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EcoJ 2021-2022: A Year in Review

Nicholas E. Cicchinelli ,

In summer 2021, with generous funding from the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life, GAIA founded Ecologies of Justice (EcoJ), an interdisciplinary initiative focused on civic activism, environmental (in)justice, and intersectionality. Over the course of the 2021-2022 academic year, co-directors Prof. Kimberly Theidon and PhD candidate Dipali Anumol organized a speaker series featuring a variety of diverse topics such as fishing quotas, animal agriculture, health activism, structural racism, multispecies relations, and botanical colonialism. The hybrid events welcomed faculty from globally renowned university such as York University, University of Washington, University of Massachusetts Amherst, and the Pratt Institute, and garnered 250+ attendees across all events.

  Event Speaker
1 Science Diplomacy on the High Seas Jen Telesca, The Pratt Institute
2 A Pandemic Politics of Sight Timothy Pachirat, University of Massachusetts Amherst
3 Native American Health Activism in the Pandemic Past and Present Maria John, University of Massachusetts Boston  
4 Scotch Broom, Botanical Colonialism, and the Politics of Cohabitation Catriona Sandilands, York University
5 On More-Than-Human Fascism Radhika Govindrajan, University of Washington

Looking for reading recommendations this summer? Here’s a list of books mentioned at our EcoJ events this year:

  1. Legacies of War: Violence, Ecologies and Kin – Kimberly Theidon
  2. Every Twelve Seconds: Industrial Slaughter and the Politics of Sight – Timothy Pachirat
  3. Kin: Thinking with Deborah Bird Rose – Thom van Dooren and Matthew Chrulew (with an essay by Catriona Sandilands)
  4. Animal Intimacies: Interspecies Relatedness in India’s Central Himalayas – Radhika Govindrajan
  5. Indigenous Self-Determination in Australia: Histories and Historiography – Laura Rademaker and Tim Rowse (with an essay by Maria John)
  6. Red Gold: The Managed Extinction of the Giant Bluefin Tuna – Jennifer E. Telesca
  7. Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver – Mary Oliver
  8. How I Became a Tree – Sumana Roy
  9. The Overstory – Richard Powers
  10. Bestiary – K-Ming Chang
  11. The Disaster Tourist – Yun Ko-eun
  12. All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis – Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson