Colonialism and Disability

 

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This week's guest presenter is Dr. Jessica Cowing, a teacher and scholar of colonialism and disability studies. Dr. Cowing attended SUNY Oneonta, received an M.A. from the California State University at Long Beach and a Ph.D. in American Studies from the College of William and Mary.

In recent years it has been a custom at many gatherings of people in North America who wish to acknowledge the history of colonialism by which many us have come to be resident on this land, to introduce themselves with respectful citation of the indigenous people who once occupied the land where they currently reside or meet. Dr. Cowing suggests students might begin this week by considering what native peoples lived on the land before them, wherever you might be from or where you currently reside.

Dr.   Dr Cowing says to take a look at Native Land, and if you don’t already know, locate the tribal homelands for where you currently live or stay. Whose lands does your college occupy?

Watch this 4 minute Video that explains the concepts of Disability Justice and Transformative Justice.

Dr. Cowing also suggests we consider The Cogewea Project a Twine2 text game that adapts the novel Cogewea by the indigenous novelist, Mourning Dove.  The novel was written in 1912 and finally published in 1927.  It is a revision of the "western" genre from an indigenous and female point of view icorporating storytelling traditions of the Okanagan people.  Because this game is in the Twine2 programming platform which we will be using this semester, this is great way to see how the platform can work to activate story and worldbuilding.  The project uses game thinking as a means to bring interactivity to the text of the novel.  In the sample below only two chapters have been completed. Please play this game before coming to class. It is available here:

The Cogewea Project Twine2 Game

There is an academic paper by Sara Humphreys, the leader of the project, that describes the team's approach to adapting the story here:

 

Creating a Playable Academic Edition of Mourning Dove’s Cogewea or How Games can Decolonize

For More Information and Resources Please Go to the Activity Page for this Week where you can see this week's additional questions for the Worldbuilding Questionnaire.

Those questions have also been added to the Questionnaire Page on this Blog.

Harmony with Environment

In this project we are asking you to model cultures that live in harmony with environment.  We optimistically assume that humans in the future will have survived because they will have learned and adapted better practices so that they can live in reasonable harmony with their environment instead of regarding it as an enemy or as an endless source to exploit.  This week we want to consider some specific questions about how people on your planet interact with your planet.  What practices do they follow to sustain their relationship with their ecology.

Invasive Species

There were some questions about the impact of introduced species at the end of last class, so I have included 3 short videos (Asian Carp, lifesense and Lionfish).

Introduced species generally fall into one of three categories. They become

established in the new environment but are not population controlled and become

an “invasive species.” The second category is that the introduced species becomes

established but has its population controlled to various extents. The third category

are the invasive species that come, struggle to become established, fail in that

process and become extinct in just a few generations.

The three videos are about invasive species – Asian carp, rabbits and lionfish. These essentially have no, or too few, predators in the area and thus see rapid population growth. These species tend to out eat the original species causing those species to be displaced, or die off. The problem becomes that the invasive species is not as efficient in the local ecosystem, and tends to downgrade the overall viability of the area. Frequently causing a boom-bust in the local environment as plants are overgrazed or prey is overhunted, which also subjects the area to more physical stress.

Here is a video that shows the impact of an invasive species in Florida:

Remember for this project humans are considered an invasive species.  As an invasive species the humans must be aware of their impacts and how to manage them.

The video linked below explores the question of how humans do and don't live in harmony with their environment and how they could model their interactions based on what they see around them.

Lifesense video is too large to embed but here is the link.

Bio-mimicry

In the next short video the next King of England tries to get people to consider how biomimicry is the source of strategies to insure the better health of the planet and the better health of in occupants...especially us.  Given our current state of pandemic we need to consider how restoring what balance we can to the planet is a matter of our immediate health and survival.

Please Go to this week's Activity Page for more information about approaches to living in a better arrangement with your local ecology and with the ecology of the planet as a whole.

Tim Rumage recommends the following book to you which was just released last week.  It is an account of how specific indigenous cultures interact specifically with the ecosystems that house their cultures. 

"The belief that all life-forms are interconnected and share the same breath— known in the Rarámuri tribe as iwígara— has resulted in a treasury of knowledge about the natural world, passed down for millennia by native cultures."

Here is a link where you can read the preview for this book.

Image Assignment:

Although much of what we will do in this class this semester is based on writing and the creation of process documents (like a World Inventory) we would like you to create two images to assist our visualization of your planet and its human inhabited ecosystem.

One image will be put at the top of your inventory which will be submitted as a pdf.

This image should be in an aspect ration of 5:3.  Besides using this image to illustrate your inventory, you will need to create a version of the image 500 px. wide by 300 px. high saved as a .png file.  This image should be a wide-view of a place where humans live on your planet incorporating as much of the local ecology as you can show.  

The second image will be a picture of your planet or moon from a distance that will fit in a transparent square 275px by 275 px.  This picture may also be included in your Inventory PDF but will need to be submitted with the Inventory.  This image should be a .png executed on a transparent canvas.  The size of the canvas should be 275 x 275, the image can be round within the square of the canvas.

These images will be due in two weeks when you submit the first versions of your Planet/Moon Inventories in pdf form. The images can be constructed in photoshop, illustrator, or other program you feel comfortable with.  The output for submission is .png.  

