BG Ideas: Recent Episodes
Bowling Green State University
BG Ideas, from the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society at Bowling Green State University, brings innovative, interdisciplinary research to the public.
In this episode, Dr. Timothy Messer-Kruse, Professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies at BGSU, and a Spring 2024 Faculty Fellow with ICS, discusses his latest research on the history of civics education in the United States. He argues that the goal behind civics is to teach certain behaviors (i.e. how to be a good citizen) instead of teaching knowledge and facts. Listen to him as he delves into the history of the very idea that we need to teach people how to be (good) citizens, its ties to racist prejudices against different populations and their ideas of citizenship, and the emergence of a "civics industrial complex."
In this episode, Dr. Sidra Lawrence, Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology and Director of the Afro-Caribbean Ensemble at BGSU, together with several members of BGSU's Afro-Caribbean Ensemble, share their experiences playing African and African diasporic music for an American audience. Both Sidra and the ensemble underline the complexity and sophistication of African and African diasporic music, arguing that it deserves as much study and attention as Western art music. The clips from their recordings included in this episode demonstrate the bandwidth of African music. As Sidra, Clayton and Téo eloquently argue, rethinking the African and Afro Diasporic music repertoire allows us to see its key contributions to US American and world culture, not as folklore, influence or inspiration, but as one of its main driving forces. Not surprisingly, the students who are part of the ensemble share how playing this repertoire has challenged them to improvise and explore and has furthered their training as musicians.
In this episode, Carlos Andrés Gómez, award winning Colombian American poet and author of Man Up: Reimagining Modern Manhood (Penguin Random House), is joined by Amanda Anastasia Paniagua, PhD student and Assistant Director for Belonging and Engagement at the Office of Multicultural Affairs at BGSU, to talk about poetry, performance and education. They invite us to think about both poetry and research as catalysts to imagine and forge a more inclusive and equitable world and, in this sense, as political tools. Their conversation delves into how, for Carlos, poetry has been a practice towards peeling off colonial and patriarchal impositions to the identity he was expected to embody as a Latino man. Similarly, her research in higher education allows Amanda to question the status quo in terms of roles and positions that are considered suitable for Latinx peoples in the United States.
Journalist Putsata Reang discuss her award-winning book "Ma and Me: A Memoir," about growing up as a Cambodian American refugee and gay woman. She is joined by Dr. Sue Ellen McComas, associate professor of Speech Communication at BGSU Firelands and recipient of the 2019 Women of Distinction award at BGSU. Together, they talk about exploring your identity, finding your voice as an adult, and supporting others' journeys to belong.
Putsata visits BGSU Firelands on Wednesday, April 3, 2024. For more information, see: https://events.bgsu.edu/event/putsata
Dr. Chris Witulski, Associate Teaching Professor of Ethnomusicology and a Fall 2021 ICS Faculty Fellow, returns to the podcast to share selections of Arab American and Middle Eastern music. He is joined by student members of the BGSU's Middle Eastern Music Ensemble.
Elyse Adrian, a BGSU Honors student majoring in Political Science, discusses winning a prestigious Obama-Chesky Voyager Scholarship for their work on climate action, and offers suggestions for how people can take action on their own.
Dr. Jacob Clemons, Senior Director for the C. Marvin Center for Student Leadership and Civic Engagement at BGSU, and Dr. Lisa Dubose, the Director of Employee Relations and Professional Development, discuss what leadership means today and how students, faculty, and staff can become more effective leaders in all areas of their lives.
Ryan RedCorn, filmmaker, photographer, WGA Screenwriter, and graphic designer, is joined by BGSU professor of Theatre and Film Dr. Cynthia Baron to talk about his journey into comedy, film, and television, including his work on the acclaimed TV series Reservation Dogs.
Dr. Justin Rex, a Fall 2023 ICS Faculty Fellow, associate professor in the department of Political Science, and a research fellow at the Center for Regional Development discusses his research on "Community Health Workers, Stress Reduction, and Racial Equity in Infant Vitality." He is joined by is joined by Dr. Nicole Fifer, the director of Center for Regional Development at BGSU, as they discuss their partnership with local health providers to improve maternal and child health in Ohio. Full transcript found below:
Season 9 Episode 3 The Importance of Community Support for Pregnancy and Infancy.pdf
Dr. Sandra Faulkner, a Fall 2023 ICS Faculty Fellow and professor of Media and Communication at BGSU, discusses her research project, "Poetic Portraits of Older Women in the Great Black Swamp," and the complexities of interpersonal relationships at every age.
Curtis Chin, acclaimed documentary filmmaker, discusses his new memoir, "Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant," about growing up gay in Detroit's Chinatown. Dr. Rebecca Kinney discusses her work Rust Belt Chinatowns and growing up in Detroit.
Dr. Susan Finn, an Academy of Distinguished Alumni inductee and author of Nutrition Authority: Perspectives on Opportunity, and Judy Budi, President/CEO at Graceworks Lutheran Services and BGSU Board of Trustees member, talk about why dietetics is important, why it is always changing, and how equity matters in nutrition.
Dr. Elizabeth Brownlow, a graduate of the American Culture Studies PhD program, and a Leading Edge Fellow with the American Council of Learned Societies, talks about how her time at BGSU and her training in humanities research methods prepared her for community engaged work for participatory democracy.
Jason Kucsma, executive director of the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library, talks about the pivotal role public libraries play around the country and how they create healthier, happier communities.
Kevin Noble Maillard, an author, law professor, and New York Times columnist, talks with children's book illustrator Juana Martinez-Neal and Maria Simon, the head children's librarian at Wood County District Public Library, about Maillard and Martizenz-Neal's new book: Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story. They discuss how Native American history and culture can be explored through something as universal as food, and how children's books serve as teaching tools for all.
Michèle Stephenson, documentary filmmaker and keynote speaker for the 2023 Latino/a/x Issues Conference at BGSU, discusses her recent film Stateless/Apátrida and the Afro-Latinx experience in the Americas, in conversation with BGSU graduate student Rene Ayala.
Dr. Angie Ahlgren, professor of Theater History and Performance Studies at BGSU, discusses her research into the emotional labor of stage managers in contemporary theater. Ahlgren was a 2023 ICS faculty fellow.
Ryan Ebright, an associate professor in BGSU'S College of Musical Arts and author of the forthcoming book, "Making American Opera after Einstein," discusses how Philip Glass's innovative "Einstein on the Beach" led to the flourishing of contemporary American opera and musical theatre.
Dr. Sheri Wells-Jensen, BGSU professor of linguistics and the 2023 Baruch S. Blumberg NASA / Library of Congress Chair in Astrobiology, Exploration, and Scientific Innovation, explains how the future of science and space exploration means including those with disabilities in crucial roles.
Listeners can learn more about Astro Access by visiting their website at astroaccess.org to keep up with ICS happenings. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram at icsbgsu, and on our Facebook and YouTube pages. We are also now on LinkedIn. Big Ideas is available wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Please subscribe and rate us on your preferred platform. For more information, you can visit bgsu.edu/bgideas.
Sound engineering for this episode was provided by Caitlyn Herman, Brenden Accettura, and Marco Mendoza. Research for this episode was done by Carrie Hanlon and Joe El
Dr. Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Professor Emerita
of English and bioethics at Emory University and senior advisor at the Hastings Center, talks about rethinking visibility, identity, and access for those with disabilities, and the implications for everyone.
Listeners can keep up with ICS happenings by following us on Twitter and Instagram at icsbgsu, and on our Facebook page. You can listen to big ideas wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Please subscribe and rate us on your preferred platform. For more information or to suggest an episode topic, visit us at bgsu.edu/bgideas.
BGSU writing professors Dr. Neil Baird and Dr. Kitty Burroughs talk about how Chat GPT and other AI tools are changing how people write. They also offer practical tips for ways it can be used ethically to enhance the writing process.
Listeners can keep up with ICS by following us on Twitter and Instagram at icsbgsu and on our Facebook page. You can listen to Big Ideas wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Please do subscribe and rate us on your preferred platform. For more information or to propose a guest for a future episode, visit us at bgsu.edu/bgideas.
Sound engineering for this episode was provided by Kaitlyn Herman, Marco Mendoza, and Brenden Accettura. Research for this episode was by Joe Elia.
Marissa Bramble is a fifth-year senior majoring in Psychology and Social Work and Dr. Meagan Docherty is a BGSU assistant professor in the Department of Psychology. The two share the results of their research into the polyvictimization of juveniles and its association with delinquent behavior.
Our sound engineers for this episode were DeAnna MacKeigan and Marco Mendoza. Research was provided by Sophia Michalski, with editing by Joe Elia.
Listeners can keep up with ICS happenings by following us on Twitter and Instagram at ICS BGSU, and on our Facebook page. You can listen to BG Ideas wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Please subscribe and rate us on your preferred platform.
Jasmine Wilson is a BGSU senior majoring in Communication Sciences and Disorders and minoring in Psychology; Dr. Jason Whitfield is a BGSU assistant professor of communication sciences and disorders. The two discuss the results of their research into the perceptions of African American English, which was funded by the Center for Undergraduate Research and Scholarship.
Our sound engineers for this episode were DeAnna MacKeigan and Marco Mendoza. Research was provided by Sophia Michalski, with editing by Joe Elia.
Listeners can keep up with ICS happenings by following us on Twitter and Instagram at ICS BGSU, and on our Facebook page. You can listen to Big Ideas wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Please subscribe and rate us on your preferred platform.
Dr. Nathan Hensley, associate professor of sustainability education at BGSU, and Dr. Margaret Weinberger, a lecturer in BGSU’s sociology department, discuss their recent team-taught course “Reimagining Sustainability” which used storytelling and sociology to create new approaches to environmental sustainability.
Our sound engineers for this episode were DeAnna MacKeigan and Marco Mendoza. Research was provided by Sophia Michalski, with editing by Joe Elia.
Listeners can keep up with ICS happenings by following us on Twitter and Instagram at ICS BGSU, and on our Facebook page. You can listen to BG Ideas wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Please subscribe and rate us on your preferred platform.
Dr. Kristi Foell, associate professor of German at BGSU, and Dr. Neal Jesse, professor of political science at BGSU, discuss how their team-taught course on Contemporary Migration in Europe and the United States brought together politics and cinema.
Our sound engineers for this episode were Damon Dotson and Jacqueline Schwartz, with audio editing by Deanna MacKeigan and Marco Mendoza. Research was provided by Sophia Michalski, with editing by Joe Elia. Our musical intro was composed by Chris Cavera.
Listeners can keep up with ICS happenings by following us on Twitter and Instagram at ICS BGSU, and on our Facebook page. You can listen to BG Ideas wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Please subscribe and rate us on your preferred platform.
Our sound engineers. For this episode were Randy Kyle and Damon Dotson and Marco Mendoza. With audio editing by DeAnna MacKeigan and Marco Mendoza. Research was provided by Sophia Michalski, with editing by Joe Elia.
Mary Kathryn Nagle, a lawyer, playwright, and citizen of the Cherokee Nation, and Dr. Heidi Nees Carver, an assistant professor of theater at BGSU, talk about bringing the stories of indigenous people out of shadows through theater.
Our sound engineers for this episode were Damon Dotson and Jacqueline Schwartz, with audio editing by Deanna McKeigan and Marco Mendoza. Research was provided by Sophia Michalski, with editing by Joe Elia. Our musical intro was composed by Chris Cavera.
Listeners can keep up with ICS happenings by following us on Twitter and Instagram at ICS BGSU, and on our Facebook page. You can listen to BG Ideas wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Please subscribe and rate us on your preferred platform.
Indigenous Hip Hop Artist and music producer Frank Waln and BGSU professor and ethnomusicologist Katherine Meizel discuss the role music plays in resistance and advocacy in Native communities, mixing traditional indigenous sounds with modern music, music collaboration, and their own individuals works.
Listeners can keep up with ICS is happenings by following us on Twitter and Instagram @icsbgsu, and on our Facebook page, you can listen to Big Ideas wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Please help us by subscribing and rating us on your preferred platform. For more information or to suggest an episode, visit www.bgsu/bgideas. Sounding engineering for This episode was provided by Marco Mendoza, with audio editing by DeAnna MacKeigan and Marco Mendoza. Research assistance and writing were provided by Ellie Dapkus, with editing by Joe Elia.
To access a transcript of this podcast click here
Description:
Indigenous artist Sadie Redwing and BGSU professor Andrea Cardinale discuss graphic art as activism and advocacy and as a form of community engagement. The two delve into tribal visual design sovereignty, visual languages in underserved and marginalized communities, and the effects social media and technology are having on the images that shape and define us.
Listeners can keep up with ICS happenings by following us on our Twitter and Instagram at ICS BGSU, or on our Facebook page. You can listen to Big Ideas wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Please help us out by subscribing and rating us on your preferred platform. To suggest a topic for a future episode, you can visit us at bgsu.edu/bgideas. Our sound engineers for this episode were Ryan Turner and Marco Mendoza, with audio editing by DeAnna MacKeigan and Marco Mendoza. Research was provided by Sophia Michalski, with editing by Joe Elia.
Click here to access a transcript for this podcast
Season 7 Episode 4
Guest: John Dowd
Title:
The ethical impacts of artificial intelligence on society
Description:
ICS Faculty Fellow John Dowd takes a deep dive into Artificial Intelligence (AI), explains some key terms and concepts, and then discusses the ethical implications of the technology. He highlights findings from his data and discusses his collaboration with BG high school students during his fellowship.
Listeners can keep up with ICS happenings by following us on Twitter and Instagram @icsbgsu and on our Facebook page. You can listen to BG Ideas wherever you find your favorite podcast. Please subscribe and rate us on your preferred platform. For more information, visit bgsu.edu/bgideas.
This episode was sound edited by DeAnna MacKeigan and Marco Mendoza. Research assistance was provided by Bryan Bové.
Click here to access the transcript for this episode.
Episode 3
Guest: Michaela Walsh
Title:
COVID’s impact on Indigenous Communities in Mexico
Description:
ICS Faculty Fellow Michaela Walsh discusses the COVID pandemic's effects on indigenous Hñähñu’s communities in Mexico and the US. The pandemic was a perfect storm, in which the lack of reliable info in indigenous languages, the rise in conspiracy theories, distrust of the Mexican government, and Pentecostal Christian faith resulting in high rates of infection. Yet the Hñähñu’s also demonstrated creativity and resilience. Walsh also discusses her work with Bowling Green high school students as part of this project.
Listeners can keep up with ICS happenings by following us on Twitter and Instagram @icsbgsu and on our Facebook page. You can listen to BG Ideas wherever you find your favorite podcast. Please subscribe and rate us on your preferred platform. For more information, visit bgsu.edu/bgideas.
This episode was sound edited by DeAnna MacKeigan and Marco Mendoza. Research assistance was provided by Bryan Bové.
Click here to access the transcript for this episode.
A successful CEO, a war crimes criminal prosecutor, and a business psychologist discuss how they applied their BGSU education to forge unexpected career paths and give back to their communities.
Listeners can keep up with ICS happenings by following us on Twitter and Instagram @icsbgsu and on our Facebook page. You can listen to BG Ideas wherever you find your favorite podcast. Please subscribe and rate us on your preferred platform. For more information, visit bgsu.edu/bgideas.
This episode was sound edited by DeAnna MacKeigan and Marco Mendoza. Research assistance was provided by Bryan Bové.
Click here to access the transcript for this episode.
Journalist Beth Macy is the author of Dopesick, the bestselling book (and TV miniseries) delving into the rise of the opioid crisis. Macy was inducted into BGSU’s Academy of Distinguished Alumni, and she joined us to talk about her work, the state of journalism today, and how BGSU contributed to her success.
Listeners can keep up with ICS happenings by following us on Twitter and Instagram @icsbgsu and on our Facebook page. You can listen to BG Ideas wherever you find your favorite podcast. Please subscribe and rate us on your preferred platform. For more information, visit bgsu.edu/bgideas. You can also find the Center for Women and Gender Equity on Twitter and Instagram @cwge_bgsu and on their Facebook page.
This episode was sound edited by DeAnna MacKeigan and Marco Mendoza. Research assistance was provided by Bryan Bové.
Click here to access the transcript for this episode.
The finale episode of season 6 is guest hosted by Bryan Bové, a PhD Candidate in BGSU’s American Culture Studies program and a graduate assistant in the Center for Women and Gender Equity. Bové talks with technology leader Lacey Tezino, the founder of the app Passport Journeys, which provides workshops, events, and teletherapy sessions with licensed clinicians. Tezino discusses the inspiration for her app, as well as how race and gender shaped her journey as an entrepreneur.
Listeners can keep up with ICS happenings by following us on Twitter and Instagram @icsbgsu and on our Facebook page. You can listen to BG Ideas wherever you find your favorite podcast. Please subscribe and rate us on your preferred platform. For more information, visit bgsu.edu/bgideas. You can also find the Center for Women and Gender Equity on Twitter and Instagram @cwge_bgsu and on their Facebook page.
This episode was sound edited by DeAnna MacKeigan and Marco Mendoza. Research assistance was provided by Bryan Bové. To access the transcript for this episode, use the following link: https://bit.ly/3ppuWvS
Dr. Niki Kalaf-Hughes, an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at BGSU and Spring 2022 ICS Faculty Fellow, discusses effective communication between the public and elected officials, and how more equitable representation would affect our current political systems.
Listeners can keep up with ICS happenings by following us on Twitter and Instagram @icsbgsu and on our Facebook page. You can listen to BG Ideas wherever you find your favorite podcast. Please subscribe and rate us on your preferred platform. For more information, visit bgsu.edu/bgideas.
This episode was sound edited by DeAnna MacKeigan and Marco Mendoza. Research assistance was provided by Branson Young, with editing by Kari Hanlin. To access the transcript for this episode, use the following link: https://bit.ly/3SN7iGW
Dr. Niki Kalaf-Hughes, an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at BGSU and Spring 2022 ICS Faculty Fellow, discusses effective communication between the public and elected officials, and how more equitable representation would affect our current political systems.
Listeners can keep up with ICS happenings by following us on Twitter and Instagram @icsbgsu and on our Facebook page. You can listen to BG Ideas wherever you find your favorite podcast. Please subscribe and rate us on your preferred platform. For more information, visit bgsu.edu/bgideas.
This episode was sound edited by DeAnna MacKeigan and Marco Mendoza. Research assistance was provided by Branson Young, with editing by Kari Hanlin. To access the transcript for this episode, use the following link: https://bit.ly/3SN7iGW
Dr. Sylvie Vitaglione talks about her research, “From Fonda to Fitbits: A History of Dance and Fitness Media,” which considers the relationship between technology, fitness, and performance. Vitaglione discusses the role technology plays in mediating the body, and the influence of our environment in personal fitness. Vitaglione is an adjunct professor in the Departments of Theatre and Film and World Languages and Cultures here at BGSU and an ICS Research Associate.
Listeners can keep up with ICS happenings by following us on Twitter and Instagram @icsbgsu and on our Facebook page. You can listen to BG Ideas wherever you find your favorite podcast. Please subscribe and rate us on your preferred platform. For more information, visit bgsu.edu/bgideas.
This episode was edited by DeAnna MacKeigan and Marco Mendoza. Research assistance was provided by Branson Young, with editing by Kari Hanlin. To access the transcript for this episode, use the following link: https://bit.ly/3dzEMZt
Dance scholars Dr. Jade Power-Sotomayor and Dr. Amy-Rose Forbes-Erickson discuss how Caribbean performance and dance fosters community, expresses cultural resistance, and communicates resilience. Power-Sotomayor is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of California, San Diego, and Forbes-Erickson is an Assistant Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies in the Department of Theatre and Film at BGSU.
Listeners can keep up with ICS happenings by following us on Twitter and Instagram @icsbgsu and on our Facebook page. You can listen to BG Ideas wherever you find your favorite podcast. Please subscribe and rate us on your preferred platform. For more information, visit bgsu.edu/bgideas.
Sound engineering was provided by Indigo Palte, with sound editing by DeAnna MacKeigan and Marco Mendoza. Research assistance was provided by Johanna Simpson. To access the transcript for this episode, use the following link: https://bit.ly/3K0iNqD
Dance scholars Dr. Jade Power-Sotomayor and Dr. Amy-Rose Forbes-Erickson discuss how Caribbean performance and dance fosters community, expresses cultural resistance, and communicates resilience. Power-Sotomayor is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of California, San Diego, and Forbes-Erickson is an Assistant Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies in the Department of Theatre and Film at BGSU.
Listeners can keep up with ICS happenings by following us on Twitter and Instagram @icsbgsu and on our Facebook page. You can listen to BG Ideas wherever you find your favorite podcast. Please subscribe and rate us on your preferred platform. For more information, visit bgsu.edu/bgideas.
Sound engineering was provided by Indigo Palte, with sound editing by DeAnna MacKeigan and Marco Mendoza. Research assistance was provided by Johanna Simpson. To access the transcript for this episode, use the following link: https://bit.ly/3K0iNqD
Alli Hoag, a Spring 2022 ICS Faculty Fellow and full-time instructor of glasswork and Glass Area Head at BGSU, discusses her research on creating sustainable structures with innovative glass blocks. Hoag discusses new ways to utilize glass as an architectural material in alignment with the natural world and human biorhythms. Hoag describes her custom design for an octahedron glass block as well as her sustainable methods of glass production.
Listeners can keep up with ICS happenings by following us on Twitter and Instagram @icsbgsu and on our Facebook page. You can listen to BG Ideas wherever you find your favorite podcast. Please subscribe and rate us on your preferred platform. For more information, visit bgsu.edu/bgideas.
