Thread by @FinisDunaway

I'm teaching a new course this term on Film and Environmental History. This week we watched New Deal docs about the Dust Bowl and Mississippi River floods (The Plow and The River) and finished with the animated #GreenNewDeal film narrated by @AOC and posted on @theintercept

Students were fascinated by the ND docs and also enjoyed @mollycrabapple's illustrations and AOC's focus on climate and justice. We discussed science, storytelling, and ecol. crisis--then and now--and contrasted the racial politics of the ND with the GND's more inclusive vision.

The Intercept film (A Message from the Future) is here: theintercept.com/2019/04/17/gre…

Next week's class: Godzilla (!) and the history of radioactive fallout.

4. I was sidelined by illness last week, so we finally watched Godzilla today.

Silly monster movie? That's what many students thought when they walked into class this morning.

5. Then I told them about nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific and the effects of the Castle Bravo test on Indigenous peoples in the Marshall Islands--and on the crew of the Japanese tuna fishing boat The Lucky Dragon. This event (along with WW2) was the impetus for Godzilla.

6. We watched some of the US version of the film (1956)--which is shorn of almost any reference to nuclear testing--and then watched the original Japanese film, titled Gojira, from 1954. Sure, there is a human lumbering around in a heavy costume destroying miniature buildings.

7. But students appreciated how the original Japanese film--a fictional monster flick--was nevertheless able to offer powerful commentary on the testing program, the arms race, memories of WW2, and the threats radioactive fallout posed to ecology and human health.

8. Our readings included Susan Sontag's "The Imagination of Disaster." I asked them to consider whether her critique of sci-fi film--"The films reflect world-wide anxieties, and they serve to allay them. They inculcate a strange apathy concerning the processes of radiation, . . .

9. "contamination, and destruction which I for one find haunting and depressing."--applied in the case of Gojira.

Many students were struck by a warning uttered at the film's end: "If nuclear testing continues, then someday, somewhere in the world, another Godzilla may appear."

10. BTW, I have received a few requests for the syllabus--which I am certainly happy to share if you're interested--just DM or e-mail me. I'll also try to keep this thread going. In addition, I recommend this deconstructed syllabus by @greggmitman: muse.jhu.edu/article/569982.

@greggmitman 11. "Soylent Green is . . . "

I'll refrain from any plot spoilers here, but we watched Soylent Green (1973) today. I must confess that I've never been a huge fan, but it worked surprisingly well and resonated with students far more than I had expected.

12. We connected the film to the famous debate between Paul Ehrlich and Barry Commoner over the causes of the environmental crisis--in brief, population or capitalism?

(Students overwhelmingly sided with Commoner and his focus on power relations and the economic system.)

13. We talked about the aesthetics of sci-fi, apocalyptic env. visions, and whether the film fosters a sense of inevitability or provides some glimmerings of resistance.

Question: early on, the "greenhouse effect" is mentioned--had this ever been done before in a popular film?

14. Today we watched Gorillas in the Mist, the 1988 biopic about Dian Fossey.

15. The film opened up questions about the links between colonialism and wildlife conservation--I introduced them to Ramachandra Guha's argument about conservation as "an ecologically-updated version of the White Man's Burden."

16. We also talked about gender stereotypes and Hollywood storytelling, and about Fossey's efforts to break from the conventions of ethology. Marguerite Shaffer's article in American Quarterly on Fossey and Dennis Bingham's work on female biopics enriched our conversation.

17. Finally, I asked them to think about these issues in light of recent studies about biodiversity on Indigenous lands.

news.ubc.ca/2019/07/31/bio…

18. Today we watched Into the Wild, the 2007 film about the life and death of Christopher McCandless (based on the book by Jon Krakauer).

19. We talked about various views of McCandless--in the words of one author, he is often seen as either "Krakauer's visionary seeker [and] tragic hero" or "as many Alaskans see it, the unprepared fool . . . who misjudged the wilderness he'd wanted so desperately to commune with."

20. We also considered this story in relation to the wilderness ideal and discussed the argument made by @LisaBoreal and Jan Oakley that the film, along with Grizzly Man, reinforce "a neo-colonial mindset of the White settler eco-hero in a mythological place called 'wilderness'."

