happened* to have an extra passport sized photo |
The 1959 Antarctic Treaty, signed by more than 50 countries (including the U.S.), designates that continent for peace and scientific research--a borderless land outside the territorial ownership of any nation. But climate change and peak oil put this at risk--> as companies and governments eye the thawing landscape for extraction.
As a way to bring attention to these issues, artists Lucy and Jorge Orta have invited everyone to join their collaborative project: the Antarctica World Passport.
Solutions 21 at the Paris Climate Conference is actually *hosting* an AWP Office, where officers read you the obligations and register your info, and where you then "cross" the border to get the passport stamped.
There's also a public policy aspect to this. If 1million people sign on, AWP can initiate legislative proposal through the Europeans Citizens' Initiative.
Posted in
COP21
5 Comments
In Latin America, Nature has Rights. (Useful lessons from the margins.)
In the past few years, a political resurgence of Amerindian cosmologies and values regarding nature has spread throughout Latin America. Perhaps the most significant development in this was the recognition in the 2008 Ecuadorian Constitution of the inalienable rights of nature to “exist, persist, maintain and Regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions.” Bolivia has ratified a Law of Mother Earth in 2010 which rests on the principles of: “harmony,” “collective good,” “the guarantee of regeneration,” “respect and defense of the rights of Mother Earth,” “anti-commercialization,” and “cross-culturalism.”
Why is this interesting? Well. We need really creative thinking to get us out of the problems we've gotten ourselves into. And this way of seeing nature offers a lot of helpful insights. (The importance of creative thinking feels so obvious that it almost sounds like an after school TV special. Unfortunately, it often seems we haven't learned those lessons.)
I'm at COP21, the Paris Climate Conference, and I'll be attentive to how creative voices of the margins speak to larger issues of climate, nature, and environment.
Posted in
Bolivia,
climate change,
COP21,
Ecuador
Leave a comment
COP21 Paris: Why I'm going. What you should know.
You're going to Paris, why???
-- From 12/5-12/13, I'll be in Paris to participate in COP21.
Wait. What is COP21? Sounds like a Bruce Willis action movie.
-- The 2015 Paris Climate Conference (a.k.a. COP21) has been convened by the UN for world leaders, scientific experts, and ordinary people to discuss and finally achieve a "legally binding and universal agreement" on climate change.
Seems daunting. What's the goal?
-- Simply put: to stop global warming. The target number is 2°C--although human-caused climate change has already raised global temperatures, the aim of the COP21 agreement is to implement changes that'll keep global warming below 2°C (3.6°F for those of us who are metrically-challenged).
And it's in Paris? Aren't you worried?
-- Nope. Also, I consider it a privilege to visit France at such a crucial moment in its history.
Why are *you* going?
-- As part of my work on "creation care," I'll be with several evangelical organizations that are participating in ecumenical meetings to pray for, speak about, and urge climate change response.
Are you going to be writing about this?
-- Obviously.
Are you available for interviews?
-- Oui.
Parlez-vous français?
-- Para ser honesta, no tanto como quisiera. Estudié el aleman en el colegio y el castellano fue mi idioma materno. Whoops. I just did that thing where you switch to the next "not English" language. Mais, je veux practiquer alors que je marche dans la rues de La Ville Lumière.
Is there a well-designed, inspiring, yet brief video I could watch?
Posted in
climate change,
COP21,
creation care
Leave a comment
Grad School Tips: Writing Strategies a.k.a. Best Advice I Ever Received
Hands down, the very best advice I received in grad school was: Write every seminar paper as if you were going to
publish it and then do so.
Publishing
articles of original research while in grad school (in peer-reviewed academic
journals) not only helps you when you’re on the job market (you’ll notice that
other candidates who are getting hired, even for teaching-intensive positions
at community colleges, will have numerous publications), but it helps you with
your funding proposals because it shows that you’re already a productive
scholar and a sound investment for grant dollars.
The
way to do this is to actually talk to your professors in your seminars and say,
“I’d like some direction about where and how to publish the final paper from
this course.” Journals aren't interested in just literature reviews, so you'll need to gather your own data, which you'll turn into evidence, and then into argument. To reiterate: you'll need to do your own original research.