This episode was sound edited by DeAnna MacKeigan and Marco Mendoza. Research assistance was provided by Branson Young, with editing by Kari Hanlin. To access the transcript for this episode, use the following link: https://bit.ly/3w8HNX7
Alli Hoag, a Spring 2022 ICS Faculty Fellow and full-time instructor of glasswork and Glass Area Head at BGSU, discusses her research on creating sustainable structures with innovative glass blocks. Hoag discusses new ways to utilize glass as an architectural material in alignment with the natural world and human biorhythms. Hoag describes her custom design for an octahedron glass block as well as her sustainable methods of glass production.
Listeners can keep up with ICS happenings by following us on Twitter and Instagram @icsbgsu and on our Facebook page. You can listen to BG Ideas wherever you find your favorite podcast. Please subscribe and rate us on your preferred platform. For more information, visit bgsu.edu/bgideas.
This episode was sound edited by DeAnna MacKeigan and Marco Mendoza. Research assistance was provided by Branson Young, with editing by Kari Hanlin. To access the transcript for this episode, use the following link: https://bit.ly/3w8HNX7
BGSU student Sam Farabaugh and faculty mentor Dr. Karen Sirum discuss Sam's creative research project to develop an illustrated children's book, which was supported by the Center for Undergraduate Student Research (CURS). Sam’s children’s book educated students about coral reefs in an effort to foster a sense of environmental appreciation and responsibility in young readers.
Listeners can keep up with ICS happenings by following us on Twitter and Instagram @icsbgsu and on our Facebook page. You can listen to BG Ideas wherever you find your favorite podcast. Please subscribe and rate us on your preferred platform. For more information, visit bgsu.edu/bgideas.
This episode was sound edited by DeAnna MacKeigan and Marco Mendoza. Research assistance was provided by Lauren Degener and Branson Young, with editing by Kari Hanlin. To access the transcript for this episode, use the following link: https://bit.ly/3QMPOIV
This episode features Michaela Goade, illustrator of children’s book We Are Water Protectors, and Amanda Rzicznek, BGSU teaching professor of courses in University Writing, graphic narratives, and literature for children and young adults at BGSU. Our guests discuss the importance and purpose of illustration in children’s literature, and how artistic choices shape readers' experiences.
Listeners can keep up with ICS happenings by following us on Twitter and Instagram @icsbgsu and on our Facebook page. You can listen to BG Ideas wherever you find your favorite podcast. Please subscribe and rate us on your preferred platform. For more information, visit bgsu.edu/bgideas.
This episode was sound edited by DeAnna MacKeigan and Marco Mendoza. Research assistance was provided by Branson Young, with editing by Kari Hanlin. To access the transcript for this episode, use the following link: https://bit.ly/3CagqPX
This episode features guests Carole Lindstrom, author of children’s books Gift of the Great Buffalo and We Are Water Protectors, and Joe Prince, a curriculum and outreach educator for the BGSU Library's Curriculum Resource Center. Lindstrom and Prince discuss how children’s literature develops a child’s sense of social and environmental responsibility and address diversity in children’s literature and publishing.
Listeners can keep up with ICS happenings by following us on Twitter and Instagram @icsbgsu and on our Facebook page. You can listen to BG Ideas wherever you find your favorite podcast. Please subscribe and rate us on your preferred platform. For more information, visit bgsu.edu/bgideas.
This episode was sound edited by DeAnna MacKeigan and Marco Mendoza. Research assistance was provided by Branson Young, with editing by Kari Hanlin. To access the transcript for this episode, use the following link: https://bit.ly/3SN5Ap0
As both creators and educators, Seth Thomas Sutton and Lucas Ostrowski discuss the use of film as a tool for creative expression and activism. Sutton is a Métis artist, scholar, author, and activist, and is a professor and chair of the Arts and Humanities Department of Montcalm Community College. Ostrowski is an associate professor for the Department of Theatre and Film at BGSU and an independent filmmaker.
Listeners can keep up with ICS happenings by following us on Twitter and Instagram @icsbgsu and on our Facebook page. You can listen to BG Ideas wherever you find your favorite podcast. Please subscribe and rate us on your preferred platform. For more information, visit bgsu.edu/bgideas.
This episode was produced by Chris Cavera and Marco Mendoza, with sound engineering by Marcus Long, DeAnna MacKeigan and Marco Mendoza. Research assistance was provided by Branson Young, with editing by Kari Hanlin. To access the transcript for this episode, use the following link: https://bit.ly/3PrtS55
Academy Award winning screenwriter, director and producer, Dustin Lance Black, alongside Dr. Lesa Lockford, chair of the Department of Theatre and Film at BGSU, discuss authenticity in performance and storytelling. Our guests touch on the relationship between storytelling and creating meaningful dialogue about social issues.
Listeners can keep up with ICS happenings by following us on Twitter and Instagram @icsbgsu and on our Facebook page. You can listen to BG Ideas wherever you find your favorite podcast. Please subscribe and rate us on your preferred platform. For more information, visit bgsu.edu/bgideas.
This episode was sound engineered by Marcus Long, with sound editing by DeAnna MacKeigan and Marco Mendoza. Research assistance was provided by Branson Young, with editing by Kari Hanlin. To access the transcript for this episode, use the following link: https://bit.ly/3bZEfPW
BGSU student Courtney Foerg and her faculty mentor Dr. Jordan Wilfong bring awareness to the issue of period poverty and inadequate access to menstruation products. Foerg’s research project, Period Poverty in the United States: Achieving Menstrual Equity in Bowling Green, Ohio, was funded by the Center for Undergraduate Research and Scholarship (CURS).
Listeners can keep up with ICS happenings by following us on Twitter and Instagram @icsbgsu and on our Facebook page. You can listen to BG Ideas wherever you find your favorite podcast. Please subscribe and rate us on your preferred platform. For more information, visit bgsu.edu/bgideas.
This episode was sound engineered by Marcus Long, with sound editing by DeAnna MacKeigan and Marco Mendoza. Research assistance was provided by Lauren Degener, with editing by Johanna Simpson and Kari Hanlin. To access the transcript for this episode, use the following link: https://bit.ly/3STOJkv
In the season 6 premiere of BG Ideas, Dr. Amy Acton and Jim Watkins walk listeners through what it was like as public health officials at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Acton served as director of the Ohio Department of Health from 2019 to 2020, leading the state’s initial response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Watkins is the health commissioner at the Williams County Health Department, as well as an adjunct professor of Allied and Public Health at BGSU.
Listeners can keep up with ICS happenings by following us on Twitter and Instagram @icsbgsu and on our Facebook page. You can listen to BG Ideas wherever you find your favorite podcast. Please subscribe and rate us on your preferred platform. For more information, visit bgsu.edu/bgideas.
This episode was researched and written by Kari Hanlin, with sound editing by DeAnna MacKeigan and Marco Mendoza. To access the transcript for this episode, use the following link: https://bit.ly/3K5OI95
This special bonus episode is the first episode of Archival Encounters, an occasional series from the Center for Archival Collections (CAC) at Bowling Green State University. This episode features an oral history interview recorded in the 1980s with Toledo pharmacist and civil rights activist Ella P. Stewart. CAC archivist Nick Pavlik also speaks with Dr. Shirley Green, BGSU alum and adjunct instructor in the Department of History, about Stewart's life and legacy.
We encourage you to follow both Archival Encounters and the BG Ideas podcast on your favorite podcasting platform.
You can access the transcript of this episode via the Archival Encounters homepage.
Jolie speaks with art curator Dr. Michael Harris and exhibit advisor Dr. Rebecca Skinner Green about representations of Black subjects in visual art in relation to “Visible Man: Art and Black Male Subjectivity”, which was exhibited on BGSU’s campus in Fall 2021. Dr. Harris is a BGSU alum and Associate Professor Emeritus of Art History and African American Studies at Emory University, and Dr. Skinner Green is Associate Professor of Art History at BGSU.
Listeners can keep up with ICS happenings by following us on Twitter and Instagram @icsbgsu and on our Facebook page. You can listen to BG Ideas wherever you find your favorite podcast. Please subscribe and rate us on your preferred platform. For more information, visit bgsu.edu/bgideas.
This episode was produced by Chris Cavera and Marco Mendoza, with sound engineering by Alexander Schweitzer and Marco Mendoza. Research assistance was provided by Lauren Degener, with editing by Johanna Simpson and Kari Hanlin.
Want to access the transcript for this episode? Use the following link: https://bit.ly/3Gas37U
In this week's episode, Jolie speaks with Emily Schmitz and Jordon Egbert, undergraduate students in BGSU’s dietetics program, about their work to bridge the food insecurity gap in Luckey, Ohio. They discuss the role of the Luckey Community Garden and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on food insecurity. Their project was supported by the Center for Undergraduate Research and Scholarship at BGSU.
The Center for Undergraduate Research and Scholarship provides funding for undergraduate students to pursue research, scholarly, or creative projects with a faculty mentor in their chosen discipline. Students can either work individually or in small groups. For more information about CURS, please visit bgsu.edu/curs.
Listeners can keep up with ICS happenings by following us on Twitter and Instagram @icsbgsu and on our Facebook page. You can listen to BG Ideas wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Please subscribe and rate us on your preferred platform. For more information, visit bgsu.edu/bgideas.
Our producers are Chris Cavera and Marco Mendoza with sound engineering by Alexander Schweitzer and Marco Mendoza. Research assistance was provided by Joanna Simpson with editing by Kari Hanlin.
Want to access a full transcript of this episode? Use the following link: https://bit.ly/3IHsI2n
In this week's episode, Jolie speaks with Dr. Michaela Walsh, Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies at BGSU, and Beatriz Maya, director of La Conexion, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the rights of the growing Latino/a/x population in Northwest Ohio. They discuss campus-community partnerships to support the Latino/a/x community.
You can keep up with ICS happenings by following us on Twitter and Instagram @ICSBGSU and on our Facebook page. You can listen to BG Ideas wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Please subscribe and rate us on your preferred platform. For more information, visit bgsu.edu/bg ideas.
This episode was produced by Chris Cavera and Marco Mendoza with sound engineering by Alexander Schweitzer and Marco Mendoza. Research assistance and writing was provided by Johanna Simpson, with editing by Kari Hanlin.
Want to access a full transcript of this episode? Use the following link: https://bit.ly/34fgaAd
In this week's episode, Jolie speaks with Dr. Bruce Collet and Dr. Luis Fernando Macías about how sanctuary churches and school districts use sanctuary policies to resist anti-immigrant laws and rhetoric. Dr. Collet is a BGSU professor in the School of Educational Foundations, Leadership, and Policy and a Fall 2021 ICS Faculty Fellow; Dr. Macías is an assistant professor in the Chicano and Latin American Studies Department at California State University, Fresno, and an alum of BGSU’s MA in Cross Cultural and International Education program.
You can keep up with ICS happenings by following us on Twitter and Instagram @icsbgsu and on our Facebook page. You can listen to BG Ideas wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Please subscribe and rate us on your preferred platform. For more information, visit bgsu.edu/bgideas.
Our producers are Chris Cavera and Marco Mendoza with sound engineering by Alexander Schweitzer and Marco Mendoza. Research assistance for this episode was provided by Lauren Degener with editing by Kari Hanlin.
Want to access a full transcript of this episode? Use the following link: https://bit.ly/3r4PHyo
In this week's episode, Jolie speaks with Dr. Christopher Witulski about the role of music within Arab American communities as a tool of tradition and change. Dr. Witulski is an assistant teaching professor of Ethnomusicology at BGSU and a Fall 2021 ICS Faculty Fellow.
You can keep up with other ICS happenings by following us on Twitter and Instagram @icsbgsu and on our Facebook page. You can listen to Big Ideas wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Please subscribe and rate us on your preferred platform. For more information, visit bgsu.edu/bgideas.
This episode was produced by Chris Cavera and Marco Mendoza, with sound editing by Alexander Schweitzer and Marco Mendoza. Research assistance was provided by Abi Walters, with editing by Joanna Simpson and Kari Hanlin. This conversation was recorded in the Stanton Audio Recording Studio in the Michael and Sara Kuhlin Center at Bowling Green State University
Want to access the full transcript of this episode? Use the following link: https://bit.ly/3IYYTe3
In this week's episode, Jolie speaks with BGSU Political Science Professor Dr. Melissa K. Miller and undergraduate student Lydia Applin about their research project and documentary film on early female politicians in Ohio. The project was supported by a grant from the Center for Undergraduate Research and Scholarship at BGSU.
You can keep up with ICS happenings by following us on Twitter and Instagram at ICS BGSU and on our Facebook page. You can listen to BG Ideas wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Please subscribe and rate us on your preferred platform. For more information, visit bgsu.edu/bgideas.
This episode was produced by Chris Cavera and Marco Mendoza, with sound engineering by Alexander Schweitzer and Marco Mendoza. Research assistance was provided by Lauren Degener, with editing by Johanna Simpson.
Want to access a full transcript of this episode? Use the following link: https://bit.ly/3H2RlGm.
Jolie speaks with Dr. William Easterly about reimagining global aid and humanitarian efforts. Dr. Easterly is a former World Bank economist, a professor of economics at NYU, and author of The White Man’s Burden, The Elusive Quest for Growth, and The Tyranny of Experts.
You can keep up with ICS happenings by following us on Twitter and Instagram @icsbgsu, and on our Facebook page. You can listen to Big Ideas wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Please subscribe and rate us on your preferred platform. For more information, you can visit bgsu.edu/bgideas.
The producers for this episode were Chris Cavera and Marco Mendoza, with sound engineering by Alexander Schweitzer and Marco Mendoza. This episode was researched and written by Kari Hanlin.
Want to access a full transcript of this episode? Use the following link: https://bit.ly/3rtlrMI
This bonus episode features the conversation held by Jolie and Dr. Timothy Messer-Kruse, Dr. Nicole Jackson and Gloria Wu at ICS's "Politics of Teaching History" roundtable discussion. Jolie and guests discuss the debate generated by both the 1619 Project and the 1776 Commission and explore the difficulty and necessity of teaching U.S. history honestly, sensitively, and culturally responsively.
Announcer: From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, this is BG Ideas.Musical Intro:I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment.Jolie: Welcome to a special bonus episode of the Big Ideas podcast brought to you by the Institute for the Study of Culture and society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Jolie Sheffer, professor of English and American Culture Studies and the director of ICS.Jolie :What follows is a round table discussion on the politics of teaching U.S history, which was hosted by ICS in April 2021 in a virtual format. This conversation has been adapted for the Big Ideas podcast feed. As always the opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of BGSU or its employees.Jolie: Bowling Green State University is situated in the Great Black Swamp and the lower Great Lakes region. This land is the Homeland of the Wyandotte, Kickapoo, Miami, Pottawatomie, Ottawa, and multiple other Indigenous tribal nations, present and past, who were forcibly removed to and from the area.Jolie :We recognize these historical and contemporary ties and our efforts towards de-colonizing history, and we honor the Indigenous individuals and communities who have been living and working on this land. Stevie Scheurich, a PhD candidate in American Culture Studies and a research assistant with ICS, organized the event. They will introduce our esteemed panelists for this important timely conversation. Enjoy.Stevie: Thank you, Jolie. And thank you so much to everyone who's here. I'm so glad everyone's joining us for this conversation. And I'll just jump right into the intersections of our wonderful guests. Really honored to be introducing Dr. Nicole Jackson, Dr. Timothy Messer-Kruse, and Gloria Wu tonight.Stevie :Dr. Nicole Jackson is an associate professor of history here at BGSU and a former ICS faculty fellow. Her work explores the complexity and multiplicity of Black experiences in different historical and contemporary contexts. She is interested in the everyday experiences of Black people and their work to expand the boundaries of social and political citizenship, as well as the intersection between historical reality and popular culture representations of history. She's a regular contributor to Black Perspectives, the blog of the African-American Intellectual History Society.Stevie :We're also joined by Dr. Timothy Messer-Kruse, professor of Ethnic Studies here at BGSU, and his research explores racial power dynamics at key moments in U.S labor history. He has published books on the Haymarket Affair, thinking history, and race relations in the United States. He has also published numerous articles analyzing the debates sparked by the 1619 project and the 1776 commission.Stevie :And we are also joined by Gloria Wu, who teaches social studies at Bowsher High School and Toledo Public Schools. She's taught for 20 years, primarily AP American Government. She earned her bachelor's degree in education from Bowling Green State University, so we have a Falcon joining us, and her master's from the University of Toledo. Her involvement in social studies, advocacy, and curriculum development includes serving as a representative of the C3 Framework Teacher Collaborative Council, on the Ohio Council for the Social Studies and for the Ohio Department Regional Network.Stevie :And with that, I'll turn the floor over to Jolie. Thank you.Jolie :Everyone. I've got a question that I'll start wit
In this episode, Jolie speaks with David Bixler, a composer, musician, and Director of Jazz Studies, about demystifying the process of music creation, composing through the pandemic, and the many hats he wears in the jazz scene.
Announcer:From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society. This is BG ideas.Musical Intro:I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment. Jolie:Hello and welcome back to the BiG Ideas podcast brought to you by the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Dr. Jolie Sheffer, Associate Professor of English and American Culture Studies and Director of ICS. Due to the ongoing pandemic, we are not recording in the studio but from home via phone and computer. As always, the opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of BGSU or its employees. Bowling Green State University, and its campuses are situated in the Great Black Swamp in the Lower Great Lakes Region. This land is the Homeland of the Wyandotte, Kickapoo, Miami, Pottawatomie, Ottawa, and multiple other Indigenous Tribal Nations, present and past, who were forcibly removed to and from the area. We recognize these historical and contemporary ties in our efforts towards de-colonizing history and we honor the indigenous individuals and communities who've been living and working on this land from time immemorial. Jolie:Today, I'm talking to composer, alto saxophonist and Director of Jazz Studies at BGSU David Bixler. In 2020, he released the album Blended Lineage with the David Bixler Bixtet and Inside The Grief with the David Bixler Trio Incognito. He is also the host of the podcast Liner Notes with David Bixler. In addition, David is a former ICS Faculty Fellow. David, thank you for joining us today to talk about making art during the pandemic. David, would you begin by talking a bit about your many different roles within the world of jazz? You're a performer, composer, educator and now a podcaster as well. How do you think about the relationship between these different positions?David:They definitely inform each other. And I think more and more, this is just kind of where we are right now, and everyone is doing it. And I think in the arts, being an educator, I believe, is part of it. There's always kind of a mentorship or giving back. And I think sometimes what that looks like is different. Going back to the history of jazz, it wasn't in an institutional setting. The way that the jazz scene has changed, academia for better or for worse has been a place where the community gathers, where some of this information is passed on. Because I think at one point like, "Why is jazz in the institution?" I think because as music becomes less popular in society, being able to gather at BGSU in the Northwest Ohio, we have a community there, we bring in people. And in this way is still incubated and passed on.David:With the podcast, this actually came about maybe five, no six, maybe seven years ago. I have a high school friend whose cousin used to work for PRI. They were looking for content. And so I met with him. And this is never anything I ever thought about. And I thought, "Well, I'll check it out." I have a friend, a former neighbor, that was a producer at 60 Minutes in 2020. So I reached out to her and asked her if she could help out, she's retired now. And she said, oh, she'd love to. And so I showed up at the place where we were going to interview the first person and she had hired a film crew and I walked in there and I said, "Man, there's no way I can do this." I just froze. I didn't know what to do. But anyhow, she put it together and made me look halfway articulate.David:It was cool. And then, since she had come from television, she was looking for a lot of money to try to get this going. We didn't get it. And then four years ago, I just tho
In this episode, guest host Kari Hanlin talks with Professor Abigail Cloud, editor of the Mid-American Review, and literary and visual artist Paula J. Lambert. They discuss creative processes in the pandemic, writing as an interdisciplinary practice, and the need for greater diversity in publishing practices.
Announcer: From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture & Society, this is BG Ideas.Musical Intro:I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment.Kari :You're listening to Big Ideas podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture & Society and The School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University.Kari: I am Kari Hanlin, a PhD student in BGSU's rhetoric and writing program, and a graduate assistant for ICS.Kari :Due to the ongoing pandemic, we are not recording in the studio, but remotely via phone and computer. Our sound quality may differ as a result.Kari: As always, the opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of BGSU or its employees. Bowling Green State University campuses are situated in the Great Black Swamp and the lower Great Lakes region. This land is the homeland of the Wyandotte, Kickapoo, Miami, Pottawatomie, Odawa, and multiple other Indigenous tribal nations, present and past, who were forcibly removed to and from the area. We recognize these historical and contemporary ties in our efforts toward de-colonizing history. And we honor the Indigenous individuals and communities who have been living and working on this land from time immemorial.Kari :Today, we are joined by two guests, Professor Abigail Cloud and Paula J. Lambert.Kari :Abby is the editor in chief of the international literary magazine, Mid-American Review, and a teaching professor in the department of English at BGSU. Her poetry has appeared in the Gettysburg Review, the Cincinnati Review, and other literary journals.Kari :Paula J. Lambert is a literary and visual artist who earned her MFA from BGSU. She has authored two full length poetry collections, several chapbooks, and is a recipient of two Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence awards. Paula is also a multidisciplinary artist whose work includes collage, assembly, book arts, and more.Kari :So what I'll ask you to do is introduce yourself and any of the key themes of your work to our listeners. And I'll ask Abby to kick us off.Abby:Absolutely.Abby:So I tend to write quite a bit about signs. I'm into this thing right now where I'm investigating our relationship to signs and how we interpret the world around us. So I'm always really interested in the natural world, interested in the woman body and woman's spirit, and also in the body generally in space and how it relates to space time in its own environment.Kari :And then Paula, how would you describe your work?Paula :I think I focus a lot on the juxtaposition of opposites, I guess, looking for the epiphanic moment, trying to understand how things fit together. A lot of my visual artwork is mixed media and collage. So collage is always bringing disparate images together into this new whole. It's something that presents something brand new. And I think I do that a lot in the poetry too. I'm very much interested in bringing poetry and science together. There are so many paired opposites everywhere. The world is full of joy and terror, and there's a constant work, all through my life certainly, all through our lives. That's where my focus is, I guess.Paula :I don't think I summarized as succinctly as Abbey did, but there you go.Kari: I think you both did great. That idea of the juxtaposition between joy and terror, I think is such a fitting way of interacting in the world right now.Kari :And it actually kind of brings me to my next question for you, Paula, because in September of 2020, you published, How to See the World, which is a poetry collection that considers the loneliness of
In this episode, Jolie speaks with Academy Award-nominated Guatemalan filmmaker Jayro Bustamante and associate professor of contemporary Latin American and Caribbean Literature, Film, and Trans-Atlantic studies Dr. Pedro Porbén. They discuss the role that films have historically played in political and social revolutions and explore the cultural significance and societal symbolism of legends and fictitious monsters in literature and film.
