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Ole Miss Women’s Council Honored William, Elise Winter with Legacy Award at April 21 Programs
April 25, 2012 By Leave a Comment
UM Film Series to Focus on Environmental Concerns
January 30, 2012 By
… Program also bringing environmental activist and biologist Sandra Steingraber to campus in March
Water, oil and food mix together in the upcoming inaugural environmental film series at the University of Mississippi.
This semester, three films will be shown at 7 p.m. in the Overby Center Auditorium, including “Blue Gold,” “Gasland” and “Fresh.” All are free and open to the public.
The film series is in conjunction with the interdisciplinary environmental studies minor, now in its fourth year, which is directed by Ann Fisher-Wirth, professor of English.
“The minor is thriving; we have more than 20 students enrolled, from a variety of different disciplines,” Fisher-Wirth said. “The film series will be a wonderful addition to our offerings, for all these new documentaries address a number of environmental issues, practices and controversies. They are good at reaching out to educate an audience.”
Director Sam Bozzo’s “Blue Gold: World Water Wars” shows Wednesday (Feb.1).
“Wars of the future will be fought over water as they are over oil today, as the source of human survival enters the global marketplace and political arena,” Bozzo writes in the film’s synopsis. “Corporate giants, private investors, and corrupt governments vie for control of our dwindling supply, prompting protests, lawsuits and revolutions from citizens fighting for the right to survive.”
“Gasland,” by filmmaker Josh Fox, will be shown March 7. It is about the extremely controversial issue of “fracking,” or hydraulic fracturing. Fox was asked to lease his land for drilling, and he embarks on a cross-country odyssey uncovering a trail of secrets, lies and contamination. It is labeled as “part travelogue, part expose, part mystery and part bluegrass banjo meltdown.”
“Fresh,” set for April 4, was produced and directed by Ana Sofia Joanes. She celebrates the farmers, thinkers and business people across America who are reinventing the food system. Those people have witnessed the rapid transformation of agriculture into an industrial model and confronted the consequences: food contamination, environmental pollution, depletion of natural resources and morbid obesity. Forging healthier, sustainable alternatives, they offer a practical vision for a future of food and the planet.
The sponsors for the environmental film series include the environmental studies minor, the Media and Documentary Projects Center and the College of Liberal Arts.
“The film series is really important to me and I’m looking forward to it,” said Andy Harper, director of Media and Documentary Projects, who worked with Fisher-Wirth to choose the films.
Additionally, the internationally acclaimed environmental activist, biologist and author Sandra Steingraber is the inaugural Environmental Speakers Series lecturer at 7 p.m. March 21, also in the Overby Center auditorium.
Steingraber is an internationally acclaimed authority on many issues involving environmental toxicology. She began her career researching the environmental links to cancer, as a cancer survivor herself. She is the author of “Living Downstream: An Ecologist’s Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment” (Vintage, 1998), which was adapted for film in 2010 by the People’s Picture Company of Toronto. She also researched and wrote about environmental pollution and pregnancy, lactation and childhood in “Having Faith” (Berkley Publishing Group, 2003) and “Raising Elijah” (Da Capo Press, 2011).
She is involved in anti-fracking activism, and her lecture, “Environmental Human Rights from Silent Spring to Fracking Shale,” will examine the human rights dimensions of the environmental crisis and the role of artists, scientists, writers and college campuses in this struggle.
“Sandra Steingraber is an absolutely electrifying speaker and writer,” said Fisher-Wirth, who heard Steingraber speak at an Association for the Study of Literature and Environment conference in Boston. “She is a precise scientist who knows how to bring to the general public the issues that face everyone.”
The sponsors for Steingraber’s lecture are environmental studies, the UM Lecture Series, the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College, the College of Liberal Arts, the departments of English, biology and public policy, the Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies, and the Media and Documentary Projects Center.
For more information about the environmental studies minor at UM, go to http://www.olemiss.edu/libarts/contacts/environmental.html.