The general
stages of publishing seminar papers are this: do the research, write the paper,
get feedback from professor, incorporate the feedback, present it somewhere at a
conference, get feedback, incorporate the feedback, send it to a journal, wait
a while, get a rejection (or a revise & resubmit) with some feedback,
incorporate the feedback, re-submit to journal, get rejected & submit it elsewhere or get accepted with
some feedback, incorporate the feedback, re-submit, edit, and wait until
published. (Two years, if you’re lucky!)
For graduate students who are about to go on the job market or are already on it, my advice is to find some low-hanging fruit (i.e., a chapter from the dissertation, a seminar paper for which you did original research three years ago, etc) and work on polishing that and getting it submitted to a journal ASAP.
Many academics swear by Wendy Laura Belcher's Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks: A Guide to Academic Publishing Success. Though I haven't used it, I find the practical ways she breaks down the process very compelling. By demystifying the process, Belcher dispels some of the myths that lead to perfectionism. Perfectionism is your enemy.
Writing Inspiration Here: youshouldbewriting
Caveat: my advice comes from the social science/humanities disciplines I know best. It's important to figure out the conventions of your field on this. You do this by looking at the CVs of newly hired assistant professors in your department and at Liberal Arts Colleges throughout the U.S.
Posted in
Grad School FAQ,
PhD
6 Comments
Introducing: The Global Brazil Lab @Duke
This is a great time to be studying Brazil and Duke and the Franklin Humanities Institute are a great place to do it. The Global Brazil Lab rests on three tentpoles—culture, politics, and nature—because Brazil forces us to ask comparative questions, questions that cross borders of all kinds: historical, linguistic, oceanic. I've just joined the Lab as a co-director, along with historian John French and romance studies/visual art scholar Esther Gabara, where I'll be able to focus on bringing in the environmental humanities as we have wide-ranging conversations with students, community members, faculty, and guests from Brazil.
For more:
Posted in
Brazil,
Energy in Latin America
Leave a comment
Office Hours & Fall Course on Energy Futures/Environmental Justice
My office hours are now available for sign ups and if you're interested in taking the Environmental Humanities/Cultural Anthropology course I'm teaching this fall, there are a few spots left.
Honored to participate: my poem on Lament For The Dead
Every day this summer, a community of poets, artists, and ordinary folk have chosen to lament the death of anyone killed by police or a police officer killed in the line of duty with a poem. Brooklyn-based writer Carey Wallace is curating Lament for the Dead.
Today, I added my piece to it, grieving the death of Victo Larosa III, 23, in Jacksonville, FL who died for $60 of crack and innumerable lies about what matters in life. Poetry makes us vulnerable--and I'm no poet, so I feel a bit abashed--but the issues of violence in our country are more important and worth the risk. Here it is in full.
And the first three lines:
When did we decide sixty dollars of crack
was our thirty pieces of silver?
That we should take a life for so little.
More on Lament for the Dead's vision and purpose:
Lament for the Dead is an online community poetry project which will mark the death of every person killed by police this summer, and every police officer who loses life in the line of duty, with a poem.
The first lie that hate tells us is that any other person is not as human as we are.
This project resists that lie by recognizing each other’s humanity, even in the most difficult places.
Posted in
Art
Leave a comment
Strong Words at Wounded Knee: "F*ck historical trauma, we survived all and every act of genocide."
 |
| Looking south towards Wounded Knee, Pine Ridge really is beautiful. |
 |
| A litany: "Fuck historical trauma, we survived all and every act of genocide." |
Everytime I visit Wounded Knee, I struggle over how to tell the story, but I wish everyone would visit the small hill in the southern part of Pine Ridge. And I especially wish everyone who calls the U.S. home would take the pilgrimage through South Dakota’s breathtaking prairie to the site.
 |
| A carefully, and obviously, corrected sign. |
Although cameras capture the vistas of impossibly wide skies and gently rolling hills, they don’t do justice to the scent of sweet grass that perfumes the winds--the only sound except for the small chimes they awaken.