21. Into the Wild should provide a good contrast with some of our upcoming films, including next week's selection: Being Caribou.

22. Today we watched Being Caribou, the 2004 film about @LeanneEAllison and Karsten Heuer's journey--by foot and on skis--following the Porcupine caribou herd on its epic migration from the northern Yukon to the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and back.

23. As I hoped, the film provided a great contrast to last week's film (Into the Wild). Students were particularly interested in Allison and Heuer's willingness to let their movements be "dictated by caribou" and to enter into caribou time.
#envhist #envhum

24. On their journey, they brought with them a 15-inch figurine of President George W. Bush. The doll served as a constant reminder of political time—of the power of D.C. policymakers to determine whether the circle of life would continue.

25. We talked not only about the film itself, but also about its reception, circulation, and impact, how it played a crucial role in the grassroots effort to #ProtectTheArctic from oil drilling.

26. I also updated students on the current threat to the refuge (esp. after passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017) and the ongoing struggle, including the recent successes of the banking campaign and other efforts to #StopTheMoneyPipeline.

cbc.ca/news/canada/no…

27. Today we watched An Inconvenient Truth. I wondered what it would be like for them to see this now--14 years after its release.

One student said "the punches hit harder"--knowing how much time had passed and how little had been done to address the climate crisis.

28. We talked about the film's achievements and limits, including how it used science and emotion to represent climate change as a gradually-escalating crisis. Our readings included @JulieDoylej's @SciAsCulture essay about Greenpeace and the temporality of climate change images.

29. We talked about the film's credits--where, finally, actions and solutions are listed (change your lightbulb, buy a Prius!) and how these personal, consumerist responses relate to broader themes in modern environmentalism.

30. Finally, we looked at videos by @TarSandsAction regarding protests against the #KeystonePipeline and considered how groups like @350 envision collective solutions to the climate crisis. We read Robert Wilson's @EnvHistJournal essay about this video:

31. With the end of F2F teaching this term, students no longer get to hear my scintillating (?!) lectures on Mondays at 8:00 AM. Our last two weeks will conclude in a much-modified, scaled-down form. The take-home exam is OPTIONAL--so they will not have to complete everything...

32. on the syllabus. It's time to emphasize compassion over content.

Our selection this week is Anthropocene: The Human Epoch, a deeply-flawed (imho) film.

33. As I've mentioned before, see the blistering critique offered by @SaraBPritchard in @EnvHistJournal: " "Aesthetics are never neutral. Many of the filmmakers’ choices . . . reflect and reproduce problematic—even dangerous—ideas."

academic.oup.com/envhis/article…

34. Our readings include Heather Davis and @ZoeSTodd's "On the Importance of a Date; or, Decolonizing the Anthropocene." They connect the start of the Anthropocene--and current environmental crises--to the history of colonialism.
acme-journal.org/index.php/acme…

35. We also have an excerpt from T. J. Demos' Against the Anthropocene. He critiques the imagery and discourse often associated with the term, esp. the universalizing claim of what "we" humans--as a singular, monolithic entity--have done to the Earth.

Ex:
vimeo.com/39048998

36. It's our last week of the term, and our final film is Awake: A Dream from Standing Rock. Directed by @MyronDewey, @joshfoxfilm, and @JamesSpione, Awake documents the #NoDAPL struggle, showing how Water Protectors organized against the colonialist violence of the pipeline.

37. @nick_w_estes describes Awake as "more than a documentary; it is a jarring dream sequence, a cinematic poem of juxtaposed images and scenes of life and violence that defined the months-long Indigenous-led protest. . . ."

academic.oup.com/envhis/article…

38. Our readings include an excerpt from @nick_w_estes's powerful book Our History Is the Future, which connects the Standing Rock struggle to longer histories of capitalism, settler colonialism, and Indigenous resistance.

39. We also have @emilyroehl's perceptive review essay on Awake. She focuses on Part I (of the three-part film), emphasizing the imagery of water and violence as well as the narration of Floris White Bull.

ejumpcut.org/currentissue/R…

40. The film ends with the 2016 election and Trump's exec. order to expedite construction of the pipeline. But I also shared this news with students--a court decision calling for a full env. review.

The fight is not over; the #NoDAPL struggle continues.

theguardian.com/us-news/2020/m…