Announcer: From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, this is BG Ideas.Musical Intro :I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment.Jolie:Welcome back to the Big Ideas podcast. A collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Jolie Sheffer, associate professor of English and American culture studies and the director of ICS. Due to the ongoing pandemic, we are not recording in the studio, but remotely via phone and computer. As always, the opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of BGSU or its employees. The region in which Bowling Green State University and its campuses are situated, inhabit the Great Black Swamp and the lower Great Lakes region. This land is the homeland of the Wyandotte, Kickapoo, Miami, Potawatomi, Ottawa, and multiple other Indigenous tribal nations, present and past, who were forcibly removed to and from the area. We recognize these historical and contemporary ties in our efforts towards de-colonizing history. And we honor the Indigenous individuals and communities who have been living and working on this land from time immemorial.Jolie:Today, we're joined by Jayro Bustamante and Dr. Pedro Porben. Jayro Bustamante is a Guatemalan born director who has recently released his third film La Llorona. He has received the Venice Days, Best Director award at the Venice International Film Festival. And he's been listed as one of the most promising filmmakers of 2020, in Sight & Sound magazine. And he's made it to the short list for the academy awards. Dr. Pedro Porben is an associate professor here at BGSU teaching contemporary Latin American and Caribbean literature, film, and cultural and critical theory as well as transatlantic studies. Thank you both for joining me today. Very glad to have you here.Jayro:Thank you so much.Pedro:Thank you for having us.Jayro:Happy to be here too.Jolie:My first question is for you Jayro. You recently released your third film to great acclaim. Without giving away any spoilers, can you give us a brief summary of the plot of La Llorona?Jayro: La Llorona is a film talking about a motherland who is [inaudible 00:02:14] their disappeared children. And in a way, separates traits of Guatemala. Jolie:How did you make your way into filmmaking? Your work is deeply engaged with social issues. And how did you find your way to filmmaking as the right way for you to make a statement around the social issues that matter to you?Jayro:Oh, it's very complicated because I think it's a whole thing. It's a whole life. And then I grew up in a community in the central Highlands of Guatemala. And my grandma was a woman, Mayan descendant. And I discovered when I was eight, that she was making a lot of effort to hide her origins. And after that I discovered that my family was making efforts to hide her origins. And the village was making effort to hide the origins of every Indigenous people. And at that moment, I had conscious that in Guatemala being an Indigenous people was the cause of shame. And in a way I decide to dedicate my career, to fight against discrimination and to quote Rigoberta Menchú, I can say that at that moment, my conscious was born.Jolie:And for you, how did you decide filmmaking would be the best way or the right way for the kind of social action once your consciousness was raised?Jayro:Oh for me, I consid
In this episode, guest host Stevie Scheurich speaks with Dr. Angela Ahlgren, professor of theatre and film at BGSU, and Dr. Kareem Khubchandani, professor of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Tufts University, about how their lives as performers and professors inform each other. Angela and Kareem discuss their research as both performers and performance studies scholars exploring how political, economic, and transnational power structures shape individual and communal performances of racial, gendered, and sexual identities.
Announcer: From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture & Society this is BG Ideas.Musical Intro:I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment.Stevie:Welcome back to the BiG Ideas Podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture & Society and the school of media and communication at Bowling Green State University. I am Stevie Scheurichm, A PhD student in BGSU's American Culture Studies program and a graduate assistant at the Institute for the Study of Culture & Society. Due to the ongoing pandemic we are not recording in the studio, ultimately by phone and computer. As always the opinions expressed on this podcast are those are the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of BGSU or its employees. Bowling Green State University, and its campuses are situated in the Great Black Swamp and the Lower Great Lakes region.Stevie:This land is a home land of the Wyandot, Kickapoo, Miami Potawatomi, Odawa and multiple other Indigenous tribal nations, present and past, who were forcibly removed to and from the area. We recognize these historical and contemporary ties in our efforts toward decolonizing history and we honor the indigenous individuals and communities who have been living and working on this land from time in memorial. Today we are joined by Dr. Kareem Khubchandani and Dr. Angela Ahlgren. Kareem is a Mellon Bridge Assistant Professor in theater, dance and performance studies and women's gender and sexuality studies at Tufts University. He is the author of Ishtyle, Accenting Gay Indian Nightlife, co-editor of Queer Nightlife and creator of criticalauntystudies.com. Kareem is currently working on two new book projects, Decolonize Drag and Ontologies, Queer Aesthetics and South Asian Aunties.Stevie:Kareem has just finished a digital residency at BGSU, including a critical drag workshop and a lecture entitled Divas, Drag Queens, Aunties and other academic personas. Angela is an assistant professor and graduate coordinator in the department of theater and film at Bowling Green State University. She is the author of Drumming Asian America, Taiko, Performance and Cultural Politics, which focuses on the racial, gender, and cultural politics woven into the practice and performance of taiko, Japanese ensemble drumming in the US and Canada. Her research interests include Asian American theater and performance, critical dance studies, queer and feminist theater and performance, and the politics of mourning. Thank you both so much for joining today.Angela:Thank you. Kareem:Thank you. Stevie: So we'll just start by doing some introductions. Kareem, you're a scholar of performance studies and a performer yourself. Can you give us a little background about what it is that you study, who you study, how you study and how do you see your identities as an academic and a performer sort of entwined?Kareem:So my recent book is a study of nightlife in LGBT communities, primarily gay male communities in India and in the south Asian diaspora. And it looks at how people move across national borders and are forced to move across national borders by economic projects of globalization. And it thinks about how nightlife and queer nightlife spaces offer these migrant subjects, places to practice their identities and places to feel beautiful and places to find desire and love. It's somewhat of a reenactment of my own journey moving to
In collaboration with LGBTQ+ Programs and Womxn’s History Month, this special episode features guest host Gray Strain, Assistant Director for Diversity and Belonging at BGSU, and Dr. Lady J, who was keynote speaker of the 2021 Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Research Symposium at BGSU. The pair discuss drag scholarship, community activism, the untold history of the artform, and the integral role transgender and cisgender women have played as performers since drag’s inception.
Announcer :From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, this is BG ideas.Musical Intro:I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment. Gray:Welcome to the BG Ideas podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. My name is Gray Strain, Assistant Director for Diversity and Belonging at BGSU. And I'm happy to be guest hosting a special episode today in collaboration with LGBTQ+ programs and Women's History Month. Thank you to Dr. Jolie Sheffer of ICS for allowing us to guest host this episode. We appreciate the opportunity for collaboration. This special episode of the BG Ideas podcast is being recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic. That means we're not in studio, but instead are talking via Zoom and phone. Our sound quality will be different as a result, but we want to continue to share with our listeners some of the amazing work being done on and around our campus. We at ICS and LGBTQ+ programs think it's important to celebrate great ideas. As always the opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of BGSU or its employees.Gray :Today, I am thrilled to be speaking with Dr. Lady J the Director of Programming, Education and Outreach for Studio West 117 in Cleveland, Ohio. The official drag historian for the Austin International Drag Festival, the creator and host of the podcast Untucking the Past and the keynote speaker for the 2021 Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies Research Symposium here at BGSU. A pillar of the Cleveland LGBTQIA+ community, she represents the city on the national drag scene and leads locally through activism, entertainment, and education. Her dissertation from RuPaul to the Love Ball: The Mainstreaming of Drag in the 1990s, has been downloaded over 3,800 times. And her work as a historian has been featured everywhere from vice.com to the journal of the American Musicological Society.Gray: Dr. Lady J joins me today to discuss their work in the field of drag history, the politics and inclusion of women, both transgender and cisgender in drag communities and how she serves diverse LGBTQ+ populations today in the Cleveland area. So thank you so much for joining me, Lady J. Before we dive into the fascinating topic of drag history, I do want to touch on the work that you're doing with Studio West 117. Could you tell me a little bit about your role and the vision for Studio West?Dr. Lady J:So thank you first of all, so much for having me, Gray. I'm really excited to be here, and I'm really excited about the upcoming events that we're going to be doing together for Bowling Green. So Studio West 117 is an LGBTQ hub for the Northeast Ohio area and specifically Cleveland and Lakewood, especially. We're going to be doing everything from supporting LGBTQ+ local businesses, especially starting with BIPOC businesses first. We're working with our business tenants to provide ways of entry that are low barrier of entry. Everything from working on subsidies for businesses to working on a podcast and broadcast studio. We're going to have a makers space, an artist’s co-op, a coffee co-op. So there'll be a lot of different opportunities for people to break into kind of gig based jobs that may require a lot of equipment on the front end and to use high end equipment for a really reasonable price that is affo
In this special episode of the BG Ideas podcast, we present a roundtable discussion about the significance of Kamala Harris's appointment to Vice President, brought to us by the Center for Women and Gender Equity and the Division of Diversity and Belonging. Titled “Being the First but Making Sure You Are Not the Last.” This panel was moderated by CWGE director Dr. Kacee Ferrell Snyder and features three guests: Dr. Melissa Miller, Dr. Kathleen Kollman, and Dr. Lisa Dubose.
Announcer:From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, this is BG Ideas.Musical Intro:I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment.Jolie:Welcome to a special bonus episode of the Big Ideas podcast brought to you by the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Jolie Sheffer, associate professor of English and American culture studies, and the director of ICS.Jolie:What follows is a round table discussion hosted by BGSU Center For Women and Gender Equity about the first woman and person of color to serve as the Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris. Titled Being The First, But Making Sure You Are Not The Last, this conversation has been adapted for the Big Ideas podcast.Jolie:This panel was moderated by CWGE Director, Dr. Kacee Ferrell Snyder and features three guests. Dr. Melissa Miller is Professor of Political Science at BGSU and a former ICS faculty fellow. Dr. Kathleen Coleman is a lecturer of English at the Ohio State University and a recent graduate of BGSU's American Culture Studies PhD program.Jolie:Dr. Lisa Dubose serves as the Director of Human Resources for Employee Relations and Professional Development at BGSU, where she also earned her doctorate in leadership studies, and she has taught for the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame.Jolie:Due to the ongoing pandemic, this round table was recorded remotely via computer. As always, the opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of BGSU or its employees.Jolie:Bowling Green State University is situated in the Great Black Swamp in the lower Great Lakes region. This land is the homeland of the Wyandotte, Kickapoo, Miami, Potawatomie, Ottawa, and multiple other Indigenous tribal nations, present and past, who were forcibly removed to and from the area.Jolie:We recognize these historical and contemporary ties and our efforts toward de-colonizing history. And we honor the Indigenous individuals and communities who have been living and working on this land from time immemorial. Kacee:Hello, thank you all so much for being with us. My name is Kacee Ferrell Snyder. I am the Director of the Center For Women in Gender Equity and the co-Director of the Center For Violence Prevention Education at BGSU. Today, we have some great guests with us to talk about our new Vice President, Kamala Harris, the first woman, and first woman of color into this role of Vice President of the United States.Kacee:In our program today, being the first, but making sure you are not the last, is presented by the Center For Women in Gender Equity and part of the Division of Diversity and Belonging. Our round table participants today are Dr. Melissa Miller, she is an expert on American politics with a specific focus on elections and voting behavior, women inAmerican politics, public opinion in the media. She teaches courses in American government, political parties, voter behavior, women in America, politics, and research methods. In 2016, Dr. Miller was named Master Teacher, which is the highest teaching award on campus.Kacee:Dr. Kathleen Coleman completed a PhD in American culture studies at Bowling Green State University in 2020, so congratulations. She's currently serving as a lecture of English at the Ohio State University. Her research focuses on representations of gender in
In this episode, Jolie speaks with Nicole Robinson, keynote speaker at the 2021 Black Issues Conference, and Ana Brown, the Director for the Office of Multicultural Affairs at BGSU. They discuss how to ensure equity and accessibility for marginalized groups through their work in digital marketing and academic administration respectively.
Announcer:From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, this is BG Ideas.Musical Intro:I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment.Jolie:You're listening to the Big Ideas podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Jolie Sheffer, associate professor of English and American Culture Studies and the director of ICS. Due to the ongoing pandemic, we are not recording in the studio but remotely, via phone and computer. Our sound quality may differ as a result. As always, the opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of BGSU or its employees. Bowling Green State University and its campuses are situated in the Great Black Swamp and the lower Great Lakes region. This land is the homeland of the Wyandotte, Kickapoo, Miami, Pottawatomie, Ottawa and multiple other Indigenous tribal nations, present and past, who were forcibly removed to and from the area. We recognize these historical and contemporary ties in our efforts toward decolonizing history.Jolie:And we thank the Indigenous individuals and communities who've been living and working on this land from time immemorial. Today, I'm joined by two guests, Nicole Robinson and Ana Brown. Nicole gave the keynote address at BGSU's 2021 Black Issues Conference. Nicole is a marketing and media strategist and has advocated internationally for accessibility and human rights. She specializes in integrated marketing strategy, web design, script and copywriting and she serves as an accessibility consultant to individuals and businesses. Ana Brown serves as the Director for the Office of Multicultural Affairs at BGSU, where she oversees diversity education, cultural programming, retention initiatives and belonging spaces for faculty, staff, and students. Her responsibilities include designing educational sessions, facilitating trainings and moderating panels on campus and in the community. Ana is also a member of the ICS executive board. Thank you both for joining me today, I'm really happy to have this conversation with you. Before we jump into discussing, sort of, the individual projects and initiatives you're working on, around diversity, equity and inclusion, I'd like to start with a question about terms. What does accessibility mean to you? So, Nicole, will you go first?Nicole:Accessibility, to me, means meeting people where they are. So, it really is as simple as, the more people can access your work, the more people can see it, hear it, feel it, however they need to sense it, the more people you can reach. So, I know some time it's looked at as a task or as a chore but it really is an asset to be able to touch people or reach people, speak to them, however they're able to receive it. So, it really is as simple as, just meeting people where they are.Jolie:And what about for you Ana?Ana: I tend to think of physical space but as we do more and more virtually and more and more online, I think that accessibility has become a broader term, not only about being able to read or hear or see the content but to actually access it. So, in terms of having a reliable internet connection, in terms of having the tools necessary to get to that internet connection, I think that those things, as we're broadening the scope of what accessibility means, I think that those things need to be included and discussed as well.Jolie:And as a follow-up to that, how do we address issues of some of the invisible disabilities into that de
In this episode, Jolie talks with Dr. Vivian Miller, assistant professor of social work and Director of the Optimal Aging Institute, and Dr. Nancy Kusmaul, an associate professor in the Baccalaureate Social Work program at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. They discuss how COVID impacted older adults and what the pandemic exposed about the need for social connectivity practices in long-term care facilities.
Announcer:From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture & Society, this is BG Ideas. Musical Intro:I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment. Jolie: You're listening to the Big Ideas podcast. a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture & Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Dr. Jolie Sheffer, associate professor of English and American culture studies and the director of ICS. Due to the ongoing pandemic, we're not recording in the studio, but remotely via phone and computer. Our sound quality may differ as a result. As always, the opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of BGSU or its employees. Bowling Green State University's campuses are situated in the Great Black Swamp and the Lower Great Lakes region. This land is the homeland of the Wyandotte, Kickapoo, Miami, Pottawatomie, Ottawa, and multiple other Indigenous tribal nations present and past who were forcibly removed to and from the area. We recognize these historical and contemporary ties and our efforts towards de-colonizing history. And we honor the Indigenous individuals and communities who have been living and working on this land from time immemorial. Jolie: Today, I'm joined by Dr. Vivian Miller and Dr. Nancy Kusmaul. Vivian is an assistant professor in social work in the College of Health and Human Services and serves as director of the Optimal Aging Institute at BGSU. Her research focuses on supporting older adults living in long term care, including the mental health of vulnerable and isolated older adults. Nancy is an associate professor in the Baccalaureate Social Work Program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She worked in healthcare for more than a decade, including nursing homes, hospitals, home care, and adult daycare. Her research focuses on organizational culture, trauma-informed care, and the impact of trauma experiences on the workforce. Vivian and Nancy, thank you so much for joining me today. Vivian:Thank you. Nancy:Thank you for having us. Jolie:Today, we're discussing how the pandemic has specifically affected social connectivity for older adults. Just start with, could you each tell us a little bit about how you got interested in working with older adults, this kind of population? Nancy, would you start us off? Nancy:Sure. It goes way back for me. I mean, when I was a kid, I was the one who was always with the grandparents and the great grandparents at the family gatherings. And so, I always knew I wanted a career doing something with older adults. Fell into social work and worked in... My first job in social work was in long-term care and never looked back. Jolie:And what about for you, Vivian? Vivian:Similarly, time with my grandparents and particularly in between my bachelor's and master's degree, I spent about every day with my late grandfather who lived in a senior living facility. And I found myself leveraging my social work skills to advocate for him and other residents and found the importance of being there, being connected to him and also being connected to other residents who didn't necessarily have family visit regularly. Jolie:Could you describe some of the social connectivity practices and support systems used by nursing home and long-term care facilities prior to the pandemic? What was the kind of typical or what were the range of some of those typical support systems? Vivian:Yeah.
In this episode, Jolie speaks with Dr. Kei Nomaguchi, professor of sociology, and Dr. Sandra Faulkner, professor in the School of Media and Communication. They talk about their research exploring both the data and personal experiences of how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected people navigating the demands between their professional jobs and their roles as caretakers.
Announcer:From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, this is BG Ideas. Musical Intro:I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment. Jolie: Hello, and welcome back to the Big Ideas podcast brought to you by the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Dr. Jolie Sheffer, associate professor of English and American culture studies and the director of ICS. Jolie: Due to the ongoing pandemic, we are not recording in the studio but remotely via phone and computer. As always, the opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of BGSU or its employees. Jolie: Bowling Green State University and its campuses are situated in the Great Black Swamp and the lower Great Lakes region, homeland of the Wyandotte, Kickapoo, Miami, Pottawatomie, Ottawa, and multiple other Indigenous tribal nations present and past who were forcibly removed to and from the area. We recognize these historical and contemporary ties, and we honor the Indigenous individuals and communities who have been living and working on this land from time and memorial. Jolie: Today, I'm joined by Dr. Kei Nomaguchi and Dr. Sandra Faulkner. Kei is a professor of sociology and a research affiliate with the Center for Family and Demographic Research and the National Center for Family and Marriage Research at BGSU. Kei's research explores various social and personal dimensions of parenting in the U.S. Jolie: Sandra is a professor in the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. Her research focuses on how individuals navigate gender and sexuality through interpersonal communication and personal narrative. She often uses creative expression and autoethnography to explore her own negotiation of identity as a parent, partner, and professor. Today we're talking about how the pandemic has affected professionals who are also caretakers, but first I'd like to hear a little bit from both of you about your research and how you got into studying care work in particular. Kei, will you start us off? Kei: Yes. Thank you, Jolie and thank you for the nice introduction. I'm interested in studying parents, parenting, parents, our relationships in the United States today and including work family conflict and parenting stress and the wellbeing of the parents and children. So well,I began my graduate study wanting to study gender inequality in workplace, but then I quickly realized that gender inequality in the workplace is deeply rooted in gender inequality within the family, especially care taking roles. And so, as we all know, the women disproportionally shoulder care taking responsibilities, and that prevents women from putting time and energy in their paid work activities. So that's how I sort of switched our interest in family, rather than workplace. Jolie: What about for you,Sandra? How, what is your evolution as a scholar on this subject been? Sandra:Well, initially I was interested in the kind of broad topic of difficult conversations in close relationships. And so I had started studying that in graduate school. I was interested in how partners, women in particular, negotiated sexual activity, sexual pleasure, in essence how they talked about sex and sexuality. And I will say by the way that I studied it kind of traditionally, and by traditionally, I mean, kind of traditional qualitative research. And so I think the evolution of my work moving toward more creative ends
In this episode, Jolie interviews Natalie Orslene, a BGSU graduate student and ICS Student Research Award winner, and Dr. Shannon Orr, Professor of Political Science. They discuss factors impacting food pantry access and the social stigma associated with food insecurity.