Wounded Knee is where Custer’s regiment, the 7th Cavalry, killed more than 200 Lakota children, women, and men a decade and a half after Custer fell to the Lakota at Little Big Horn. The 1876 engagement was a battle, the 1890 meeting was a massacre. In the dead of winter, their bodies lay in the snow while the wounded took shelter at a little church still decorated for the Christmas holidays. Medals of Honor were given to the soldiers who posed with their weapons and the poem:
"Famous Battery 'E' of the 1st Artillery.
These brave men and the Hotchkiss guns that Big Foot's Indians thought were toys,
Together with the fighting 7th what's left of Gen. Custer's boys,
Sent 200 Indians to that Heaven which the ghost dancer enjoys. This checked the Indian noise, and Gen. Miles with staff Returned to Illinois."
Immigration, Deportation, & the GOP: Implications of the Cuba-U.S. Thawing
 |
| Cuba |
In a seemingly sudden about-face, the White House announced what everyone thought must come eventually: U.S. relations with Cuba have been normalized, ending one of the last vestiges of the Cold War. The U.S. embargo against Cuba has been dismantled and the first phone call between the presidents of both countries since 1959 took place at noon on December 17, 2014. Pundits and politicians on both sides of the aisle responded on cue: Marco Rubio (R, the son of Cuban immigrants) criticized the move as "part of a long record of coddling dictators and tyrants that this administration has established"; John Kerry announced that the previous 6-decade policy had “remained virtually frozen, and done little to promote a prosperous, democratic and stable Cuba.”
As much of the focus is on how this will change the island, the decision has implications for the mainland, too:
1) “Wet Foot/Dry Foot” and Immigration:
Cubans have enjoyed a privileged status regarding immigration, compared to the rest of Latin America. The basics: if you’re Cuban and have one “dry” foot on U.S. land, you are automatically eligible for permanent residency.
Up to now, Cubans have never been “illegal aliens” because of the wet foot/dry foot policy. Those intercepted by the Coast Guard before touching land (two “wet” feet) are repatriated to a third country.
But with the normalization of U.S.-Cuba relations, the policy (which was a punitive response to the Cuban regime) is surely going to end. When will Cuban immigrants cease enjoying this privilege?
2) Stalwart GOP voters no more?
Since the 1960s, Cuban-Americans have been reliable Republican voters. They’ve wielded disproportionate influence, relative to their numbers, because they’re concentrate in one state (Florida)—a state whose electoral college votes tip the U.S. presidency. But Pew has noted that younger Cuban-Americans are less GOP-inclined than their parents.
For the sake of comparison, 60% of Latinos lean Democrat.
So, what happens when Cuban immigrants face the same anti-immigrant rhetoric and politics particularly favored in some parts of the right? Will more of them defect from the GOP?
Or will the Republican party realize that, in order to grow, it needs to soften on immigration more broadly and that there is terrain to be won in this area?
3) Deportation of Cuban criminals living in the U.S.:
As one Cuban-American law-enforcement expert (okay, my cousin) remarked, there are "hundreds, if not thousands of Cubans that have received orders of deportation for their criminal activities in the U.S. Many will have to be hunted down and repatriated."
This will involve an unprecedented "rush" of law enforcement cooperation between two countries where such ties have not existed. Who coordinates that? What are the terms of these agreements? Will this lead to an increased militarization of the Cuban police?
Posted in
Cuba,
Latino/as in the United States
Leave a comment
Wheaton Alumni Magazine: Sustainability: Lessons from Latin America
My latest in Wheaton's Alumni Magazine, the Faculty Voice column:
When I tell
people that I’m an anthropologist, an image of Indiana Jones, fedora-clad and
bullwhip in hand, is often the first picture that comes to mind. Though I’ve
never raided a lost ark or escaped a snake pit, I have seen the stunning Iguazú waterfalls depicted in the fourth
film of the series. And I’ve heard stories that rival Hollywood drama from
locals adept at debating energy politics.
As a cultural anthropologist, I research how
people live in the world today. The core lesson I’ve learned is the importance
of seeing through someone else’s eyes, not merely because we value diversity,
but because it’s there we find wisdom.