This assignment is due in two weeks.

Ecosystems and Cultures

Tim Rumage our full-time Environmental Scientist, returns this week to introduce us to the concepts of human interactions with planetary ecosystems.  Currently on Earth we are experiencing a number of negative impacts from the ways in which humans have failed to integrate with our ecosystems.  Large impacts like human-caused climate change and failures to control population growth have become impacts that threaten the continued existence of humans on this planet.

In our Worldbuilding Course we are attempting a project that we hope will encourage you to think of ways to interact with natural systems and the range of ecologies that would have more positive outcomes than on earth.

There are two aspects of this week's development of your Inventory.

First, you want to consider what types of lifeforms and ecologies have formed on your planer.  You will want to describe life on your planet/moon before humans arrived.  You will want to describe some of the major ecosystems of your world and you will probably want to focus on the locations on your world where humans have taken up habitation.

Second, you want to describe some of the ways in which humans on your world are interacting with the ecology of your planet/moon and the specific ways they are managing those interactions in harmony with the local ecology instead of disrupting it.

One of the current models that humans are using as a tool to think about these issues is the Ecosystem Services model.  Tim has provided two readings that describe that model, which is recommended as an approach you might use to envision how humans might engage more positively with the ecologies in which they live. These are brief, fact-filled and very useful.

What are Ecosystem Services?
The Economics of Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity

Please read these two brief fact sheets.

Tim has also provided two brief fact papers on the impacts we are currently facing from inadequate Ecosystem Servicing. Please read these as well. Both are also linked on this week's Activity Page.

Wildlife in Catastrophic Decline
More Than One Billion People Face Displacement By 2050

Here is a link to the Activity Page for this week where there are more details and questions to ask to help develop you planet/moon inventory document.

This week's checklist:

1. Read the 4 fact sheets Tim Rumage has prepared for us.
2. Read the Activity Page and provide some long and detailed answers to the questions Tim asks.  These questions are repeated and some additional questions added to the Worldbuilding Questionnaire. 
3. Make sure you have answered as many questions you can on the Worldbuilding Questionnaire.
4. Come to Zoom Class prepared to relate and discuss your answers to the questions as well as to ask any question you have about the ideas or concepts for this week.

First Assignment Before Class: Planetbuidling

The Checklist
Here is the checklist for what you need to do before you come to the first class.

1. Watch or listen to Worldbuilding 101 by N.K. Jemisin those links are in the previous post or on the activity page for the first week of the course.
2. Go to the activity page for this week and watch the video on exoplanets.
3. Pick one of the three exo-planet/moon scenarios on which you want to base the creation of your world. The three are listed and linked on the activity page.
4. Create an Inventory for the planet/moon you will be creating.  Transfer the planet/moon data to this page.  Give your planet/moon a name and add to your inventory the answers to Part One of the questions on the Worldbuilding Questionnaire.
5. Come to Zoom class on Tuesday morning prepared to discuss your version of the planet/moon you are creating and prepared to ask the guest presenter any questions you would like answered about your scenario.  

Course Schedule: Here is a direct link to the Course Schedule which gives the most current information for each week of the semester.  The icons and descriptions for each week will link to the activity page for that week.  Currently only the first week has a link to the activity page.  The Course Schedule is also linked in the Course Links Box of this blog.

Activity Page for this Week:  Here is a link to this week's Activity Page which describes what you need to do before coming to Zoom class for that week.  The assignment is expected to be done before you come to class. This week's Activity Page links to three Planet Scenarios from which to choose the one you will base the creation of your own world this semester.

The Three Planet Scenarios
You must choose one of these scenarios for a habitable planet or moon on which to base the development of your world.  Here are direct links to each scenario.

World 1:  Epsilon Eridani A2 is a rocky planet with a silica/Iron mantle/core, a breathable atmosphere but a gravity effect nearly twice that of earth's.  The planet is subject to frequent tectonic and volcanic activity with water forming into lakes, small seas, and channels that criss-cross the most habitable zones of the planet.   Much of the planet's water is locked up in the form of ice in large polar caps.

World 2:  Lyra Aquilae A1 D (4th moon) orbits a gas giant in a red dwarf binary star system.  The surface of the moon is 90% liquid water.  There is a volcanic chain of islands that forms several mini-continents.  Super strong tides wash regularly through these island chains in complicated patterns of innundation.  Gravity is 90% of earth's gravity effect.


World 3:  Maytar A2 is the most earthlike of the three planet scenarios, very similar to a younger earth with a large supercontinent.  The planet maintains a Mars-like orbit around a sun-like star.  The orbital period is nealy two years but the planet rotation is close to the earth's 24 hour period.  With a similar axial tilt, the seasons are pretty close to earth's in climate variation but last twice as long.
  
The Ringling Worldbuilding Questionnaire
After you have selected your basic planet scenario from the choices above development a more detailed Inventory that describe its salient characteristics by using the questions on the Worldbuilding Questionnaire.  Be prepared to attend Zoom class on Tuesday morning able to discuss and ask questions to help develop your specific Inventory.  The guest presenter, Howard Hochhalter, Manager of the Planetarium at the Bishop Museum of Science will be available to help you develop your description.