Announcer:From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, this is BG Ideas. Musical Intro:I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment. Jolie:Hello, and welcome back to the Big Ideas podcast, brought to you by the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Dr. Jolie Sheffer, Associate Professor of English and American Culture Studies and the director of ICS. Bowling Green State University and it's campuses are situated in the Great Black Swamp in the lower Great Lakes region. This land is the homeland of the Wyandotte, Kickapoo, Miami, Pottawatomie, Ottawa, and multiple other indigenous tribal nations present and past who were forcibly removed to and from the area.Jolie: We recognize these historical and contemporary ties in our efforts towards de-colonizing history. And we thank the indigenous individuals and communities who've been living and working on this land from time immemorial. As always, the opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of BGSU or its employees. Jolie:Today I'm talking with Natalie Orslene and Dr. Shannon Orr. Natalie is a master's student in the public administration program at BGSU. She's the recipient of an ICS Student Research Award for her project, researching food pantry access, food insecurity, and social stigma. Shannon is a professor of political science, Director of the MPA program and an expert in environmental policy. You may remember her from a previous episode on water quality in the Great Lakes. Shannon serves as faculty advisor on Natalie's project. Thank you both for joining me today. Jolie:Natalie. I'll have you start, could you tell us about your project and what motivated you to do more research on food insecurity and food pantries at BGSU? Natalie:Sure. So it started actually over the summer and really before that, when the pandemic began. I became interested through work Dr. Orr was doing on food insecurity and food pantries. And one of the topics that I found particularly interesting was the sort of management of it all because food pantry we talk a lot about the passion and the excitement, but the management and the work that goes behind it is very labor intensive, and also really interesting from a public administration standpoint. And something that I found interesting in that was sort of managing the behind the scenes information. So the volunteers, the organization, all of that. And so my research began in trying to understand if you were going to start a food pantry, if you're going to run a food pantry, how do you best start from the beginning? And how do you best manage volunteers from the beginning? Natalie:Because it can be easy to start and not have all of that figured out and not kind of lay the groundwork to have a great program and a great volunteer management system. And so what I wanted to do was find out from volunteers themselves and from people who run food pantries themselves, what goes into good management and what goes into being a good volunteer, because it's really important. And it really helps to ensure that the work that you're doing is beneficial to everyone, to the community and to the people who are using the food pantry. Jolie: Can you talk a bit Natalie about the specific need for food pantries and how that particularly works on college campuses like BGSU and how that might be different from what people might be thinking about food pantries in community settings? Natalie:Sure. So we know that food insecurity is a huge issue nationwide. In 2019, about 34 m
Jolie is joined by Dr. Lucy Long, director of the independent Center for Food and Culture and an instructor of American studies, ethnic studies, folklore, and nutrition at BGSU, and Jerry Reed, a recent graduate from the MA program in popular cultures studies at BGSU. They discuss their “Finding Comfort/Discomfort Through Foodways” project that examines how comfort food can be meaningful and create meaningfulness in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Announcer:
From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, this is BG Ideas.
Musical Intro:
I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment.
Jolie:
Welcome back to the BiG Ideas podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Jolie Sheffer, Associate Professor of English and American Culture Studies, and the Director of ICS. Due to the ongoing pandemic, we are not recording in the studio, but remotely via phone and computer. As always, the opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of BGSU or its employees.
Jolie:
Bowling Green State University is located in the Great Black Swamp, long a meeting place of the Wyandot, Shawnee, Lenape, Ottawa, Kickapoo, Fox, Pottawatomie, Erie, Miami, Peoria, Chippewa, and Seneca Indian tribes. We honor the rich history of this land and its indigenous inhabitants, past and present. Today we're joined by two guests, Dr. Lucy Long and Jerry Reed. Lucy directs the Independent Center for Food and Culture and teaches in American studies, ethnic studies, folklore and nutrition at BGSU. Her research focuses on food, music, and dance as mediums for meaning and community.
Jolie:
Lucy served as the Director of "Finding Comfort/Discomfort Through Food Ways," a project that examines how people are living and eating in these difficult pandemic times. Jerry Reed earned a BS in Education and an MA in Popular Culture Studies from BGSU. He completed an internship with the Center for Food and Culture, working to develop a curriculum that uses food to help children understand cultural conflict. Jerry worked as the Assistant Director of the Food Ways Project. Thanks both for being with me today, I'm really excited to talk about this with you. To get us started, could you tell us a little bit about the Food Ways Project and how it came about? Will you start us off, Lucy?
Lucy :
Okay. When the pandemic first hit, I started noticing that food media was publishing recipes for comfort food. And this is a stressful time for comfort food. So I actually edited a volume and published some articles in 2017 on comfort food, so that automatically grabbed me. And my initial response to some of these publications, particularly-there was one for the New York Times, and it was comfort foods of famous chefs. And it was all these specialty ingredients and things that, probably, the average American would not have in their pantry. And I realized, first of all, these foods are not things that I relate to, personally, as a comfort food. And they probably are not relevant to many people who are reading this. But also, the idea of having to go out and find these ingredients, some of which are very expensive, but many of which, you would have to go to different grocery stores or try to find them.
Lucy :
And I realized, that's going to cause a lot of discomfort. So that got me thinking a little bit more about at how, during this time, it's not a simple thing to say, "Here, eat some comfort food and calm down." And then also, comfort food itself as a very American concept. Every culture has food that is comforting, that reminds people of their childhood, and things like that. But it's uniquely American in that there is a par
Jolie speaks with Dani Haynes, coordinator of student case management at BGSU, and Dr. Sandra Earle, an associate professor of pharmaceutical science at the University of Findlay and a university advocate at BGSU. They discuss how COVID-19 has exacerbated food insecurity for many students and share advocacy strategies to mitigate the stigma, shame, and misinformation around basic needs insecurity on college campuses.
Announcer:
From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture & Society, this is BG Ideas.
Musical Intro:
I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment.
Jolie :
Welcome back to the Big Ideas Podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture & Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Jolie Sheffer, Associate Professor of English and American Culture Studies and the Director of ICS.
Jolie :
Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, we're not recording in the studio, but from home via phone and computer. As always, the opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily reflect those of BGSU or its employees. Bowling Green State University is located in the Great Black Swamp, long a meeting place of the Wyandotte, Shawnee, Lenape, Ottawa, Kickapoo, Fox, Pottawatomie, Erie, Miami, Peoria, Chippewa, and Seneca Indian Tribes. We honor the rich history of this land and its indigenous inhabitants past and present.
Jolie :
Today, I'm joined by Dani Haynes and Dr. Sandra Earle. Dani works in the BGSU Dean of Students office as the Coordinator for Student Case Management. She also founded the Falcon Care Grab and Go initiative to address student hunger and food insecurity. And Dr. Sandy Earle is an associate professor of pharmaceutical science and Associate Dean for Assessment for the College of Pharmacy at the University of Findlay. Sandy also serves as a university advocate at BGSU with a special interest in providing assistance to those in crisis and ensuring food security for all students.
Jolie :
I'm very happy to have this conversation. To start, I'd like each of you to share how you got interested in student crisis intervention and advocacy work, particularly around the issue of hunger and food insecurity. Dani, do you want to start us?
Dani:
Well, I got started in student issues, student crises about six years ago. I used to work for a nonprofit and originally I was working in survivor services for survivors of sexual violence, domestic violence. And I was an advocate at the University of Toledo for their Title IX process. And so throughout that time, I began to notice some of the issues that students were having that didn't necessarily coincide with Title IX incidents, but was still very traumatizing to the individual.
Dani:
So, when I started here at BG, I still had some of those same notes in my mind, but I wasn't sure if it translated to the student population. Within maybe my first six months, I began to see some students who were housing insecure and food insecure. And I know that BG already had the Falcon Care program, which you can donate some swipes to students in need. Then,throughout the summer, I realized the dining halls weren't necessarily open, and so those students didn't have the same opportunity to receive resources.
Dani:
And originally I began to provide them food from Kingsbury, which is where I lived. I would take food into the office and then Chris was like, "Are you feeding students?" And so I said, "Hypothetically. Will I get in trouble?" Because we need this job." And so I explained, "Well, students are hungry. And I, as a mom, cannot see students hungry. I just can't do it." And I explained what some of the issues were.
Dani:
And so he said, "Okay. You can
Jolie is joined by Dr. Mary-Jon Ludy, chair of the department of public and allied health and an associate professor of food and nutrition at BGSU, and Dr. Jyothi Thrivikraman, an assistant professor of Global Public Health at Leiden University College in the Netherlands. They discuss their interdisciplinary, international research study of how COVID-19 has impacted the sleep and mental health of college students and offer advice on resiliency in the midst of stress.
Announcer:
From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture & Society, this is BG Ideas.
Musical Intro:
I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment.
Jolie :
Welcome back to the Big Ideas podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture & Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Jolie Sheffer, Associate -Professor of English and American Culture Studies and the Director of ICS. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, we're not recording in the studio, but from home via phone and computer, as always, the opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of BGSU or its employees. Bowling Green State University is located in the Great Black Swamp, long a meeting place for the Wyandot, Huron, Kickapoo, Erie, Miami, and Peoria tribes. We honor the rich history of this land and its indigenous inhabitants, past and present.
Jolie:
Today, I'm very pleased to be joined by two guests, Dr. Mary-Jon Ludy and Jyothi Thrivikraman. Mary-Jon is department chair of public and allied health and an associate professor of food and nutrition at BGSU. Her research interests include energy balance, body composition, and innovative teaching. Jyothi is an assistant professor of global public health at Leiden University College in the Netherlands. Her research interests include food insecurity, food waste, and healthcare financing. She has worked and taught in countries around the world, including in Asia and Africa. MJ and Jyothi were part of an interdisciplinary, international research team studying how COVID-19 impacted the sleep and mental health of 2000 college students spanning seven countries and three continents. The study's findings and recommendations were first published in an August 2020 special issue of Clocks & Sleep. Thank you both for being with me today. I'm really happy to get to talk to you about your research. To start, could you explain the questions motivating this research and what you learned from your surveys?
Mary-Jon:
We are looking at the intersections between lifestyle, behaviors, resilience to stress and rumination in college students during the COVID-19 pandemic. So to unpackage that a bit by lifestyle behaviors, we're talking about food intake, alcohol consumption, sleep, physical activity. When we speak about resilience to stress, we're thinking about bounce back or recovery from a stressful situation. And when we think of rumination, we're considering excessive negative thoughts. So with that context, there's been a great deal of research to show that positive lifestyle behaviors, help to bolster mental health and likewise with resilience to stress, if an individual has more resilience to stress that helps to support their mental health. So more resilience, less anxiety, more resilience, more positive mood. The flip is true for rumination. If an individual has more excessive negative thinking, they're likely to have more markers of depression or more perceived stress. There have not been many studies that have looked at that intersection.
Mary-Jon:
So between lifestyle behaviors, resilience, and rumination, and certainly not in college students during a global pandemic. So that is the focus of our study. And it's a survey, and we have been working, as you said, in the
Jolie is joined by Dr. Monica Longmore and Dr. Wendy Manning, professors of sociology at BGSU, to discuss their National Science Foundation-funded grant to study social distancing compliance during the COVID-19 pandemic. They also discuss how family bonds are being challenged and redefined in this challenging time.
Announcer :
From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, this is BG Ideas.
Musical Intro:
I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment.
Jolie:
Welcome back to the Big Ideas podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Jolie Sheffer, associate professor of English and American Culture Studies and the Director of ICS. Due to the ongoing pandemic, we are not recording in the studio but remotely via phone and computer. As always, the opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of BGSU or its employees. Bowling Green State University is located in The Great Black Swamp, long a meeting place of the Wyandotte, Shawnee, Lenape, Ottawa, Kickapoo, Fox, Pottawatomie, Erie, Miami, Peoria, Chippewa and Seneca Indian tribes. We honor the rich history of this land and its indigenous inhabitants, past and present.
Jolie:
Today I have the pleasure of being joined by two guests, Dr. Wendy Manning and Dr. Monica Longmore. Wendy is a distinguished research professor of sociology who studies the increasing diversity and complexity of contemporary family relationships. She currently serves as Director of the Center for Family and Demographic Research and co-director for the National Center for Family and Marriage Research. Monica is also a professor of sociology, she studies how individuals defined themselves along with self-evaluations of various personality components. Thank you for joining me today. Both of you in April, as well as Dr. Peggy Giordano, were awarded a National Science Foundation grant on the subject of the coronavirus pandemic predictors and consequences of compliance with social distancing recommendations. So, we've all been living with social distancing but you're, sort of, really thinking about the impacts of that. So, thank you for joining me today to talk more about this research.
Jolie:
Can you describe the research project and how it's evolved as this pandemic has continued? And generally speaking, how is social distancing connected to your own individual research interests relating to marriage and family relationships and adolescent development? Wendy, will you start us off?
Wendy:
Sure. It's a great pleasure to be here today, so thank you. What we're doing today is really based on a long-term, 20 year project and so, that really has positioned us to best understand what's happening with COVID. And we started this project back in 2001, we did our first year of data collection of teenagers who were living in Lucas County, Ohio and they were all going to public schools and so, it was a population-based sample. And we had about 1,300 adolescents participate in the survey and we have been following them all through their adolescence, all through their 20s and now they're in their early 30s. And so, we had just finished our sixth wave of data collection when the pandemic hit and so, we have these valuable participants who we really know a lot about their lives and we had just finished a data collection, focusing a lot on child well-being and because a lot of our respondents are now parents and we thought, how are our respondents doing in the pandemic?
Wendy:
So, we were considering about how we're doing during the pandemic but we were like, how are our people doing? And so, we decided that it would be really a unique opportunity to ask the
Jolie speaks with Dr. Steven Cady, the Director of the Institute for Organizational Effectiveness at BGSU, and Professor Charles Kanwischer, Director of the School of Art. They discuss collaborative leadership during times of crisis and the lessons we’ve learned about adaptive teaching, effective communication, and more.
Announcer:
From Bowling Green State University and The Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, this is BG Ideas.
Musical Intro:
I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment.
Jolie:
Welcome to the BiG Ideas podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Jolie Sheffer, associate professor of English and American Culture Studies and Director of the ICS. Due to the ongoing pandemic, we're not in studio, but are recording remotely via phone and computer. As always, the opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of BGSU or its employees.
Jolie:
Bowling Green State University is located in the Great Black Swamp, long a meeting place of the Wyandotte, Shawnee, Lenape, Ottawa, Kickapoo, Fox, Pottawatomie, Erie, Miami, Peoria, Chippewa, and Seneca Indian tribes. We honor the rich history of this land and its indigenous inhabitants past and present.
Jolie:
Today, I have the pleasure of being joined by two guests, Dr. Steve Cady and Professor Charlie Kanwischer. Steve is the director of the Institute for Organizational Effectiveness at BGSU. He's world-renowned for his expertise in organizational behavior and development, specifically with the focus on whole system change. His current work involves collaborating with others to develop the best of both online and in-person learning environments.
Jolie:
Charlie is the director of the School of Art and a professor of drawing at BGSU. He's a six time recipient of an Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship. In his administrative role, Charlie studies data to determine what students need to succeed in online learning environments. Steve and Charlie, thank you for joining me today to talk about leadership. Well, the COVID-19 pandemic has certainly exemplified the need for the kind of work you do to model collaborative leadership and meet the needs of students, faculty, and staff to deal with this swiftly changing academic landscape. Steve, could you start us off by talking about how your work was immediately impacted in March when the university moved to distance learning and what changes you made?
Steve:
So my work is on two levels, one is in the classroom with my students and then on the second level is my work with my colleagues, you two, and others at BGSU and beyond. On the first level, I immediately talked with my students and when I saw what was coming on the horizon, that we'd likely close down and we'd likely shut classes or go into a online setting, I talked with my students and I talked to them about various scenarios. I talked with him about scenarios in the class, "If we go online, this is what's going to happen. This is what we're going to meet online. This is how we're going to make it work. And this is how I'm going to handle the class, how we're going to handle your learning as well as your grading." And those kinds of things, and really made sure they had their questions answered. I also encouraged them to think about how they were going to handle it, what their scenarios were and what they were going to do.
Steve:
And I gave that advice to some other faculty that I was talking to, and they did that. And they said that it was pretty amazing that all of the sudden, when it happened, their students knew what to do, where to go. It's kind of like that emergency, like in a fire or whatever, where do we
This episode is the final chapter of a mini-series focusing on the NEH-funded project "Toward a Pedagogy from Crisis.” Stevie Scheurich guest hosts and shares the personal stories of precarity and uncertainty for non-tenure track and contingent faculty members in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. These participants discuss how the pandemic brought to light pre-existing crises and economic insecurity within academia and share how they are navigating these challenges as instructors.
Announcer:
From Bowling Green State University, and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, this is BG Ideas.
Musical Intro:
I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment.
Stevie:
Hello, and welcome back to the Big Ideas Podcast, brought to you by the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University.
Stevie:
I'm Stevie Scheurich, a PhD student in BGSU's American Culture Studies program, and a graduate teaching associate in BGSU's Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies program. I'll be guest hosting this episode, which is part of a mini-series focusing on the National Endowment for the Humanities' sponsored project, "Toward a Pedagogy from Crisis: Adaptive Teaching and Learning at Bowling Green State University during COVID-19."
Stevie:
Due to the ongoing pandemic, we are not recording in the studio, but from home via phone and computer. As always, the opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the individuals involved, and do not necessarily represent those of BGSU or its employees.
Stevie:
Bowling Green State University is located in the Great Black Swamp, long a meeting place of the Wyandot, Shawnee, Lenape, Ottawa, Kickapoo, Fox, Pottawatomie, Erie, Miami, Peoria, Chippewa, and Seneca Indian tribes. We honor the rich history of this land and its indigenous inhabitants, past and present.
Stevie:
For today's episode, we will be doing things a little bit differently. Building on our previous episode, featuring members of the grant team working on Toward a Pedagogy from Crisis, today, I will be talking to the non-tenure track faculty members who participated in the summer camp devoted to reflexive teaching and learning. Campers were comprised of graduate teaching associates and contingent faculty who experienced differing levels of precarity due to their positioning within academia.
Stevie:
Since we here at Big Ideas are big believers in the transformative power of storytelling, this episode will feature members of the Summer Institute sharing their personal experiences of precarity and uncertainty caused by COVID-19 pandemic.
Stevie:
I began by asking everyone about how the pandemic has brought to light preexisting crises and precarity within academia. These crises are disproportionately experienced by people who are Black, Indigenous, people of color, disabled, queer, and working class folks at all levels of academia.
Stevie:
I asked everyone how they saw these inequalities affecting their students and themselves as non-tenure track faculty. Everyone immediately began by reflecting on how their students were being affected. Megan Rancier, an Associate Teaching Professor of Ethnomusicology was concerned by major gaps in access to internet and technology.
Megan:
I think I've definitely noticed those inequalities kind of more outside the university than within it. But I think you're absolutely right that once we kind of all went into crisis mode, all of these obstacles, all of these inequalities, suddenly became much more obvious to people who previously probably were oblivious to them, like me.
Megan:
For example, I'll talk about one thing with faculty and one thing with students, and I'll start with the students because obviou
This episode is part three of a four part mini-series on the NEH-funded project "Toward a Pedagogy from Crisis.” Jolie speaks with Dr. Rachel Rickard Rebellino, an assistant professor in children’s and adolescent literature, and a “camp counselor” for a month-long summer program for humanities faculty on adaptive teaching and learning during the COVID-19 crisis. Tiffany Scarola, an instructor in the University Writing Program, joins to share her experience as a camp attendee. They discuss building just and equitable learning communities within larger, and frequently inequitable, institutions.
Announcer:
From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, this is BG Ideas.
Musical Intro:
I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment.
Jolie:
Hello, and welcome back to the BG Ideas podcast brought to you by the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Dr. Jolie Sheffer. This episode is part of a mini series focusing on a National Endowment for the Humanities sponsored project called "Toward A Pedagogy From Crisis: Adaptive Teaching and Learning at Bowling Green State University during COVID-19."
Due to the ongoing pandemic, we are not recording in the studio, but are at home talking via phone and computer. As always, the opinions expressed on the podcast are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of BGSU or its employees. Bowling Green State University is located in the great black swamp, long a meeting place of the Wyandotte, Shawnee, Lenape, Ottawa, Kickapoo, Fox, Potawatomie, Erie, Miami, Peoria, Chippewa, and Seneca Indian tribes. We honor the rich history of this land and its indigenous inhabitants past and present.
Today I'm very pleased to be joined by Dr. Rachel Rickard Rebellino and Tiffany Scarola. Rachel serves as one of the NEH project's camp counselors during the summer camp. She teaches courses on children's and adolescent literature for the English department. Her research examines digital youth cultures, girlhood studies, and social justice themes and children's literature. Tiffany is an instructor in the University Writing Program where she teaches first year composition, and she was in an NEH camp participant this summer. Her research interests include encouraging student cognitive processing and establishing a cult of vulnerability in classroom environments. Rachel and Tiffany, thank you very much for joining me today.
Rachel:
Thank you for having me.
Tiffany:
Yeah. Thank you for having us.
Jolie:
Equity, accessibility and social justice are clear priorities in the NEH project, and they're also at the heart of the research and the teaching that both of you do. Rachel, could you start off by talking about how your research on youth literature is a catalyst for conversations about equity injustice? Is this a relatively new phenomenon in children's literature or is there a longer history of that kind of connection?
Rachel:
That's a great question. There is a pretty long history of youth literature being a tool for conversations around equity and justice. So I'm thinking specifically of the example of The Brownies' Book, that was a magazine that was specifically put out to address perceived gaps, real gaps, in the literature that was being written for Black and brown youth. And the purposes of that magazine were very, very explicit that it would be to lift up Black youth, to help them to really see their value in a society that was devaluing them. And this was in the 1920s, I don't think I said that initially.
Rachel:
And since then, youth literature has definitely served kind of a conservative function in upholding social values in some capacities, but there has always been youth
This episode is part two of a mini-series focusing on the NEH-funded project "Toward a Pedagogy from Crisis.” Jolie is joined by Dr. Lauren Salisbury, a graduate of BGSU’s rhetoric and writing PhD program and an online instructor, and Dr. Matt Schumann, who has taught in the department of history. They served as "camp counselors" for a month-long summer program for humanities faculty on adaptive teaching and learning during the COVID-19 crisis. They discuss the importance of intentionality, reflexivity, and building community in virtual course design.