I study
renewable energy in Latin America, a topic I find more engrossing now than when
I began my research in 2007. Yet, had I not heeded the input of an ordinary
Paraguayan, I would have missed that path.
Confession: the
first time I visited Itaipú Dam (the Brazilian-Paraguayan hydroelectric plant
that I research), I was underwhelmed. Even though it’s the largest dam in the
entire world (capable of powering 33 percent of California’s annual energy
usage), Iguazú, the Argentine-Brazilian cataracts where water pounds rock so
powerfully that the mist rises like smoke, eclipsed my present view of Itaipú’s
concrete wall and placid reservoir.
Then, one
Paraguayan to my right murmured, “Paraguay used to have waterfalls like
Iguazú.” He took my look of surprise as an invitation to continue. “But they
were destroyed for that,” he added
with a meaningful nod at Itaipú Dam....
For the rest of the piece, see the interactive version of the Wheaton Alumni Magazine.
For the rest of the piece, see the interactive version of the Wheaton Alumni Magazine.
From 1492 to Wounded Knee: A journey of learning & bearing witness
 |
| Day 8: Lakota medicine wheel in Art Alley, Rapid City |
 |
| Day 4: "Off road" in Pine Ridge |
Along with a colleague and six undergraduates, I took a journey of listening and learning over the past two weeks in a Native American studies course hosted at the Wheaton Science Station in the Black Hills, SD. Rather than approaching this as a class with two professors and six students, we were eight learners.
 |
| Day 1: Learning to raise a teepee from OLC Lakota Culture scholar |
 |
| Day 1: The teepee |
In the midst of lamenting the horrors of Wounded Knee and White Clay--an 1890 vengeance massacre by the 7th Cavalry (Custer's former unit) and a pernicious Nebraska outpost whose sole purpose is to sell alcohol to Pine Ridge reservation, respectively--we also witnessed gleaming stories of hope.
 |
| Day 3: Bison herd in the Black Hills, back from 1900 worldwide population of 1,000 |
 |
| Day 6: The Tragedy of Wounded Knee |
 |
| Day 5: Rainbows _before_ the storm on Pine Ridge |
 |
| Day 10: Bear Butte vistas and prayer flags |
There were also moments of just pure delight: to wit, digging up timpsula (prairie turnips) and eating them raw right then and there.
 | |
| Day 4: Digging for timpsula (prarie turnip) |
 |
| Day 10: Summitting Bear Butte, a sacred place of reflection and beauty. |
 |
| Day 8: Visiting the ever-changing, fragile yet powerful Art Alley in Rapid City |
 |
| Day 10: Bear Butte |
 |
| Day 8: Art Alley |
 |
| Day 10: At Bear Butte, yes: all of the bison was used |
In Print: "Arab Eyes, Arab Voices" -- a review in Books & Culture
Three years after the Arab Spring gripped the Middle East and North Africa as well as social media world-wide, how do we begin to make sense of the complicated stories that are still unfolding?
"Arab Eyes, Arab Voices," a review of Shibley Telhami's The World Through Arab Eyes has just been published in the March-April issue of Books & Culture.
It gets worse: the situation of Haitians in the Dominican Republic
Tensions on the island of Hispaniola are on the rise and the situation of Haitian citizens (and their descendents) living in the Dominican Republic is becoming Kristallnacht-ish dire. In September this year, the highest court in the land decided to revoke the citizenship of Dominican-born descendents of Haitian migrants. Up until 2010, the DR practiced jus soli--what the United States currently practices--granting citizenship to anyone born in national territory. What this means is that some 200,000 Dominican citizens have had their status revoked.
On this past Tuesday, in front of a crowd with cellphone cameras raised, a Haitian man was alleged lynched in broad daylight (supposedly for attempted robbery). The image made CNN news (warning: graphic). The recent unsolved murder of an elderly Dominican couple who lived near the Haiti-DR border was fuel to the fire and 200 Haitians were sent back "home" over the weekend, fearing mob violence.
Haitians are scapegoated in the Dominican Republic, accused of witchcraft (read:moral turpitude) and bringing crime, reminiscent of how some in the United States characterize Latinos including Dominicans.
