Events

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The Emerging Extractivist Frontiers of the Green Energy Transition in the Americas

Monday, April 17, 2023
2:00-4:00pm PST
Michelson Hall (MCB) 101
In-person event
RSVP here

This is the sixth event of the 2022-23 Mellon Sawyer Seminar Precarious Ecologies: Science and Social Justice in the Production of Environmental Knowledge.

This event is co-sponsored by the USC Center on Science, Technology, and Public Life and the USC Center for Latinx and Latin American Studies with support from the Mellon Foundation’s Sawyer Seminar Program.

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Past Events

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Precarious Ecologies: Environmental Crisis and the Role of the University

This event marks the launch of the 2022-23 Mellon Sawyer Seminar Precarious Ecologies: Science and Social Justice in the Production of Environmental Knowledge.

Please RSVP by Friday, September 9, 2022.

Schedule and Participants:
Welcome Remarks:
Amber Miller, Dean of USC Dornsife

Introduction:
Juan De Lara, Director of the Center for Latinx and Latin American Studies, Associate Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity, USC

Keynote Speaker:
Marta Segura, Director of Climate Emergency Mobilization Office for the City of Los Angeles

Discussant:
Manuel Pastor, Distinguished Professor, Sociology/American Studies & Ethnicity, Turpanjian Chair in Civil Society and Social Change, Director, USC Equity Research Institute

Research Forum:
Andrea Ballestero, Director of The Ethnography Studio, Associate Professor of Anthropology, USC
William Deverell, Director of the USC-Huntington Institute on California and the West, Professor of History, USC
Jill Johnston, Director of Community Engagement in the Division of Environmental Health, Associate Professor of Population and Public Health Science, Associate Professor of Population and Public Health Science, USC Keck
Joe Árvai, Director of the Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies, Dana and David Dornsife Chair and Professor of Psychology and Professor of Biological Sciences, USC
John Wilson, Director of the USC Spatial Sciences Institute, Professor of Spatial Sciences and Sociology, USC
Moderator: Andrew Lakoff, Director of the Center on Science, Technology, and Public Life, Professor of Sociology, USC

This event is co-sponsored by the USC Center on Science, Technology, and Public Life and the USC Center for Latinx and Latin American Studies with support from the Mellon Foundation’s Sawyer Seminar Program.

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Supply Chains, Sustainability, and Environmental Justice

This is the second event of the 2022-23 Mellon Sawyer Seminar Precarious Ecologies: Science and Social Justice in the Production of Environmental Knowledge.

Keynote:
Dr. Geraldine Knatz, Professor of the Practice of Policy and Engineering, USC Price School of Policy, Former Chief Executive Officer, Port of Los Angeles

Respondent:
Juan De Lara, Director of the Center for Latinx and Latin American Studies, Associate Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity, USC

Panel Discussion:
Catherine Gudis, Associate Professor of History, Teresa and Byron Pollitt Endowed Term Chair for Interdisciplinary Research and Learning in the Humanities & Social Sciences, UC Riverside
Anthony Victoria, Environmental journalist and Founder of The Frontline Observer
Spencer Potiker, Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Global and International Studies, UC Irvine 
Tamara Cedré, Artist and Filmaker, Artist-in-Residence, Pitzer College

This event is co-sponsored by the USC Center on Science, Technology, and Public Life and the USC Center for Latinx and Latin American Studies with support from the Mellon Foundation’s Sawyer Seminar Program.

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The Settler Sea: California’s Salton Sea and the Environmental Consequences of Colonialism

Traci Brynne Voyles, Professor and Chair, Women’s and Gender Studies, Oklahoma University

This talk presents a view of the Salton Sea and its surrounding Sonoran Desert ecosystem that destabilizes hegemonic, settler colonial perspectives on the sea and the desert, exploring the ways that different kinds of human communities have encountered and made meaning out of this complex place. Ultimately, this story of sea, desert, and people is not just a tale of environmental decline in the face of human power. It is a parable about competing knowledge systems – epistemologies and worldviews about the land, ourselves, and one another – and how these knowledge systems hold consequences for arid places and the people who love them.

This is the third event of the 2022-23 Mellon Sawyer Seminar Precarious Ecologies: Science and Social Justice in the Production of Environmental Knowledge.

This event is co-sponsored by the USC Center on Science, Technology, and Public Life and the USC Center for Latinx and Latin American Studies with support from the Mellon Foundation’s Sawyer Seminar Program.

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Food Justice and Ecological Precarity in Los Angeles

Hanna Garth, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Princeton University

This is the fourth event of the 2022-23 Mellon Sawyer Seminar Precarious Ecologies: Science and Social Justice in the Production of Environmental Knowledge.

This event is co-sponsored by the USC Center on Science, Technology, and Public Life and the USC Center for Latinx and Latin American Studies with support from the Mellon Foundation’s Sawyer Seminar Program.

Life After Concrete: Imagining the Future of the LA River

Monday, March 27, 2023
2:00-4:00pm PST
Doheny Memorial Library (DML) 240
In-person event
RSVP here

Panel:
Lauren Bon, Metabolic Studios
Jessica Henson, Olin Studio
mark! Lopez, East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice
Sayd Randle, Singapore Management University
Matthew Teutimez, Kizh Nation

Moderator: William Deverell, Professor of History, Spatial Sciences and Environmental Studies, USC