Announcer:
The is BG Ideas.
Musical Intro:
I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment.
Jolie:
Hello and welcome back to the BiG Ideas podcast brought to you by the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Dr. Jolie Sheffer.
Jolie:
This episode is part of a miniseries focusing on a National Endowment for the Humanities sponsored project Toward a Pedagogy from Crisis: Adaptive Teaching and Learning at Bowling Green State University During COVID-19. Due to the ongoing pandemic, we're not in the studio but are recording from home via phone and computer. As always, the opinions expressed on this podcast or those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of BGSU or its employees.
Jolie:
Today, we are speaking with Dr. Lauren Salisbury and Dr. Matt Schumann. During summer 2020, they served as camp counselors for a month-long summer program for humanities faculty, which was a central component of the NEH-supported grant.
Jolie:
Lauren is a graduate of BGSU's Rhetoric and Writing PhD program and is an instructor in the department. Her research explores how space and place shapes student experiences in online courses. Matt has taught classes in our history department, receiving the Elliott Blinn Prize for Instructor/Student Basic Research for Innovative Design in his historiography course. He's also studied the scholarship of teaching and learning including how technology can be used effectively in humanities classrooms.
Jolie:
Lauren and Matt, thanks for joining me to talk about big ideas. I want to start with just giving a little background on the summer camp. The camp focused on humanistic pedagogy for digital environments. Can you explain who you were designing the camp for and some of the main goals you set for yourself and for your campers? Matt, you want to start that question off?
Matt:
Sure. I guess I'd like to start by saying we wanted to de-center technology just a little bit because the COVID crisis really forced a bigger conversation about our priorities and identities as instructors. What we really wanted to do was gather faculty from as broadly as we could across the humanities and have a conversation about, "Well, what does teaching look like in this strange new world that we're encountering in the midst of this pandemic?" Having that question really right at the center of our organization efforts for the summer camp, that really determined a lot about how we organized it and how we arranged our material.
Jolie:
For you, Lauren, a lot of times, when we are talking about and thinking about teaching online, we're talking about technology tools and using new tools. You made the choice not to explicitly center the camp around learning new technologies. Can you explain why not and what you felt was more important in this moment?
Lauren:
Yeah, absolutely. There's nothing to say that technology isn't important. We didn't want to say that at all. But, technology comes and goes. It evolves constantly. What was cutting edge last week, isn't this week. Although having those tools in our back pocket is really important, it's more important, as teachers, to start at the end
This episode is the start of a four part mini-series focused on the NEH-funded project “Towards a Pedagogy from Crisis.” Jolie speaks with project directors Dr. Amílcar Challú, department chair and associate professor of history, and Dr. Chad Iwertz Duffy, an assistant professor in rhetoric and writing. They discuss the important role that interdisciplinary collaboration in the humanities can play in building just and equitable learning--whether online, remote, or in-person.
Announcer:
From Bowling Green State University, and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, this is BG Ideas.
Musical Intro:
I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment.
Jolie:
Hello, and welcome back to the BG Ideas podcast, brought to you by the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Dr. Jolie Sheffer. Due to the ongoing pandemic, we're not recording in the studio, but from home via phone and computer. As always, the opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the individuals involved, and do not necessarily represent those of BGSU or its employees.
Jolie:
Bowling Green State University is located in the Great Black Swamp, long a meeting place of the Wyandotte, Shawnee, Lenape, Ottawa, Kickapoo, Fox, Potawatomi, Erie, Miami, Peoria, Chippewa, and Seneca Indian tribes. We honor the rich history of this land and its indigenous inhabitants past and present.
Jolie:
Today's episode is one of a mini series focusing on a National Endowment for the Humanities sponsored project, Toward a Pedagogy from Crisis: Adaptive Teaching and Learning at Bowling Green State University During COVID-19. Today I'm joined by the project's directors, Dr. Chad Iwertz Duffy, and Dr. Amilcar Challu. Chad is an Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Writing in the English department. Amilcar is Department Chair and Associate Professor of History at BGSU.
Jolie:
Thank you both for joining me today. I'd like to start with some backstory on the project. The project focuses on the current global pandemic, which has completely restructured our personal and professional lives. Can you describe how the project came together and evolved into what it is now, and especially what is the role of pedagogy in this project?
Chad:
I think, speaking specifically to pedagogy, one of the reasons why it's so important is because everybody pretty much in the world at this point, has moved to online education. And, even though that's something that has a fairly rich tradition in my field, I don't believe there are very many fields that have been really seriously thinking about online education. So, pedagogy is kind of our entree into thinking about how, when we have to all learn virtually, how you do that, and how you do that well, and how you value your students, especially right now in this time of crisis.
Jolie:
And Amilcar, from a practical standpoint, how did you and Chad connect on this project, and how did you evolve its shape and what you were imagining you were seeking to study and do?
Amilcar:
Well, it was connections that someone else said. You're both thinking about this at the same time, and so why don't you talk with each other, and that was it. I think it highlights the importance of those informal interactions in getting things done, and pushing things forward. It advanced really, really fast. We both started talking about what we have in mind. It was something different, what each of us have in mind, but we knew that there was a lot that we were trying to accomplish that have the same goals. And, it was a very quick, fast process, and I was surprised about that. And it was part of the one great joy, I think, of putting this together.
Jolie:
Chad, I'd like to talk a bit about your spec
BiG Ideas, a podcast from the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society at Bowling Green State University, is excited to announce The Enlightenment, a bite-sized podcast, written and hosted by ICS intern Taylar Stagner. In this episode, Stagner speaks with graduate students, and professors who share how the Covid-19 pandemic, and the campus shut down it has caused, have affected their lives as researchers and working parents.
Jolie:
Hello, you're listening to the BiG Ideas podcast. I'm Dr. Jolie Sheffer, Associate Professor of English and American Culture Studies and the Director of the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society at Bowling Green State University. This is not a typical episode. The conversation you are about to hear was recorded during the COVID-19 crisis, so you may very well notice a difference in our sound quality. You'll also notice that we've got a different format. We wanted to capture some of the incredible challenges facing BGSU students, faculty, and staff during this world historical event, as well as document some of the incredible creativity, resiliency, and generosity we've seen. Now more than ever, we believe it's important to hear thought provoking and inspiring stories about BiG ideas featuring members of our community. The following episode is one of several short form stories being produced and reported by Taylar Stagner, a master's student in the American Culture Studies Program and an ICS intern. We're calling this series, The Enlightenminute. We hope you enjoy it. Stay safe out there.
Taylar:
Research, draft, edit, submit, edit again. Resubmit, publish, research. Research, draft, edit, submit, edit, resubmit, publish research. Research, draft, edit, resubmit, edit, publish research. This is how you stay relevant in academia. It's a cycle of drafting and submitting to journals for publication. Constant research is how professors argue for tenure, master's students finish theses, and graduate students finally get the letters PhD next to their name. But what if a worldwide pandemic shuts down how people actually do research? With K through 12 schools shut down, kids are at home. Many research projects require in-person observation. And how do you stay calm and go with the flow when the whole world is turned upside down? Here at ICS, our director, Dr. Jolie Sheffer, is usually very busy with her own research and service projects, sometimes up to 15 projects at a time. But now, her energy focuses more towards her students' wellbeing.
Jolie:
Now, there was no guarantee that our students even have housing, that they have food, that they have enough money, those bare necessities, and even internet access to be able to participate in the classes. That priority list looks really different. So in some ways, I have fewer things on my plate now, but the stakes of those things feel much higher.
Taylar:
With a young child and a partner who also works from home, finding time to write is a challenge. But when Sheffer finds time to write, it becomes a necessary reprieve from the current circumstances.
Jolie:
I am trying to still write most days between 15 minutes to 30. There are a few days I've been able to get in an hour if my husband's able to watch my son. And that's actually been really helpful for my mental health. I mean, I really like losing myself in the research and getting back into those kinds of thorny problems that help me forget about COVID-19 and all of that uncertainty.
Taylar:
There exists so much uncertainty, especially with kids at home. Adam Cohen is a doctoral student here at BGSU. And the last couple months have been especially challenging because he and his wife recently had twins.
Adam:
Which they came three months premature. They were supposed to be born at the beginning of April. And due to some complications, they were actually delivered on New
BiG Ideas, a podcast from the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society at Bowling Green State University, is excited to announce The Enlightenment, a bite-sized podcast, written and hosted by ICS intern Taylar Stagner. In this episode, Stagner speaks with undergrads, graduate students, and professors who share how the Covid-19 pandemic, and the campus shut down it has caused, have affected their lives.
Jolie:
Hello. You're listening to the Big Ideas podcast. I'm Dr. Jolie Sheffer, associate professor of English and American culture studies and the director of the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society at Bowling Green State University. This is not a typical episode. The conversation you are about to hear was recorded during the COVID-19 crisis, so you may very well notice a difference in our sound quality. You'll also notice that we've got a different format. We wanted to capture some of the incredible challenges facing BGSU students, faculty, and staff during this world-historical event, as well as document some of the incredible creativity, resiliency, and generosity we've seen.
Jolie:
Now more than ever, we believe it's important to hear thought-provoking and inspiring stories about big ideas featuring members of our community. The following episode is one of several short-form stories being produced and reported by Taylar Stagner, a master student in the American culture studies program and an ICS intern. We're calling this series, The EnlightenMinute. We hope you enjoy it. Stay safe out there.
Taylar:
Welcome to EnlightenMinute, a bite-sized podcast from the desk of ICS. I'm Taylar Stagner with more on how students and faculty at BGSU are dealing with the drastic shift in university life. Online video applications, like WebEx, Zoom, and Skype, help peers and instructors converse with each other during the statewide shelter in place order. No unnecessary travel is permitted and all classes and projects have been moved online. In the shuffle to switch instruction online to slow the spread of COVID-19, one of our interns at ICS is missing out on her last semester of college. Renee Hopper is getting her bachelor's degree in creative writing with a minor in German. To finish her minor, she was going to go to Germany before the shutdown.
Renee:
And I wasn't planning on being on campus next year at all because of study abroad. And now that summer is canceled, I have to figure out a way to take German online at a different university this summer and transfer it over, which I've heard is a rough process.
Taylar:
After BGSU moved to online instruction, Renee moved back to her home outside of Columbus in Dublin, Ohio with her parents and older brother. I asked her how that was going.
Renee:
Most days, pretty good, now that we're used to it. I've established my own little space in our dining room where my mom literally took our own Snuggies and hung them in the doorways so that I have my own enclosed little office. Absolutely innovative. But when I'm in there, I can pretty much be counted on that they're not going to come in and I can work.
Taylar:
While Hopper can make do, she can't help but feel like her undergraduate career ended anticlimactically. She had to go and empty out her dorm room during spring break.
Renee:
It was really melancholy. I wasn't expecting it, especially because there are so many fun things to prod at about dorm life, like you don't have a kitchen and you really miss food. But just the fact that I hadn't been expecting to start packing up so quickly made it harder to walk in the room and be like, "Oh, all of this is coming back with me right now." And it was really strange that I couldn't even go get food and use a bit more of my Falcon dollars before we left. I had to order one of those little robots and it brought us Dunkin and we had a l
In this special COVID-19 episode of the BG Ideas podcast, we talk with Dr. Lori Liggett, who researches popular images from the women's suffrage movement. Liggett is a Teaching Professor in the School of Media and Communication and a Spring 2020 Faculty Fellow.
Announcer :
From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, this is BG ideas.
Musical Intro:
I'm going to show him this with a wonderful experiment.
Jolie:
Welcome to the Big Ideas podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Dr. Jolie Sheffer, Associate Professor of English and American Culture Studies, and the Director of ICS. This is a special episode of the podcast, which we are recording during the COVID-19 pandemic. That means we're not in the studio, but are talking via phone and computer. Our sound quality will be different as a result.
Jolie:
But now more than ever, I thought it was important to share with you some of the amazing work being done by members of the BGSU community. Even, or especially when conditions are challenging, we need to recognize and celebrate great ideas. As always the opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the individuals involved, and do not necessarily represent those of BGSU or its employees. Today I'm speaking with Dr. Lori Ligate, a Senior Lecturer at BGSU in the School of Media and Communication who's teaching and research focus on gender and visual culture. She's a spring of 2020 ICS faculty fellow who is doing public scholarship focused on images of womanhood in popular media during the era of women's suffrage. I'm really pleased to get to talk with you today, Lori. Thank you for being flexible and joining me, virtually.
Lori:
Thank you. I appreciate it.
Jolie:
To start off, could you tell us a little bit about how you got interested in studying the era of women's suffrage? And what have been some of the more interesting and surprising directions that this research has led you?
Lori:
Right. Well, basically I got involved in studying the suffrage movement about 25 years ago, and it wasn't my original intent. I was studying women's service magazines of the late 19th century. Women's service magazines are things like Godey's Ladies Book, which was one of the first one. Then you segue into things like Good Housekeeping.
Lori:
I was interested in motherhood, domesticity from a sociopolitical point of view. As I was doing decades of looking at literally every issue of Good Housekeeping, I started seeing this pivot from talking about new household technologies, and cooking procedures and new techniques for mothers, and into more political stuff. And immediately I was hooked. And of course, I knew a little bit about the suffrage movement, but I hadn't seen it within that context. And it shocked me, because there were actual literary essays that would appear in the service magazines.
Lori:
I also started seeing it in advertising, just references were popping up everywhere. And when I really got into it was probably around the, I would say, 1908, 1910 issues. When you started seeing, and remember this as Good Housekeeping, references to militarism, to women becoming militant, to radicalism. Now, this is Good Housekeeping. I guarantee you, if you were to go to the newsstand today and pick up a Good Housekeeping, you would not see anything on radicalism and militancy. I was shocked.
Lori:
This was largely due to what was going on in Great Britain at the time. And a leader in Great Britain, one of the leaders, is the famous or infamous Emmeline Pankhurst. And the British movement had become militant at that point. We started to see the beginnings of that in the American suffragist
In this special COVID-19 episode of the BG Ideas podcast, Melody Freeland, a BGSU grad student and winner of the ICS ICS Student Research Award, and Dr. Cyndi Ducar, associate professor in World Languages and Cultures at BGSU, sit down to discuss teaching strategies in application to students learning math without English as their first language.
Announcer:
From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, this is BG Ideas.
Musical Intro:
I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment.
Jolie:
Welcome to the Big Ideas podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Dr. Jolie Sheffer, associate professor of English and American culture studies and director of ICS.
Jolie:
This is a special episode of the Big Ideas podcast, which we're recording during the COVID-19 pandemic. That means we're not in studio but are recording via phone and computer. Our sound quality will differ as a result, but we thought it was important to share with you some of the amazing work being done by members of our BGSU community. Perhaps now more than ever, we want to celebrate big ideas. As always, the opinions expressed are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of BGSU or its employees.
Jolie:
Today, I'm joined by two guests, Melody Freeman and Dr. Cynthia Ducar. Melody is a BGSU alum with an undergrad degree in mathematics education for ages 7 through 12 who is currently working on a master's degree in Spanish, also at BGSU. She received an ICS student research award for her project "Analyzing and assessing the preparedness of math teachers to meet the needs of students for whom English is not their native language". Her faculty mentor is Dr. Cindy Ducar who teaches graduate and undergraduate Spanish courses and topics such as applied linguistics, Hispanic socio-linguistics, and heritage language pedagogy. Welcome, Melody and Cindy. Thanks for being with me today.
Melody:
Hello.
Cynthia:
Good to see you.
Jolie:
Melody, could you start us off with a description of your project and what motivated you? What questions were you trying to answer?
Melody:
Yeah, so my project, the official title is BGSU in mathematics education graduates self-efficacy for the teaching of Hispanic English language learners. So this project kind of focuses on looking at our own program at BGSU, which I went through as an undergraduate. So it's kind of a unique thing where I can kind of look at that program for mathematics education, but specifically at those who are studying to get their degree in a 7 through 12 grade certification for teaching math and those same students who are going through the program or have just recently graduated, kind of like myself and my colleagues, who I graduated with at BGSU, and looking at and studying or investigating their levels of self-efficacy specifically for teaching students whose native language is Spanish or who are classified as English language learners.
Melody:
I guess I would say that where this project came from, why this question, why this project, I think part of it comes from the fact that I did go through the same exact program as an undergraduate, so I have kind of this firsthand experience and our program is one of the top in the nation. But any program still has gaps or things to work on, and so I did notice or take note of a few things as I did go through the program myself, one of those gaps in preparation, which is related to preparing our future teachers who teach math specifically, to be able to do that efficiently and effectively for this student population specifically. So I think that those are kind of the main components of wha
In this special COVID-19 episode of the BG Ideas podcast, we talk with Dr. Albert Dzur, professor of political science at BGSU and a Spring 2020 ICS Faculty Fellow. He studies collaborative governance and how citizen engagement with government institutions might impact the opioid crisis.
Transcript:
Announcer:
From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, this is BG Ideas.
Intro Music:
I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment.
Jolie Sheffer:
Welcome to the BG Ideas Podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Dr. Jolie Sheffer, associate professor of English and American studies and the director of ICS. This is a special episode of the BG Ideas Podcast, which we are recording during the COVID-19 pandemic. That means we're not in the studio, but working via phone and computer. Our sound quality will be different as a result. But now more than ever, I thought it was important to share with you some of the amazing work being done by members of the BGSU community. Even or especially when conditions are challenging, we need to recognize and celebrate great ideas.
Jolie Sheffer:
As always, the opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of BGSU or its employees. Today I'm speaking with Dr. Albert Dzur, a distinguished research professor of political science at BGSU. He studies citizen participation and power-sharing in criminal justice, healthcare, public administration and education. He joins me today to talk about research undergone in spring 2020 as an ICS faculty fellow. This project considers the opioid epidemic, particularly within Ohio, as a wicked problem. Thanks for joining me, Albert. I appreciate your flexibility here.
Albert Dzur:
Thanks for putting this on, Jolie.
Jolie Sheffer:
Obviously, due to COVID-19, a lot has changed in the world since the beginning of the semester. As an ICS faculty fellow, you were already released from teaching and service to focus on research. How has your work in life changed due to the coronavirus restrictions?
Albert Dzur:
So much academic research is already done inside, so as long as you have a good chair, a good table, internet, you can do it anywhere. But there was field work, part of this research, face-to-face interviewing, which is really important. That has to be set aside temporarily. Interlibrary loan services stopped for now and professional talks that I had scheduled on this have been postponed in some cases to one year later. But, I have to say the biggest negative impact is emotional. A lot of people found it very disorienting to have to think about health and wellbeing all the time. It's in the back of our minds all the time. Our loved ones, our friends, our colleagues, right? We care about them, but it's way in the back of our brain,. But this COVID-19 epidemic puts it at the forefront such like you're constantly thinking about it, and if you're a news junkie like myself, you read and listen to the news all the time.
Albert Dzur:
Anyway, I turn on my New York Times app and it's like looking at a gravestone every day. It's really sobering. I mean, I heard an interview the other day on BBC Radio with a woman who had lost her mom to COVID-19, and she was talking about how she had been watching the news on TV, and every day I guess in Britain they have cases, case numbers on the left and mortality rates on the right, and she was just talking very methodically about how she was watching this as an outsider and then one day her mom became one of the numbers on the left, and then a week later her mom became one of the numbers on the right. It was heartbreaking, and it was l
In this special COVID-19 edition of the BG Ideas podcast, guest host Gray Strain from the Center for Women and Gender Equity interviews BGSU alum Allie Lahey. Lahey is Senior Organizing Manager for NARAL Pro-Choice California. They discuss Allie’s work organizing for reproductive freedom, building people power, and developing strategies for engaging communities in the political and legislative process.
Transcript:
Announcer:
From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society. This is BG Ideas.
Intro Music:
I'm going to show you live with a wonderful experiment.
Gray Strain:
Welcome to the BG Ideas podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for The Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. As you may have already noticed, I am your guest host today, Gray Strain, Secretary for The Center for Women in Gender Equity as well as the Office of Title IX at BGSU. Thank you to Dr. Jolie Sheffer, of the ICS, for allowing us to guest host this episode. We appreciate the opportunity for collaboration.
Gray Strain:
This special episode of the BG Ideas podcast is being recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic. That means we're not in studio, but instead are talking via Zoom and phone. Our sound quality will be different as a result, especially since we are on opposite sides of the country, but we want to continue to share with our listeners some of the amazing work being done by members of the BGSU Community. Even or perhaps especially during a crisis, we at ICS and the CWGE, think it's important to celebrate great ideas. As always, the opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of BGSU or its employees.
Gray Strain:
Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Allie Lahey, Senior Organizing Manager for NARAL Pro-Choice California and an alumna of the BGSU Human Development and Family Studies Program. In her position at NARAL, Allie spearheads the organizing program in California, supporting volunteer member led action councils, mentoring organizers and strategizing to flex the people power of NARAL for campaign victories. She has extensive experience in grassroots organizing and electoral and legislative engagement with communities, both in her work at NARAL and her previous position as the Ohio State Organizer with URGE, United for Reproductive and Gender Equity, where she primarily engaged young people through the organization's first integrated voter engagement program. Allie joins me today to discuss her work in the field of reproductive freedom and what engaging communities and the political and legislative process looks like in practice. Hi Allie, thanks so much for being here.
Allie Lahey:
Hi. Thank you so much for having me. It's a huge honor.