AAA Presentation: All That Is Water: Engineering Energy Sovereignties and Electricity Nationalities
I'm delighted to be part of this excellent panel at the AAA conference this Wednesday in Chicago: Technopolitical Futures: Transformations in State and Expertise (12-4pm)
I'm giving my paper, All That Is Water: Engineering Energy Sovereignties and Electricity Nationalities, at 2:15 on Wednesday November 20 (room TBA).
My abstract: The engineers responsible for Itaipú Binational Dam were tasked with more than just churning water into electricity or spinning nature into national development. They had to find a way to give electricity, generated by the same water of the same river at the same dam, two discrete national identities as a way to defend the sovereignty of the dam's owners, Brazil and Paraguay. Designed as a juridically distinct space of exception, Itaipú has become a “state within a state,” simultaneously subordinate and exterior to the Brazilian and Paraguayan states, rescaling sovereignties and territorialities to both the regional and the subatomic. As the state rematerializes in energy policies and practices, technicians have been transformed into technocrats such that, in Itaipú, engineering is not merely a scientific endeavor but a kind of politics as a vocation. This paper explores how electrical engineers superintend political processes and, through material and symbolic entailments, bestow nationality upon the nigh immaterial—electricity—to construct energy sovereignties and a territoriality that emanates from the circulation of charge. This invisible circulation animates conceptualizations of property and value which form the basis of a wider ethic of renewable energy newly emergent in South America. Through an ethnography of the discursive and physical interventions initiated by engineers in the world's largest dam, I show how “nature” and “nation” are altered by hydroelectric statecraft, the political economic and symbolic structures that emanate from the harnessing of hydroelectric energy and gesture towards a non-fossil-fuel future where contentions over transborder water resources abound.
I'm giving my paper, All That Is Water: Engineering Energy Sovereignties and Electricity Nationalities, at 2:15 on Wednesday November 20 (room TBA).
My abstract: The engineers responsible for Itaipú Binational Dam were tasked with more than just churning water into electricity or spinning nature into national development. They had to find a way to give electricity, generated by the same water of the same river at the same dam, two discrete national identities as a way to defend the sovereignty of the dam's owners, Brazil and Paraguay. Designed as a juridically distinct space of exception, Itaipú has become a “state within a state,” simultaneously subordinate and exterior to the Brazilian and Paraguayan states, rescaling sovereignties and territorialities to both the regional and the subatomic. As the state rematerializes in energy policies and practices, technicians have been transformed into technocrats such that, in Itaipú, engineering is not merely a scientific endeavor but a kind of politics as a vocation. This paper explores how electrical engineers superintend political processes and, through material and symbolic entailments, bestow nationality upon the nigh immaterial—electricity—to construct energy sovereignties and a territoriality that emanates from the circulation of charge. This invisible circulation animates conceptualizations of property and value which form the basis of a wider ethic of renewable energy newly emergent in South America. Through an ethnography of the discursive and physical interventions initiated by engineers in the world's largest dam, I show how “nature” and “nation” are altered by hydroelectric statecraft, the political economic and symbolic structures that emanate from the harnessing of hydroelectric energy and gesture towards a non-fossil-fuel future where contentions over transborder water resources abound.
Committed to Art: Homenaje a Bolivia (Honoring Bolivia) at the Museo Nacional de Arte in La Paz
 |
| Detail from the last painting of the Virgin and the Trinity. |
The Museo Nacional de Arte in La Paz is a stunning collection of visual art from the past five centuries. Bolivia's vast mineral wealth in colonial and early republic days is attested to in the religious and secular patronage of Renaissance, Baroque, and Impressionist (!) Bolivian art that is housed in a villa at the center of the city.
Posted in
Art,
Bolivia
Leave a comment
In The Atlantic: "Why the West Loves Sci-Fi and Fantasy"
My piece which explores why the United States is so fond of Science Fiction and Fantasy stories has just been published in The Atlantic. This comes out of a) my own deep love of both those genres and b) many invigorating conversations with my students.
Tolkien + Star Wars + Weber = my favorite things to talk about!
