Hello Colleagues and Students,
Well, the year 2025 has begun, and with it, an array of expected and unexpected “projects.” As I take over the reins from Professors Linda Rugg and Gregory Levine who so expertly led EAHI, I am all the more privileged and reassured to be a part of this community.
Thanks to support from Center for Interdisciplinary Critical Inquiry Director, Debarati Sanyal, and the expert staff at CICI, we have begun a modest upgrade to the EAHI web presence on the CICI site. I would especially like to draw your attention to my Open Seminar meetings this spring, a chance to join selected Tuesdays when visiting faculty and curators will take us on a deeper drive into their ecological work. The first meeting is February 11 on "Ecological Science and Ecological Arts: Climate Journalism on Screen." Snacks and drinks provided: Sign up here.
As we seek to streamline communication amongst our growing constituency, please make a habit of consulting the site for events, courses, and opportunities, and sending us posting requests of your own. You can send all posting requests to info.eahi@berkeley.edu. And please tell other colleagues that they can sign up for EAHI news.
A few other notes on communication. While EAHI will focus on multidisciplinary ecological arts and humanities opportunities, on campus and off, many of you may want to join programming addressed to other audiences. As a reminder, you can sign up for Bruce Riordan’s Berkeley Climate Network newsletter for an expanded view of all campus events.
Meanwhile, as many of you know, there are two EAHI list servs. We would like to encourage the use of these list servs for last minute outreach, modest requests, or graduate working group scheduling, hoping that you’ll use EAHI/CICI news for sharing and storing publicly-engaged plans and information from here on out. General EAHI Listserv subscribers can be reached at eah@lists.berkeley.edu, while a more targeted list of graduate students can be reached at eah-grads@lists.berkeley.edu. For information about subscribing to these lists, please email us.
Finally, and most importantly, thank you for your commitment and vision as we evolve new ways to support each other this semester. I am thrilled to be part of the CICI orbit as well as to think about ecological work in relation to our recently-awarded grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation on the role of the arts in authoritarian times. I look forward to our work together and to plotting a robust series of future collaborations for Fall 2025 and beyond.
Gratefully yours,
Shannon Jackson
Director, Environmental Arts and Humanities Initiative
Cyrus and Michelle Hadidi Professor of the Arts & Humanities
Department Chair, History of Art