Gray Strain:
No, we're glad to get started and have this really important conversation with you. So first thing's first, obviously due to COVID-19 a lot has changed quite rapidly for all of us, and face to face interaction is of course, you know necessarily limited. For someone like you who spends a lot of time working on building relationships and making those really important connections. How has your work really shifted during this pandemic?
Allie Lahey:
Yeah, that's a really great question. And something I've been grappling with for the last month. COVID 19 has changed organizing and a number of ways. I think that of course it changes things logistically in terms of like how we build relationships, how we meet people. I think obviously not being able to meet in person is a huge barrier and not being able to organize in large groups, to show our power, is a huge barrier in order to make our demands, pass legislation and also it impacts turning out people to
Dr. Peg Yacobucci, professor of Geology, and Blaze Campbell, PhD student in Bowling Green's higher education and Student Affairs, discuss their work on the nearly $1 million grant funded by the National Science Foundation's Advanced program, which is committed to increasing the participation of women in STEM fields.
Transcript:
Announcer:
From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of culture and society, this is BG Ideas.
Intro Music:
I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment.
Jolie Sheffer:
Welcome back to the Big Ideas Podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University.
Jolie Sheffer:
I'm Jolie Sheffer, associate professor of English and American Culture Studies, and the Director of ICS. Today we're joined by Dr. Peg Yacobucci and Blaze Campbell. Peg is a professor of geology here at BGSU and the principal investigator and project director of a three year nearly $1 million grant funded by the National Science Foundation's Advanced program, which is committed to increasing the participation of women in STEM fields.
Jolie Sheffer:
Blaze is a PhD student in Bowling Green's higher education and Student Affairs program and the Graduate Assistant on the BG ALLIES team.
Jolie Sheffer:
The BG allies program aims to develop systemic approaches to increase gender equity for faculty and STEM disciplines. To accomplish this BGSU ALLIES is developing models and policies to train faculty allies to reduce biases that impede the career advancement of women and other minoritized faculty.
Jolie Sheffer:
Peg and Blaze, thanks for joining me today.
Peg Yacobucci:
Thank you so much.
Blaze Campbell-Jacobs:
Thank you for having us.
Jolie Sheffer:
Let's start out with just some basic explanation of the grant that you received from the National Science Foundation. What is its purpose and who is it targeted at? What existing problems is it trying to solve?
Peg Yacobucci:
So the BGSU ALLIES project is seeking to address some of the barriers that women and other minoritized faculty in STEM disciplines here at BGSU face in terms of their career advancement. Our preliminary research data collection efforts have shown that women and minority faculty are not represented in our applicant pools for faculty positions at the same rate they are earning PhDs.
Peg Yacobucci:
We also found that especially at the mid career level, associate professor level, women in minority faculty are stalling out. They're less likely to go up for full professor, they're less likely to move into leadership positions in particular. And all of these things seem to be tied to some systemic and interpersonal issues, reflecting biases that are serving as barriers to women and minority faculty here at BGSU.
Jolie Sheffer:
This initiative has a two pronged approach that is about both inclusive leadership and faculty allies. Can you talk about the goals of each aspect of the project? How do they relate to each other?
Peg Yacobucci:
So research has shown clearly that in order to really transform an institution of higher education, you need to work both bottom up and top down. So the faculty allies portion of our project is focusing on how we can work with faculty within STEM and social science departments here at BGSU to learn more about some of these barriers that women faculty face, and to learn specific strategies to address things like microaggressions and the everyday biases and barriers that faculty face within their own departments.
Peg Yacobucci:
The inclusive leadership piece is really focusing more top down, working with faculty administrators. Ch
Madi Stump, a BGSU student and winner of the ICS Student Research Award, and Chris Gajewicz, Natural Resources Coordinator for the City of Bowling Green, discuss environmental stewardship, human's relationship to nature, and restoration in local parks.
Transcript:
Intro:
From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society. This is BG Ideas.
Intro Music:
I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment.
Jolie Sheffer:
Welcome to the Big Ideas podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the school of media and communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Jolie Sheffer, associate professor of English and American culture studies and the director of ICS. Today, I'm joined by two guests, Madi Stump and Chris Gajewicz. Madi's an undergraduate environmental policy and analysis major who's currently working on a research project entitle, "Listening and Learning: Lessons from the Land." She's the first winner of the ICS Student Research Award. Chris is the natural resources coordinator for the city of Bowling Green and instructor at Bowling Green State University and a BGSU alum. Welcome, Madi and Chris.
Chris Gajewicz:
Hi.
Jolie Sheffer:
Thanks for being with me. How did each of you get interested in thinking about different ideas of environmental stewardship?
Madi Stump:
I've always cared really deeply about the environment. Growing up, I spent a lot of time in my backyard or in my front yard or my neighbor's front yard pretending to make pizzas out of dirt and grass and just really spending more time outside than I did inside. I remember being called in for dinner and being called in to do homework rather than being told to get out and enjoy being outside. That deep love and that deep connection to being outside that I experienced throughout my childhood made me really invested in protecting the environment, but when I first came to BGSU, I was actually a music performance student. So I didn't study the environment initially in college, but after my first year, decided that music was not the path for me and really rekindled that relationship with nature and that deep sense of connection and belonging that I felt in nature and have this strong desire to protect places that other people could have that similar experience of belonging and inclusion in the natural world. That's how I found environmental policy and I'm looking to continue this work in my future.
Jolie Sheffer:
What about for you, Chris.
Chris Gajewicz:
It started a long time ago when I was a little, little kid and I spent a lot of time outside, very similar to Madi. I was outside a lot and the only rule was is that when my mom rang the bell, it was time to come in and it was a big farm bell and she would ring the bell and no matter where you were, you needed to stop what you were doing. It was really hard for me because I loved going out into the woods and building forts and digging trenches and making caves and lighting things on fire and just being like a typical kid and spending my time just being out around nature. I just enjoyed it so much and I didn't even know why. It wasn't a conscious kind of a thing. It was there. We had a huge woods behind our house that was about a mile square and that was my playground as I was a kid growing up. So I was able to kind of run around out there.
Chris Gajewicz:
My parents never worried about where I was, what I was doing when I was coming home. I just knew that when the bell rang, I needed to stop what I was doing and make my way back. But there was never a concern about my wellbeing or any of that when I was growing up being outside. So that sort of turned itself into going from, I guess a vocation or an advocation to a vocation and turning it into so
Jackson Bliss is an assistant professor of creative writing at BGSU. His genre-bending fiction focuses on being mixed-race in a global world. This episode features a conversation about exploring identity through writing and a reading from his forthcoming novel, The Amnesia of June Bugs.
Transcript:
Intro:
This podcast features instances of explicit language. If you are listening with children, you may want to save this conversation for later.
Intro:
From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, this is BG Ideas.
Musical Intro:
I'm going to show you this. It's a wonderful experiment.
Jolie Sheffer:
Welcome to the Big Ideas Podcast, brought to you by the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Dr. Jolie Sheffer, associate professor of English and American culture studies and the director of ICS.
Jolie Sheffer:
Today I'm joined by Dr. Jackson Kanahashi Bliss. Bliss is an assistant professor in the creative writing program here at BGSU. He's published in The New York Times, The Boston Review, Ploughshares, Tin House, and many other publications. He earned his MFA from the University of Notre Dame and his PhD in literature and creative writing from the University of Southern California. Today we have the pleasure of hearing him read from his new work, Amnesia of Junebugs. Thanks for joining me today, Jackson.
Jackson Bliss:
Happy to be here.
Jolie Sheffer:
You are both a creative writer and a literary scholar. How do you think of your creative writing as being shaped by scholarship on Asian American literature? Are there other ways in which you see your work as interdisciplinary?
Jackson Bliss:
Yeah, it's a funny marriage, actually, and I think it's an accidental one, because, in the beginning, I wrote most experimentally, and then when I started studying Asian American studies, I realized there was a sort of strong bent towards experimentalism and activism and how it connects to ethnic nationalism, ethnic studies, academic studies, and academic centers and universities. So this was completely accidental. I didn't intentionally sort of imitate the preferred genre of activist-minded APIA literature. It just sort of happened that way. But the more I studied Asian American studies, particularly works like Immigrant Acts by Lisa ... What's her last name?
Jolie Sheffer:
Lowe.
Jackson Bliss:
Lisa Lowe. Yeah. It sort of made me realize there's a strong sort of push against the stylistics of the empire, which tends to be connected to linear narratives and coming-of-age stories. That made me want to write that story, particularly because I found it a little bit both historically informed, but also generically arbitrary that a particular sub-genre of fiction would supposedly work so well, right, in something that we are actively trying to deconstruct.
Jackson Bliss:
I feel like writers like Viet Thanh Nguyen are perfect examples of people who said, "No, you can have a narrative arc and do a lot of important work instead of deconstructing standardized, sort of imposed European models of narrative."
Jackson Bliss:
So I think all of those things appealed to me a lot. So it became much more conscious the more I wrote fiction, I think. Yeah. But in the beginning, it was totally accidental and organic.
Jolie Sheffer:
Your peace Dukkha, My Love is an experimental hypertext novella, created for the web. Can you describe our audience, what that term means? What is an electronic novella, and what can people expect when encountering a text like that? What were you hoping to explore, both formally and thematically?
Jackson Bliss:
I think part of
Dr. Melissa K. Miller, 2019 ICS Faculty Fellow and Associate Professor of Political Science at BGSU, discusses her research on women in politics. Dr. Miller shares her findings from her analysis of media coverage of the unprecedented number of women running for office during the 2018 election cycle. Dr. Miller explores how media coverage influences voter perception of mothers running for office.
Transcript:
Introduction:
From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society. This is BG Ideas.
Musical Intro:
I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment.
Jolie S.:
To the BG Ideas podcast. A collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Jolie Sheffer, an associate professor of English and American culture studies and the director of ICS. Today I'm joined by one of ICS' faculty fellows, Dr. Melissa K. Miller. She's an associate professor of political science and affiliated faculty in the department of women's gender and sexuality studies here at BGSU. Her current research is focused on women who are mothers who ran congressional campaigns in the 2018 midterm elections. This is the first extensive bi-partisan study of mother candidates and we're thrilled to be here to discuss her research. Thanks for joining me, Melissa.
Melissa M.:
Thanks for having me.
Jolie S.:
The 2018 midterm elections really put the spotlight on women running for political office. Can you talk to us about what initially drew you to focus on candidates who were also mothers?
Melissa M.:
I really have always been interested in the intersection of women, media, voters, campaigning. Gender and politics is a study of my research and I'm an expert on American politics. What happened? I go all the way back to 2008. A friend and colleague of mine, Dr. Jeff Peak, he's a presidency scholar. I'm a gender scholar within the political science department and we decided to do a collaborative project where we content coded press coverage of the presidential candidates back in 2008 and we thought what a great slew of candidates to look at. I of course was most interested in looking at how Hillary Clinton was covered by the press in her 2008 attempt to get the democratic nomination.
Melissa M.:
He was interested in all the candidates as a presidency scholar and so we did a press coverage study of Hillary Clinton and it was amazing to do. We published our results in the journal called Politics and Gender and there were some real gendered aspects of her coverage that really jumped out. In the midst of that campaign, from my perspective as a gender scholar, I was so pleased to be able to study Hillary Clinton's press coverage. We content coded 6,000 news articles about the democratic race specifically to look at her coverage and then come around August, John McCain, the Republican nominee named Sarah Palin, the Alaska governor as his running mate. And so suddenly our study is underway and it was like we'd won the lottery.
Melissa M.:
At least it felt that way for me. Holy cow, now I can study a Republican woman also competing not for president but as a vice presidential running mate. So we also, Jeff Peak and I, did a study of how Sarah Palin was covered and in both Clinton's coverage and Palin's coverage back in 2008 there were real gendered coverage markers. Their gender was mentioned at a disproportionate rate. Their marital status was mentioned at a disproportionate rate. In Hillary Clinton's case, her press coverage was much more negative than her male rivals and the content of that negative coverage was highly personal. Really personal descriptives that were very negative about her.
Melissa M.:
For Sarah Palin, her coverage was very distinguished by t
Dr Mona-Hanna Attisha , the pediatrician whose press conference and testimony before Congress alerted the public about the Flint, Michigan water crisis and the author of BGSU's 2019-2020 Common Read, What the Eyes Don't See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance and Hope in an American City and Dr. Karen Johnson-Webb, associate professor of geography at BGSU, whose research includes racial disparities in health, discuss environmental racism and the Flint water crisis.
Transcript:
Introduction:
From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, this is BG Ideas.
Musical Intro:
I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment.
Dr Jolie Sheffer:
Welcome to the Big Ideas podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Dr Jolie Sheffer, associate professor of English and American culture studies and the director of ICS. Today we're joined by Dr Mona-Hanna Attisha and Dr. Karen Johnson-Webb. Dr Hanna-Attisha is a pediatrician who's press conference and testimony before Congress alerted the public about the Flint, Michigan water crisis. She's the author of BGSU's 2019-2020 Common Read, What the Eyes Don't See A Story of Crisis, Resistance and Hope in an American City.
Dr Jolie Sheffer:
Dr. Johnson-Webb is an associate professor of geography at BGSU. Her research includes racial disparities in health.
Dr Jolie Sheffer:
Thanks for joining me today.
Mona Hanna-Attisha:
It's great to be with you.
Karen Johnson-Webb:
Thanks for having me.
Dr Jolie Sheffer:
Mona you played an important role in alerting the public about the Flint water crisis and advocating for the city's residents. Can you begin to just tell our audience how you began practicing medicine in Flint and how that led into your involvement in the water crisis?
Mona Hanna-Attisha:
Yeah, so I first got a flavor of medicine in Flint as a medical student. So I went to Michigan State University's College of Human Medicine and it's actually the first community based medical school. So the medical school is founded to really kind of serve the rest of the state, and Flint was one of its original campuses. So as a medical student over 20 plus years ago I was in Flint for my clinical training and that's where I really fell in love with the city and I fell in love with the discipline of pediatrics. I then went to Detroit for about 10 plus years to do my residency at the Children's Hospital in Michigan. And then in 2011 I had this amazing opportunity to come back to Flint to give back to the city that really gave me so much and to serve as their pediatric residency director, which means I got to oversee the training of future pediatricians.
Dr Jolie Sheffer:
Okay. How did you first learn about the possibility of elevated lead levels in Flint's water supply?
Mona Hanna-Attisha:
So I learned about the issue of lead kind of late in the story. So in April of 2014 Flint changed their water source from the great lakes, which we had been getting for over half a century to the Flint River. And this was done while we were under kind of state appointed emergency management and it was all about saving money. So that happened in April of 2014 and there was kind of concerns from the very beginning about things like color and odor and taste and bacteria. And throughout this time all the people in power said everything was okay. So I was telling my patients for about a year and a half when they came in with concerns about the water, that everything was okay because all these really important scientists were saying everything was okay. But that all changed when I heard about the possibility of lead in the water. And that happened in
Keynote speakers for the 2019 Women of Color Leadership Summit Dr. Sekile Nzinga-Johnson (Director of the Women's Center at Northwestern University) and KaeLyn Rich (queer feminist, a direct-action organizer, a nonprofit leader, and a sexuality educator in upstate New York) discuss women of color in places of leadership, as well as collaboration across universities between women of color.
Transcript:
Introduction:
From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, this is BG Ideas.
Intro Song Lyrics:
I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment.
Jolie Sheffer:
Welcome back to the BG Ideas podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I am Jolie Sheffer, Associate Professor of English and American Culture Studies and the Director of ICS.
Jolie Sheffer:
Today we are joined by two very special guests, Dr. Sekile Nzinga-Johnson and KaeLyn Rich. Dr. Sekile Nzinga-Johnson currently serves as Director of the Women's Center at Northwestern University. KaeLyn Rich is a queer feminist, a direct action organizer, a nonprofit leader, and a sexuality educator in upstate New York. On behalf of ICS and the Center for Women and Gender Equity, I'd like to welcome you both to BGSU. I'm thrilled to have you here as keynote speakers for the 2019 Women of Color Leadership Summit.
Jolie Sheffer:
The summit is designed to increase the number of women of color in places of leadership to encourage collaboration across the university as well as share the lessons and knowledge on leadership practice developed and modeled by women of color. Thanks again for joining me. I'd like each of you to give a little background on your current work, then how you came to the role you now occupy. What has been your own path to becoming a leader? Sekile?
Dr. Sekile Nzinga-Johsnon:
That's a great question. I appreciate you asking. I often interpreted my career, up until a few years ago, I interpreted my career as being disjointed. Every time I took a pivot in my career I felt like I was adding all of these kind of disjointed parts of myself. I started as a clinician, and then I'm a researcher, and now I'm really focused on training social workers as a professor. And I couldn't quite see what the narrative was or what the arc was in my career. And then I came to Chicago and continued my work as a professor and scholar and researcher and began also doing policy work. And again, I felt like these were all very disjointed. I couldn't see that where the thread was.
Dr. Sekile Nzinga-Johsnon:
And then I was interviewing for my position at Northwestern and it was within that interview that it all began to gel for me. And I realized that each and every one of these pieces, being a clinician, being an activist, working in policy, working in research, being an educator, that each one of these pieces prepared me to now step into my role as the Director of the Women's Center. And that was my narrative and it wasn't disjointed, but actually that they were building me in all these different skillsets that I would need to move into this leadership role. Because I actually like doing all of those things. I like doing research, and I like policy, and I like being able to be empathic towards people, which is a use of my clinical skills.
Dr. Sekile Nzinga-Johsnon:
And I also like to educate folks and I love to be in community and in collaboration and coalition with folks. And so, all of those things are pieces oof my leadership style, and they're things that I think we actually need if we're going to be change agents, a catalyst for change within institutional settings.
Jolie Sheffer:
And so what is your vision now for the Women's Center an
Dr Starr E. Keyes, Associate Professor within the school of counseling and special education at BGSU, discusses her research undergone in the Fall of 2019 as an ICS Faculty Fellow. Her project, entitled “Disability, Race, and the School-to-Prison Pipeline,” builds on her background studying the education system regarding learning abilities and special education, as well as research related to urban school systems and behavioral interventions.
Transcript:
Introduction:
From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the study of culture and society. This is BG ideas.
Musical Intro Lyrics:
I'm going to show you them with a wonderful experiment.
Jolie Sheffer:
Welcome to the big ideas podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the study of culture and society and the school of media and communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Jolie Schaeffer, associate professor of English and American culture studies and the director of ICS. Today I'm joined by Dr Starrr E. Keyes an associate professor at Bowling Green in the school of counseling and special education this semester. She's an ICS faculty fellow. Dr Keyes has done research on a wide variety of subjects relating to the education system, related to learning abilities and special education as well as research related to urban school systems and behavioral interventions. Dr Keyes received her BA and PhD from the Ohio state University and her master's in education from the University of Toledo. Today we're discussing her new research project entitled Disability, Race, and the School to Prison Pipeline. Thanks for coming to join me today, Starr.
Starr Keyes:
Thanks for having me.
Jolie Sheffer:
Tell me how you came to study this topic. What was your path from your previous research into this particular project?
Starr Keyes:
Yeah, I think it's a combination of a lot of experience personally and professionally. That got me to this point right now. But before this I was actually looking at the effects of computer assisted reading instruction on students' fluency, their reading fluency. And that's really important, right? Because we know students from urban areas tend to come to school behind in skills. And so I really want it to help them with their reading skills. But I started thinking about the bigger issues at play.
Starr Keyes:
And what else is going on in the educational system and how we can better serve students. And what's going on in the media also plays a role. But it's also something that I've just been interested in for a while. And so really just looking at, what contributes to this phenomenon, this school to prison pipeline and what can we do about it? W what does the research look like? What does research say about it? And so that's really kind of what got me started on it, just finishing up the computer system, reading instruction, and then after tenure being able to go into something a little bit more, deep if you will.
Jolie Sheffer:
We've been hearing a lot about the role of racism and the treatment of students leading to disproportionate numbers of minority and poor students being pushed into the criminal justice system. What role does disability play in the school-to-prison pipeline?
Starr Keyes:
Right, so students who have disabilities are often disproportionately represented, right? So what we know is that race and disability are some of the biggest factors that make students end up in this system, the school-to-prison pipeline. And some of those students who have disabilities may or may not, or who had been categorized as having disabilities may or may not actually have them. So there's a larger issue of disproportionality of these students in special education in the first place saying they have a disability.
Jolie Sheffer:
So can yo
Dr. Nicole M. Jackson, Associate Professor of History at BGSU, discusses her research undergone in the Fall of 2019 as an ICS Faculty Fellow. Her project, titled “Women Writing Black to the British Empire,” considers black British women's contemporary popular literature as a site for working out ideas about race, sex, gender, love, and national belongings.
Transcript:
Introduction:
From Bowling Green State University and the Institute For the Study of Culture and Society, this is BG Ideas.
Intro Song Lyrics:
I'm going to show you this. What a wonderful experiment.
Jolie Sheffer:
Welcome to the Big Ideas podcast, a collaboration between the Institute For the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Dr. Jolie Sheffer, Associate Professor of English and American Culture Studies and the Director of ICS. Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Nicole M. Jackson, who is an Associate Professor of History. She researches the contemporary African diaspora with a focus on post World War II black social movements, migrations, race, and imperialism in Britain and the United States. She joins me today to talk about research undergone in fall, 2019, as an ICS faculty fellow. This project considers black British women's contemporary popular literature as a site for working out ideas about race, sex, gender, love, and national belongings. I'm very pleased to sit down with you today and learn more about your work and an alternative canon of black British women's literature. Thanks for being here, Nicole.
Nicole Jackson:
Thanks for having me.
Jolie Sheffer:
Why don't we begin by having you give a little background on your research and how you came to be interested in this particular project.
Nicole Jackson:
So my PhD research, what this shoots off from is I look at black British and African American postwar social movements about migrant populations. So in the US, I'm looking at people who are migrating at the end of the second World War to primarily the West. I'm looking at California. And then in the UK, I'm looking at Caribbean people who are migrating to primarily London. And all of my work is about community activism, so I want to understand how these migrants become socially active around things that are affecting their community. And in particular, for the dissertation I was looking at three frames, so education, reproductive justice, and policing. And then that blew out a little bit more to looking at belonging and citizenship. Although that was embedded at the time, not that I realized that it was important.
Nicole Jackson:
And so in the UK, part of what I saw was that so much of their community activism was institution building. And probably the most significant institution were black bookshops. They were spaces of congregation, they were spaces of education, so there were a lot of like extracurricular educational things happening, like Saturday schools and afterschool programs. And they were also printing houses, so they were printing a wide range of work. So some academic texts, some informational pamphlets, and a lot of poetry from community members, and then as well novels. So that's the connection between community activism and social movements and black literature.
Jolie Sheffer:
I'm curious as to, you're a historian, but this project has you looking at literature. So how do you approach the study of this literature from your perspective as a historian?
Nicole Jackson:
Carefully. I think I'm aided in the fact that Caribbean people have a really long history of artistic production. So there is a really large body of work, especially for instance Carol Boyce Davies, who was looking at migrant Caribbean population. She does the US and the UK. So there are people who are looking at Cari
Linda Butler (a photographer who's been documenting the effects of climate change for a number of years, most recently focusing on the Great Lakes), and Lynn Whitney (associate professor of photography at BGSU, whose celebrated work consists of black and white photographs of Lake Erie) discuss merging the worlds of fine art and environmental activism.
Transcript:
Introduction:
From Bowling Green State University, and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, this is BG Ideas.
Intro Song Lyrics:
I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment.
Jolie Sheffer:
Welcome to the Big Ideas podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Jolie Scheffer, associate professor of English and American cultural studies, and the director of ICS. Today, I have the honor of being joined by two women photographers who bring together the worlds of fine art and environmental activism. We have with us Linda Butler, and Lynn Whitney. Linda is a photographer who's been documenting the effects of climate change for a number of years, most recently focusing on the Great Lakes. Lynn Whitney is an associate professor of photography here at BGSU, whose work is in the permanent collections of the Toledo Museum of Art and Yale University. Much of Lynn's work consists of black and white photographs of Lake Erie.
Jolie Sheffer:
Welcome, and thanks for talking with me today. To begin with, I'd like each of you to talk about how you came to your current landscape work about the Great Lakes, and what motivates you to do this particular work at this time. Linda, you start us off?
Linda Butler:
Well, I'm going to be a little nervous too, so we'll work through it, but, I guess, my main concern as a human being right now is what's happening to our planet. And, global warming is causing things like unusual storms, and I think this part of the country, for instance, the Maumee River with all its flooding, and the problems flooding causes to the lake itself, because fertilizer is being washed off the fields and going into the lake, I mean, it was an ideal setting to take photographs in. And, it's been a very rich experience for me to work at this end of the state, although, I worked actually around all of Lake Erie. And, I'm tracking both things like renewable energy projects, and which governments are doing more in that area, as well as really heavy industry that uses a lot of energy to make steel or concrete, and finding out where the carbon dioxide is coming from, and, it's heavy industry, and it's also from coal running power plants; coal.
Linda Butler:
And, if you go around the lake, there a lot of ways that coal is being delivered to barges and so on. And so, it's really evident all around the lake, but less so in Canada, because, the coast of Canada has much less industry, and also the Government of Canada has put a lot of money into renewable energy.
Jolie Sheffer:
So, in your work, you really show how the Great Lakes are the best and the worst of the current state of climate change and industrial effects on the landscape in some.
Linda Butler:
Well, I can't comment on the other lakes, because I really know Lake Erie, but there's a lot to learn from Lake Erie and how we're using this water.
Jolie Sheffer:
What about you, Lynn, how did you come to ... This is a long term project, so what is your story been and getting interested in the lake?
Lynn Whitney:
My story is interesting, because my story begins with the Maumee River and the bridge construction that happened over the Maumee River. I was commissioned to photograph the bridge that was constructed there, the Veterans Memorial Skyway, from the Toledo Museum of Art, and the river, obviou
Dr. Justin Rex, Assistant Professor of Political Science at BGSU and chair of an interdisciplinary ICS research cluster studying US poverty and its many dimensions, discusses his work on housing affordability and equity in Northwest Ohio.
Transcript:
Introduction:
From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, this is BG Ideas.
Intro Song Lyrics:
I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment.
Jolie Sheffer:
This is the BG Ideas podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Jolie Sheffer, Associate Professor of English and American Culture Studies and the Director of ICS. Today we are joined by Dr. Justin Rex, an Assistant Professor of Political Science here at BGSU. Dr. Rex's scholarly research examines First Amendment cases in the Supreme Court as well as regulations of food, consumer transactions, and advertising. He's also the chair of an interdisciplinary ICS research cluster studying US poverty and its many dimensions. I'd like to welcome you here today, and I'm thrilled to be able to discuss your work on housing affordability and equity in our region. Thanks for joining me, Justin.
Justin Rex:
Thanks for having me.
Jolie Sheffer:
I'm curious about, given your background, how did you come to be thinking about housing-related issues?
Justin Rex:
Sure. I think part of it came from some of my background teaching at Wayne State University in Detroit. And after I graduated from grad school there, I taught in the Honors College, and we taught a series of interdisciplinary introductory courses for all Honors College freshmen on Detroit and an American Government course that was attached to it. Learning about the history of Detroit, one thing that really surprised me is somebody that was new to really urban studies was seeing how central housing was, as a battleground and a political battle for the development of that city in terms of people fighting neighborhood integration, literally fighting, and also the sort of de facto fighting that went over who was living where that you saw through practice like redlining and so forth throughout its history. That kind of just opened up my eyes that housing was really a central fight politically that was going on, and it really shaped a lot of the politics of that city, and Detroit being a microcosm for what was going on in a lot of different cities.
Justin Rex:
That was kind of the first thing that opened up my eyes, really, to thinking about housing as a central issue, for thinking about urban issues, but also just some of my interest more broadly in inequality. Housing is central there too, given past housing practice and the way federal government policies and other policies have shifted wealth to certain classes of citizens through housing policy as well.
Jolie Sheffer:
Could you explain a little bit about some of those policies in history? What is redlining? How did mortgage practices work to further inequality?
Justin Rex:
Yes. Redlining came from the Federal Housing Administration when it decided it was going to start trying to promote home ownership and give out loans to people. They had to, like anybody making a loan, had to make a decision about what's a good investment. Who is somebody that's going to be able to repay this loan so that we're not going to lose our money? They had to decide what kind of neighborhoods they wanted to lend to, and in practice, what that meant is that quote unquote good investments tended to be in white neighborhoods because they thought those would maintain values. The redlining, or the term, comes from literal red lines that were drawn on maps to indicate which neighborhoods were good places for investment
Rick Valicenti (founder and design director of Thirst, a communication design practice for clients in the architectural, performing arts and education communities), Iker Gil (architect, director of MAS Studio, editor in chief of the quarterly design journal, MAS Context), and Jenn Stucker (associate professor and division chair of graphic design at BGSU, founding board member of the American Institute of Graphic Arts, AIGA Toledo) discuss community-based collaborative design.
Transcript:
Introduction:
From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, this is BG Ideas.
Intro Song Lyrics:
I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment.
Jolie Sheffer:
Welcome to the BG Ideas podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Jolie Sheffer, associate professor of English and american culture studies and the director of ICS. Today we're joined by three guests working in collaborative design fields. First is Rick Valicenti, the founder and design director of Thirst, a communication design practice for clients in the architectural, performing arts and education communities. His work has been exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art and resides in the permanent collections of the Yale University Library, Denver Art Museum, and the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2011, he was honored by the White House with the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award for communication design.
Jolie Sheffer:
We're also joined by Iker Gil, an architect, the director of MAS Studio, editor in chief of the quarterly design journal, MAS Context, and the editor of the book, Shanghai Transforming. He curated the exhibition, Bold: Alternative Scenarios for Chicago, included in the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial. Iker is the associate curator of the US Pavilion at the 16th Annual Venice Architecture Biennale. In 2010, he received the Emerging Visions Award from the Chicago Architectural Club.
Jolie Sheffer:
Finally, I'd like to welcome Jenn Stucker an associate professor and division chair of graphic design at BGSU. Her work has been published in several books on design and she's received various awards including two international design awards from How Magazine for her community based works in Toledo. She's also a founding board member of the American Institute of Graphic Arts, AIGA Toledo. And she previously co-chaired two national AIGA design education conferences.
Jolie Sheffer:
The three of them are here to talk to me as part of the Edwin H. Simmons Creative Minds series. Thank you and welcome to BGSU. I'm thrilled to discuss more of your work on creativity and collaboration. I like to start by having you each give a little background on your current work and how you came into the kind of design work that you're doing. So Rick, how did your career change from your time as a student at BGSU to your work now? What are some of those major u-turns or forks in the road for you?
Rick Valicenti:
Well, thank you. That's a good question. That's a really good question. Okay, so let me fast backwards to 1973 when I graduated from Bowling Green. I went back to Pittsburgh, spent some time in a steel mill for two years, went to graduate school at the University of Iowa. Came to Chicago afterwards with two graduate degrees in photography and discovered that I was not interested in photographing hotdogs, cornflakes and beer. So with that I thought I would leverage a time in the writer's workshop doing a little bit of letter press work as well as my time at Bowling Green studying design. And I thought I'll be a designer. It wasn't that easy. But it has been a journey for now almost four decades since then to get to a place where I feel there's relevance i
Antoinette Carroll (Graphic designer, entrepreneur, and founder and CEO of Creative Reaction Lab) and BGSU graphic design lecturer Amy Fiedler discuss the importance of individuals taking action to solve problems affecting their communities, specifically in regards to training and challenging Black and Latinx youth to become leaders designing healthy and racially equitable communities.
Transcript:
Introduction:
From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, this is BG Ideas.
Intro Song Lyrics:
I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment.
Jolie Sheffer:
Welcome to the BG Ideas podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Jolie Sheffer, associate professor of English and American cultural studies and the director of ICS.
Jolie Sheffer:
Today, we are joined by Antoinette Carroll and Amy Fiddler. Antoinette is a graphic designer, entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of Creative Reaction Lab, a nonprofit youth led social impact collaborative. Her work focuses on designing more just and equitable communities and organizations. Amy is a lecturer in graphic design here at BGSU. Thanks for taking the time to be here with me today.
Antoinette Carroll:
No problem. I'm excited to be here.
Jolie Sheffer:
Antoinette, can you start by telling us how you came to found the Creative Reaction Lab in St. Louis? What led you to do this kind of work?
Antoinette Carroll:
So Creative Reaction Lab was founded in response to [inaudible 00:01:05] Ferguson, with myself being a former Ferguson resident, as well as a former head of communications at a diverse inclusion nonprofit and I was really interested in how do we convene community members to actually come up with their own interventions to address issues around race and other issues around division within our city.
Antoinette Carroll:
And so, Creative Reaction Lab actually originally started as a 24 hour challenge. There was no intention for it to be a business. I technically had a full time job with a paycheck, but when I actually brought people together, which were activists, designers, technologists, and they came up with their own interventions, actually five and all were activated in St. Louis within a year. I started to see that there was actually some power in what we were doing and how we were starting to shift the conversation from just a simple dialogue to how do we have dialogue and action at the same time.
Antoinette Carroll:
Fast forward to where we are now. We no longer do 24 hour challenges, but we still have creative problem solving, design, community voice central to the work that we do and understand that community members are the best ones to come up with the interventions to address the problems impacting them because they actually are closest to the approaches that will help them. They understand it more deeply to really create that systemic change that we truly need for a community growth.
Jolie Sheffer:
Great. And Amy, how did you come to be interested in design for social good?
Amy Fiddler:
I think design for social good is something that I've always had an opportunity to work in that space because being a part of academia, you have an opportunity to do projects on the side or bring them into the classroom can have a positive impact, but what is really important is finding the right ways to do that so that you're not swooping in as this authority figure.
Amy Fiddler:
And so, bringing Antoinette in and learning and researching more on those themes really helps us understand how to do that better.
Jolie Sheffer:
And what do you both think is so important and relat
Maurice Cherry (designer and digital creator in Atlanta, currently working as a creative strategist at Glitch and the creator and host of the podcast Revision Path) and Taylor Simone (graphic design faculty member at BGSU, graphic artist, designer and writer from Metro Detroit) discuss highlighting the work of black designers, developers, and digital creatives, or more broadly, race, technology, and design.
Transcript:
Introduction:
From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society. This is BG Ideas.
Intro Song Lyrics:
I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment.
Jolie S.:
Welcome to the Big Ideas podcast collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Jolie Sheffer, associate professor of English and American culture studies and the director of ICS. Today I'm joined by Maurice Cherry and Taylor Simone. Cherry is a designer and digital creator in Atlanta, currently working as a creative strategist at Glitch and the creator and host of the podcast Revision Path where he highlights the work of black designers, developers, and digital creatives.
Jolie S.:
He was the 2018 recipient of the Steven Heller Prize for Cultural Commentary from the American Institute of Graphic Arts and was included in the 2018 edition of The Root's annual list of the most influential African-Americans age 25 to 45. Taylor Simone is a graphic artist, designer and writer from Metro Detroit. She previously worked at the Detroit Institute of Art. She's currently a faculty member teaching graphic design here at Bowling Green State University. Thanks so much for talking with me today. Maurice, can you tell us a little bit about how you came to focus your design work so much on social media and digital formats?
Maurice C.:
Oh wow, that's a really good question. So when I first started really working with design, it had all been on computers. It was really first starting out with the Apple IIe computer doing a little USA Rocket in basic. That was sort of my first time really experimenting with design and with computer graphics. So it kind of came together in that way. And then when I was in high school, I had the opportunity to redesign my school's newspaper. So that was my first time sort of cutting my teeth with using Adobe Photoshop, Adobe PageMaker, which doesn't exist anymore, Adobe Illustrator, etc. And I always sort of had digital design as sort of a hobby because I had been so into computers. I had started learning HTML in high school and it was something that I always did as a hobby on the side. So my design practice sort of evolved in the same time as my interest in working with computers and doing programming, so it sort of ran at the same pace.
Jolie S.:
How do you approach teaching design and what ideas or practices do you emphasize for young people entering into design fields?
Maurice C.:
I always think it's good to start with a project. There is a concept out there that's called Ultra Learning where essentially you are learning how to do something in a very quick amount of time. I think the old school ways of learning are, you read a book, you do the exercises in the book and then you hopefully try to apply those skills to your future work in some way. And I think what studies have shown is that can be somewhat of an inefficient process because the things that you do out in the real world or in your job are going to be different from what's in a textbook. That's a very sort of dated reference when you're doing that. Whereas if you're doing a project, you're able to apply the skills in real time to whatever it is that you're doing. And it doesn't necessarily have to be a public facing project.
Maurice C.:
It can be a private pr
Dr. Amilcar Challu (Associate Professor and Chair of History at BGSU) and Dr. Nathan Hensley (Assistant Professor of Sustainability Education in the School of the Earth, Environment, and Society at BGSU) discuss their research as the first recipients of the ICS Team Teaching Program grant, which supports innovative interdisciplinary curriculum revision. In their course, Dr. Challu and Dr. Hensley plan to bring together the humanities and environmental studies, and aim to develop a new place-based curriculum at BGSU, with the goal of shaping students into stewards and sustainers of nature who can effectively narrate powerful human experiences of the environment.
Transcript:
Introduction:
From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, this is BG Ideas.
Intro Song Lyrics:
I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment.
Jolie S.:
Welcome to the Big Ideas Podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Dr. Jolie Sheffer, Associate Professor of English and American Culture Studies and the Director of ICS.
Jolie S.:
Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Amilcar Challu and Dr. Nathan Hensley. Dr. Challu is Associate Professor and Chair of History at BGSU. His research focuses on the history of poverty, nutrition, and economic inequality in Latin America. He teaches courses ranging from Latin American history surveys, to the History of Capitalism, to the History of Environmentalism in the U.S.
Jolie S.:
Dr. Hensley is an Assistant Professor of Sustainability Education in the School of the Earth, Environment, and Society here at BGSU. His research interests include understanding the intersection between curriculum theory, place-based education, and sustainability studies. In his most recent scholarship, he explores how to prepare young people to face challenges such as climate change, harmful algal blooms, and promoting an ethic of stewardship.
Jolie S.:
These two, together, are the first recipients of the ICS Team Teaching Program grant, which supports innovative interdisciplinary curriculum revision. In their course, Dr. Challu and Dr. Hensley plan to bring together the humanities and environmental studies. The team teaching project grew out of their National Endowment for the Humanities Grant called the Black Swamp Project. The Black Swamp Project aims to develop a new place-based curriculum here at BGSU with the goal of shaping students into stewards and sustainers of nature who can effectively narrate powerful human experiences of the environment.
Jolie S.:
Thanks for joining me today.
Amilcar C.:
Thank you.
Nathan H.:
Thank you for having us.
Jolie S.:
Let's start by talking about how each of you came to focus on sustainability. Nathan, can you tell us a little bit about your background and how it relates to your interest in the local landscape?
Nathan H.:
Absolutely. I want to say again, thanks for having us here. We're really excited to talk with you.
Nathan H.:
So my background in terms of sustainability I would say started way back in my junior year in high school. I participated in an outdoor education program that was called the Student Conservation Association, SCA for short, and it was a five-week wilderness-based program where we did conservation projects such as trail-building, trail maintenance, and outdoor recreation, you can't forget about that. That's important stuff there. And what we did is we were able to grow together as a group. There were six high school students that were there and one crew leader. And that really inspired me to pursue the field of sustainability, although it wasn't really called th
Dr. Arne Spohr, Associate Professor of musicology at BGSU and Spring 2019 ICS faculty fellow, discusses his research project entitled Forgotten Voices: Rediscovering Europe's Black Musical Past, in which he sheds light on the lived experiences and musical contributions of black composers and performers in Europe between 1415 and 1800.
Transcript:
Introduction:
From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, this is Big ideas.
Intro Song Lyrics:
I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment.
Jolie Sheffer:
Welcome to the Big ideas podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society in the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Jolie Sheffer, Associate Professor of English and American Cultural Studies, and the director of ICS. Today I'm joined by Dr. Arne Spohr. Dr. Spohr is an Associate Professor of musicology here at BGSU, where he teaches courses in music history and directs the BGSU early music ensemble.
Jolie Sheffer:
In spring 2019 Arne was an ICS faculty fellow. Dr. Spohr's research focuses on music, cultural exchange and court culture in Britain, Germany and Scandinavia between 1500 and 1750. In his new research project entitled Forgotten Voices: Rediscovering Europe's Black Musical Past, he sheds light on the lived experiences and musical contributions of black composers and performers in Europe between 1415 and 1800. I'm very pleased to have you here with you today, Arne.
Dr. Arne Spohr:
Yeah, thank you for having me and for giving me the opportunity to actually share some aspects of my research here. It's very exciting. So how did I come across this?
Jolie Sheffer:
I'll ask you the question. Okay. First off, I'd like to have you give a little background on your current work and how you first began studying these once famous, but now forgotten, black musicians and composers. How did you first come across these figures?
Dr. Arne Spohr:
Well, it's actually a bit of a long story, as it always is with research topics, or sometimes with research topics. I came across one of the composers when I was a PhD student and when I lived in Paris about 15 years ago and worked in the [inaudible 00:01:57] and saw somewhere in the library a flyer announcing a new recording of music by a certain Joseph Bologne Chevalier de Saint-Georges and a black composer. I thought how strange that I've never heard of him and what not might his music sound like?
Dr. Arne Spohr:
I dropped the ball, so to speak and never bought a recording. But on the other hand, saw this image of this flyer and this question that I had never really left me and remained in my mind. Then about in 2013, 10 years later, the Chevalier of George and the topic of black musicians came back to me in a broader sense. In 2013, I had a different mindset than in the early 2000s. I'd moved from Germany to the United States to start my job as a Professor of musicology here at BGSU. When I lived in Germany, I hadn't given the idea or the issue of race much thought, partially because the German term of us is so inseparably connected to national socialist ideology and the holocaust that it is commonly felt that it cannot be used in a positive way, which would lead to the problematic consequence that one avoid thinking about race all together.
Dr. Arne Spohr:
Germany has traditionally viewed itself as a racially and ethnically homogenous country an attitude that is now only slowly changing. After moving to the States and after meeting my partner who's African American in 2012, I've learned a lot about African American culture, music and black studies and race as a positive concept that can help us understand structures of power and oppression. These new experiences insights have widened
Dr. Lara Lengel is a professor of communication at BGSU whose research focuses on international communication and gender in communication. She discusses her research on “Community Organizations’ Role in combating Sex Trafficking,” which she developed in Fall 2018 while an ICS Faculty Fellow. Specifically, Dr. Lengel focused on how Costa Rica has changed its laws around sex work, and the effects of that change on women, religious organizations, and human trafficking in the Americas.
Transcript:
Jolie Sheffer: Welcome to the BG Ideas podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Jolie Sheffer, an associate professor of English and American culture studies and the director of ICS. Today I'm talking to Dr. Lara Martin Lengel, professor of communication here at BGSU. Dr. Lengel received her PhD in mass communication from Ohio University, and her research focuses on international communication and how communication can advance social, economic, and environmental justice, especially pertaining to gender and identity in a transnational context.
Jolie Sheffer: Some of her published work includes a study on memory around wartime sexual violence, and the use of social media for social change in the Middle East and North Africa. Dr. Lengel is an ICS faculty fellow in fall 2018. The ICS fellowship program allows full time faculty to take a full semester off from their research and service obligations to dedicate their attention to an interdisciplinary humanities topic of their choosing. At the end of the semester, fellows present their work publicly and hold a community engagement event that brings their knowledge to the wider community and in turn reinvigorates their academic research.
Jolie Sheffer: Dr. Lengel is here today to discuss the work she's performed during her semester long fellowship. While taking part in the fellowship, she studied the fraught relationship in Costa Rica between faith based organizations, FBOs, their efforts to abolish sex work and human trafficking and the government of Costa Rica's efforts to decriminalize sex work. I'm very pleased to welcome Dr. Lengel to the program as the second ICS faculty fellow speaking in our 2018-2019 speaker series. Thank you for joining me, Lara.
Dr. Lara Lengel: Thank you Jolie.
Jolie Sheffer: It's so great to have you here, and I wonder if you could just start us off by talking about how you first began working on the subject of sex work and human trafficking in Costa Rica in particular.
Dr. Lara Lengel: Thank you. It goes way back actually to my PhD research in North Africa. I had a Fulbright grant to spend a year in Tunisia, which is a small North African country on the Mediterranean, to look at the role of women in professional contexts, most notably music, in the country. I was very surprised to learn from numerous respondents that there is still a mythical connection between public performers of music, even serious music, classically trained in the Western music tradition and so forth, to prostitution. Because of that, many of the respondents who I came to know during that year, their parents, their brothers, their sisters, or their husbands, did not want them to be in a really respected organization, which is called El Azifet, which is the first all women's orchestra in the Arab world. This tremendous organization actually was missing key voices and instrumentations from women who were just not allowed to be in the organization.
Dr. Lara Lengel: I found this really perplexing, because there was absolutely no evidence that there was any contemporary connection between any woman getting on a public stage to sing or play the oud or
Dr. Lisa Hanasono is an associate professor of communications at BGSU. In this episode, she shares her research on “Shattering the Silence on Miscarriage and Pregnancy Loss,” which she worked on in Fall 2018 while an ICS Faculty Fellow. In this episode, she discusses her research on how culture, gender, media, and interpersonal communication factors work in concert to stigmatize and silence discussions about pregnancy loss—and what we can do collectively to end the stigma and support families.
Transcript:
Jolie Sheffer: Welcome to the BG Ideas podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I am Jolie Sheffer, an Associate Professor of English and American Culture Studies and the Director of ICS.
Jolie Sheffer: This is the first of two episodes featuring fall 2018 ICS Faculty Fellows. ICS is proud to sponsor fellowships to promote the research and creating work of faculty here at BGSU. Those who receive awards are freed from one semester of teaching and service to devote unimpeded time to the interdisciplinary projects they've proposed. These projects must be of both intellectual significance and social relevance. ICS faculty fellows present their work in a public forum and engage with community partners, demonstrating BGSU's identity as a public university working for the public good.
Jolie Sheffer: Today we're joined by Dr. Lisa Hanasono, an Associate Professor of Communication. Dr. Hanasono's research focuses on how supportive communication, institutional change and community advocacy can address issues related to discrimination, stigma, and resilience. Some of the topics she explores include gender bias and tenure track faculty service obligations and how online forums play a role in individuals coping with racial discrimination. Dr. Hanasono is here to discuss her research, analyzing communication around pregnancy loss and miscarriage. She spent months interviewing dozens of women who had experienced pregnancy loss and pored over popular pregnancy literature like the classic text, What to Expect When You're Expecting. In the process, she discovered deep stigmas around miscarriage, which cause people to shy away from conversations and treat the topic as taboo.
Jolie Sheffer: Thanks so much for joining me.
Dr. Hanasono: Thank you so much for having me.
Jolie Sheffer: Why don't you start off by telling us a little more about what you're working on right now this semester.
Dr. Hanasono: This semester, I am so fortunate to be at ICS Fellow, which is afforded me an amazing amount of space and time to be able to dive deeply into understanding cultural, institutional, interpersonal and personal factors that are all combining to perpetuate the silence and stigma surrounding miscarriage and pregnancy loss. But it's also given me the opportunity to look at some potential solutions, so to investigate what we can do both on an individual but also on an institutional cultural level to try to shift things so that we can break that silence and that we can shatter that stigma surrounding pregnancy loss.
Jolie Sheffer: How did you become interested in this really important topic?
Dr. Hanasono: So for so many years I've been studying discrimination, coping and social support, and much of my work has been focused on issues related to race, culture, gender, age, and ability and their intersections. It wasn't until 2015 when I experienced my own pregnancy loss that I had this aha moment. So I was pregnant in 2015 and had experienced something called a missed miscarriage, which up until that time I had never even knew was
This podcast episode features Dr. Derrick Brooms, an associate professor in sociology at the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Brooms was the featured speaker of the Ohio Consortium of Men and Masculinities in Higher Education conference, which was held at BGSU in Fall 2018. He discusses his research on how to better support black male students on college campuses.
Transcript:
Jolie Sheffer: Welcome to the BG Ideas Podcast, a collaboration between The Institute for the Study of Culture & Society and the School of Media & Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Jolie Sheffer, an Associate Professor of English and American Culture Studies and the Director of ICS.
Jolie Sheffer: In partnership with the Center for Women and Gender Equity and the Violence Prevention Center, ICS co-sponsored the Ohio Consortium for Men in Masculinities in Higher Education Annual Conference on September 14, 2018. The Conference featured workshops on mentoring, queer masculinties and violence prevention with a very special keynote address by Dr. Derrick Brooms.
Jolie Sheffer: Today, we are joined by Dr. Brooms, an Associate Professor of Sociology and Faculty Affiliate in Africana Studies at the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Brooms earned his PhD in Sociology from Loyola University of Chicago and his research focuses on how to better support black male students on college campuses.
Jolie Sheffer: Some of the topics he explores include campus climate, mentoring and student support initiatives.
Jolie Sheffer: I'm very pleased to welcome Dr. Derrick Brooms to the program as the first speaker of ICS's 2018-2019 speaker series. Thanks for joining me, Derrick.
Dr. Brooms: Thank you for having me.
Jolie Sheffer: We're thrilled to have you here to discuss the important research you've been working on. Can you start us off by telling a little bit about what you're currently working on?
Dr. Brooms: Right now, I'm continuing to work on research that looks at black male experiences in both secondary and higher education. I also have work that looks at black and Latino males and, in particular, their engagement in leadership on campus. Then across both of those projects, I'm really very much interested in sense of self, identity development and the ways in which identity, race, gender and other social identities matter to students' experiences.
Dr. Brooms: I'm also looking at a project where people make sense memeing, and share about the killing of black men. Just looking at people from the range of Trayvon Martin to the more recent Freddie Gray and others. Just more recently we've had Botham Jean who was shot and killed in his home.
Dr. Brooms: Part of it is to invite black men to make sense of the ways in which they experience racism, profiling, stereotyping and killing.
Jolie Sheffer: Well, and it sounds like this project is like much of your other work, which is really foregrounding the knowledge that people of color have of their own lives and bringing that into academic discourse.
Jolie Sheffer: Can you talk a little more, especially sociology, historically, doesn't have the greatest reputation for foregrounding the first person experiences and has often treated people of color as objects of study. So could you talk about how your work fits into challenging that history of sociology?
Dr. Brooms: As you mentioned, there is this approach in sociology about the being objective. Ways in which the individual, that experiential knowledge, has in some ways been marginalized
Dr. Nancy Patterson is an associate professor of Education at BGSU. In this episode, Dr. Patterson discusses her research “But I Wanna Say What I Wanna Say: Ohio Student and Teacher Perspectives on the First Amendment.” In her research, which she worked on in Spring 2018 while an ICS Faculty Fellow, Dr. Patterson interviewed K-12 students and their teachers about the first amendment and its place in the classroom.
Transcript:
Jolie Sheffer: Welcome to the BG Ideas podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University.
Jolie Sheffer: I'm Jolie Sheffer, an Associate Professor of American Culture Studies and Director of ICS.
Jolie Sheffer: This is the second of two episodes featuring the ICS Spring 2018 Faculty Fellows. ICS is proud to sponsor Fellowships to promote the research and creative work of faculty here, at BGSU. Those who receive awards are freed from one semester of teaching and service to devote unimpeded time to the projects they have proposed. These projects must be of both intellectual significance and social relevance in hopes that their work will generate conversations across disciplines, and engage both academic and broader community audiences.
Jolie Sheffer: Today we are joined by Dr. Nancy Patterson, a Professor of Education in the School of Teaching and Learning in the College of Education and Human Development. Dr. Patterson earned her PhD in curriculum and teaching from the University of Arizona. Her research areas center on democratic classroom and school pedagogies, and academic freedom and equity in assessment. Dr. Patterson is here to discuss her current project, entitled, But I Want To Say What I Want To Say, Ohio Student And Teacher Perspectives On The First Amendment.
Jolie Sheffer: Dr. Patterson has conducted interviews with K-12 students as well as their teachers for this project. Her work is informed by current case law about First Amendment protections and her interviews focus on interpretations of the First Amendment and free speech in Ohio classrooms.
Jolie Sheffer: I'm very pleased to welcome Dr. Nancy Patterson to the program as one of ICS's Spring 2018 Faculty Fellows. Thanks for joining me, Nancy.
Nancy Patterson: Thank you. What an honor.
Jolie Sheffer: We're very excited to have you here. Can you talk a little bit more about the project you're working on and how it began?
Nancy Patterson: Oh. It probably began when I was seven. I don't know when I... I've always had a... I'm from an educator family, and I always have had a strong sense of voice and choice in our family and felt that when I was in school. I think I really needed more. Some people become teachers because they have a favorite teacher. I became a teacher because I needed a favorite teacher.
Nancy Patterson: I've been in education for many years. When I began at BGSU... Actually, when I began as a PhD candidate to create my dissertation project, it was all about inquiry and student engagement with content and flipping the way we teach so that students experience something first, label it afterwards, and discuss it, rather than teaching and lecturing students in a classroom. I've had that going on a lot, for a long time, in my professional career and in my personal life.
Nancy Patterson: And then, once I came to BGSU, I began training teachers and visiting many classrooms. It's always been a strong commitment of mine to use best practices. It's interesting that we know these things work with students, yet we don't find them in the field as readily as you would t
Dr. Sheri Wells-Jensen is an associate professor of linguistics at BGSU. She discusses her research project “Imagining Life on Other Planets,”which she worked on during her time as an ICS Faculty Fellow in Spring 2018. Dr. Wells-Jensen's research on xenolinguistics (the study of alien languages) aims to have people question commonly held beliefs about able-bodied and disabled people in our society.
Transcript:
Jolie Sheffer: Welcome to the BG Ideas Podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Jolie Sheffer, an associate professor of English and American Culture Studies and the director of ICS.
Jolie Sheffer: This is the first of several episodes featuring the ICS' Spring 2018 faculty fellows. ICS is proud to sponsor fellowships to promote the research and creative work of faculty here at BGSU. Those who receive awards are freed from one semester of teaching and service to devote unimpeded time to the projects they have proposed. These projects must be of both intellectual significance and social relevance in hopes that their work will generate conversations across disciplines and engage both academic and broader community audiences.
Jolie Sheffer: Today we are joined by Dr. Sheri Wells-Jensen, associate professor of English. Dr. Wells-Jensen holds a PhD in linguistics from the State University of New York, University of Buffalo, and her academic interests include phonetics, psycholinguistics, speech production language preservation, Braille, and xenolinguistics. She's also a member of the Advisory Board of Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence International and has given papers on the relationship between intelligence, perception, and language at the SETI Institute and the International Space Development Conference.
Jolie Sheffer: We intend to focus today on Dr. Wells-Jensen's current project entitled Imagining Life on Other Planets, Reimagining Life on Earth. In this research, Dr. Wells-Jensen explores how an intelligent blind alien race would survive and function, as well as the implications of blindness on their civilization and our ability to find and communicate with them. Her work interrogates our socially-constructed assumptions about ability and disability and questions the limits we place on one another. I'm very please to welcome Dr. Sheri Wells-Jensen to the program as one of ICS' spring 2018 faculty fellows. Thanks for joining me, Sheri.
Dr. Wells-Jensen: Thanks. I'm happy to be here.
Jolie Sheffer: We're very excited to have you as one of our fellows. Can you start by telling us a bit more about the project you're working on right now?
Dr. Wells-Jensen: I came to this project through a weaving path. It wasn't a natural outgrowth of anything, I don't think. I was invited in fabulous tribute to my 12-year-old nerdy self as sort of a fantasy come true. I was invited to give a paper about language and thought at the SETI Institute. In a desperate attempt to seem like I knew what I was talking about before that talk, I read everything I could get my hands on about SETI and what their research ... what they were doing lately. One of the assumptions that I came upon in a lot of their work is that any extraterrestrial civilization capable of building a telescope so that we could contact them would necessarily have some analog of human vision. I thought, "Wow, really? Really? Really?" It seemed like that was a box that we didn't need to be in. So I put together a paper doing exactly what you might expect, so explaining how an alien race with more or less the abilities that we have as humans except that they can't see would put together a technological civilization. I gave th
This episode is the third installment of the three-part series on “Homelands and histories.” Liz Harris is the co-founder of the Glass City Goat Gals and Sean Nestor is the co-chair of the Lucas County Green Party. They discussed food access and land use in Northwest Ohio, sharing how local organizations are working to address food-related issues in our communities.
Transcript:
Speaker 1: From Bowling Green State University, and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, this is BG Ideas.
Jolie Sheffer: Welcome to the BG Ideas podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Jolie Sheffer, an associate professor of English and American culture studies and the director of ICS. This is the third and final episode of a three-part series on Homelands and Histories in which we talk to people making big impacts on local communities through their work on land use and cultural heritage.
Jolie Sheffer: The word homeland can evoke comforting feelings of patriotism or cultural identity for some, but it can also be used to attempt to justify expulsion or even genocide. Similarly, the word histories is meant to call attention to the many points of conflict, debate, erasure, violence, and silencing that accompany efforts to describe and interpret the past. Today, we are joined by Liz Harris, co-founder of the Glass City Goat Gals, and Sean Nestor, co-chair of the Lucas County Green Party.
Jolie Sheffer: The Glass City Goat Gals is an agribusiness located in a densely urban area of Toledo. The Goat Gals have established a goat farm and community garden, and their mission is to provide affordable produce and education regarding wellness, healthy eating habits, and environmental sustainability.
Jolie Sheffer: The Lucas County Green Party is lobbying for the city of Toledo and surrounding area to enact policies that support local urban agriculture. And Sean has personally advocated on behalf of community gardeners facing resistance from local government.
Jolie Sheffer: Both of these activists are here to discuss how food access and land use figure into the history of our own homeland of Northwest Ohio. I'm very pleased to welcome Sean and Liz to BGSU. Thank you for being here.
Liz Harris: Thank you for having us.
Sean Nestor: Yeah, thanks.
Jolie Sheffer: One of the things that we've been interested in is how different modes and methods of activism can address pressing social issues from a variety of angles. Can you introduce yourselves, tell us a little bit about how you got involved in urban food activism in Northwest Ohio, and how your current projects are supporting that work?
Liz Harris: Okay. I got involved, I actually worked at Toledo Grows. But prior to Toledo Grows, working there, I took the urban agriculture courses at Owens Community College. And really just saw a need in my community to create a healthier climate in my community. So took some courses, graduated, worked with Toledo Grows, and really got to get to know the community, got them out gardening. Just wanted to take a step further.
Liz Harris: And so right around where I live, there was a bunch of abandoned homes. We tore those homes down, started very small, few raised beds. I mean the response for the community, you would see families come up with little a grocery bag, picking up some vegetables for dinner. And so we expanded that. I brought the goats in as a source of income to sustain the farm. And so we started there. And it grew. And
This episode is the second part of a three-part series on “Homelands and Histories.” Dr. Elizabeth Castle discusses her documentary film “Warrior Woman,” which follows generations of activism among Native American women, culminating in the recent Standing Rock Resistance Movement against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). Dr. Castle is a scholar, activist, community organizer, and documentary film maker, whose work considers land use, indigenous activism, and cultural memory.
Transcript:
Jolie Sheffer: Welcome to the BG Ideas podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Jolie Sheffer, an associate professor of English and American culture studies, and the director of ICS. This is the second episode of a three part series on homelands and histories, in which we talk to people making big impacts on local communities through their work on land use and cultural heritage.
Jolie Sheffer: The word "homeland" evokes for some people comforting feelings of patriotism or shared cultural identity, but it has also been used to justify expulsion or even genocide. For this series, we deliberately use the plural word histories in order to call attention to the many points of conflict, debate, erasure, violence, and silencing that accompany efforts to describe and interpret the past.
Jolie Sheffer: Today we're joined by Dr Elizabeth (Beth) Castle, a scholar, community organizer and documentary filmmaker. She is from Mansfield, Ohio and is currently teaching at Denison University. Dr Castle is completing her film Warrior Women, which traces the history of women's activism in the red power and American Indian movements beginning in the 1970s up to the recent and widely publicized protests against construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Dr Castle has been researching and recording oral histories of Standing Rock community activists for almost 20 years. Her work has led to meaningful collaboration with Madonna Thunder Hawk, a Lakota community organizer, and cofounder of Women of All Red Nations.
Jolie Sheffer: Dr Castle's goal in this and other work is to facilitate a reciprocal flow of knowledge and resources intended to empower, liberate, and maintain indigenous communities. I'm very pleased to welcome Dr Beth Castle to BGSU as part of ICS's 2018 spring speaker series. Thanks for being here, Beth.
Dr. Beth Castle: Thank you.
Jolie Sheffer: One of the things that we are interested in discussing is the relationship between different kinds of knowledge and different modes of activism such as scholarship, art, grassroots organizing. Can you begin by telling us a little bit about your particular path to becoming both a scholar and a filmmaker? Did these start at the same time or did one lead to another?
Dr. Beth Castle: I would say that my path has been absolutely one that I have made up as I go along, and I'm still making it up, and I'm still trying to determine where I'm most effective and have a hard time maybe taking on particular descriptions of the things that I do. Working as a scholar, that's something that happened because I wanted to pursue the story and the stories of activists who changed the world for us in the sixties and seventies. And in the process of pursuing that story, in wanting know it, thinking about how I was going to be sort of a conduit, or an arbitrator, or one that could help then have other people learn from that story. I could amplify it. So it was that path that led me to be a scholar in as much that ... so I wanted to have people experience the feeling of seeing the ways in which their story can interrupt, intervene and reshape that master historical narrative tha
This episode is the first part of a three-part series on “Homelands and histories.” In this episode, Dr. Dylan Miner—an artist, scholar and activist who teaches at Michigan State University—discusses his work in relation to land use, cultural heritage, and indigenous activism. Miner identifies as Wiisaakodewinini, or Métis, a person of mixed ancestry with ties to indigenous communities in the U.S. and Canada.
Transcript:
Jolie Sheffer: Welcome to the BG Ideas podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Jolie Scheffer, an associate professor of English and American culture studies and the director of ICS. This is the first episode of a three-part series entitled Homelands and Histories, in which we talked to people making big impacts on local communities through their work on land use and cultural heritage.
Jolie Sheffer: The word homeland can evoke comfortable feelings of patriotism or cultural identity, but it is also used to justify expulsion or even genocide. Similarly, the word histories is meant to call attention to the many points of conflict, debate, erasure of violence, and silencing that accompany efforts to describe and interpret the past. Today, we are joined by Dr. Dillon A. T. Miner, an artist, scholar, and activist, who identifies as Wiisaakodewinini or Metis, a native person of mixed ancestry with ties to indigenous communities in the US and Canada.
Jolie Sheffer: Dylan is an adjunct curator of indigenous art at the Michigan State University Museum as well as the founder of the Justseeds artists collective and a board member of the Michigan Indian Education Council. He recently commenced the Bootaagaani-minis Drummond Island Land Reclamation Project, a de-colonial initiative to acquire land and establish a cultural center for Metis, whose ancestors were forced to leave the island during the War of 1812. Dylan is also the director of American Indian and indigenous studies at Michigan State University and an associate professor of transcultural studies in the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities at Michigan State.
Jolie Sheffer: He's the author of the book Creating Aztlan: Chicano Art, Indigenous Sovereignty, and Lowriding Across Turtle Island, in which he shows that Chicano art needs to be understood in the context of indigenous history, anti-colonial struggle, and Native-American studies. I'm very pleased to welcome him to BGSU as a part of ICS's 2018 Spring Speaker Series. Thanks so much for being here.
Dr. Dylan Miner: Thanks for having me.
Jolie Sheffer: One of the things that we're interested in at ICS is discussing the relationship between different kinds of knowledge and different modes of activism, so scholarship, art, grassroots organizing. Can you start us out by telling us a bit about your particular path of negotiating those three? What set you out into trying to do all three?
Dr. Dylan Miner: Sure. So I kind of come into the work I do. I grew up in punk rock circles and kind of crusty anarchist, Zeen-making circles. Much of the work I do kind of emerges from that space. I also, as you said, I'm a Wiisaakodewinini or a Metis person, and one of the Cree words for Metis is [foreign language 00:02:57]. That's a Cree word which means the people who own themselves are the people without bosses.
Dr. Dylan Miner: So much of the work I do thinks about the ways of dismantling hierarchies in all of its forms. So I don't see a distinction necessarily between the scholarly work I do, the community-based work, the arts practice, or even kind of the familial and community work I do outside of or in spite of the institution