Sandra Steingraber
UM Film Series to Focus on Environmental Concerns
January 30, 2012 By
… Program also bringing environmental activist and biologist Sandra Steingraber to campus in March
Water, oil and food mix together in the upcoming inaugural environmental film series at the University of Mississippi.
This semester, three films will be shown at 7 p.m. in the Overby Center Auditorium, including “Blue Gold,” “Gasland” and “Fresh.” All are free and open to the public.
The film series is in conjunction with the interdisciplinary environmental studies minor, now in its fourth year, which is directed by Ann Fisher-Wirth, professor of English.
“The minor is thriving; we have more than 20 students enrolled, from a variety of different disciplines,” Fisher-Wirth said. “The film series will be a wonderful addition to our offerings, for all these new documentaries address a number of environmental issues, practices and controversies. They are good at reaching out to educate an audience.”
Director Sam Bozzo’s “Blue Gold: World Water Wars” shows Wednesday (Feb.1).
“Wars of the future will be fought over water as they are over oil today, as the source of human survival enters the global marketplace and political arena,” Bozzo writes in the film’s synopsis. “Corporate giants, private investors, and corrupt governments vie for control of our dwindling supply, prompting protests, lawsuits and revolutions from citizens fighting for the right to survive.”
“Gasland,” by filmmaker Josh Fox, will be shown March 7. It is about the extremely controversial issue of “fracking,” or hydraulic fracturing. Fox was asked to lease his land for drilling, and he embarks on a cross-country odyssey uncovering a trail of secrets, lies and contamination. It is labeled as “part travelogue, part expose, part mystery and part bluegrass banjo meltdown.”
“Fresh,” set for April 4, was produced and directed by Ana Sofia Joanes. She celebrates the farmers, thinkers and business people across America who are reinventing the food system. Those people have witnessed the rapid transformation of agriculture into an industrial model and confronted the consequences: food contamination, environmental pollution, depletion of natural resources and morbid obesity. Forging healthier, sustainable alternatives, they offer a practical vision for a future of food and the planet.
The sponsors for the environmental film series include the environmental studies minor, the Media and Documentary Projects Center and the College of Liberal Arts.
“The film series is really important to me and I’m looking forward to it,” said Andy Harper, director of Media and Documentary Projects, who worked with Fisher-Wirth to choose the films.
Additionally, the internationally acclaimed environmental activist, biologist and author Sandra Steingraber is the inaugural Environmental Speakers Series lecturer at 7 p.m. March 21, also in the Overby Center auditorium.
Steingraber is an internationally acclaimed authority on many issues involving environmental toxicology. She began her career researching the environmental links to cancer, as a cancer survivor herself. She is the author of “Living Downstream: An Ecologist’s Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment” (Vintage, 1998), which was adapted for film in 2010 by the People’s Picture Company of Toronto. She also researched and wrote about environmental pollution and pregnancy, lactation and childhood in “Having Faith” (Berkley Publishing Group, 2003) and “Raising Elijah” (Da Capo Press, 2011).
She is involved in anti-fracking activism, and her lecture, “Environmental Human Rights from Silent Spring to Fracking Shale,” will examine the human rights dimensions of the environmental crisis and the role of artists, scientists, writers and college campuses in this struggle.
“Sandra Steingraber is an absolutely electrifying speaker and writer,” said Fisher-Wirth, who heard Steingraber speak at an Association for the Study of Literature and Environment conference in Boston. “She is a precise scientist who knows how to bring to the general public the issues that face everyone.”
The sponsors for Steingraber’s lecture are environmental studies, the UM Lecture Series, the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College, the College of Liberal Arts, the departments of English, biology and public policy, the Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies, and the Media and Documentary Projects Center.
For more information about the environmental studies minor at UM, go to http://www.olemiss.edu/libarts/contacts/environmental.html.
Sandra Steingraber
Ole Miss Theatre Presents Broadway Hit Musical ‘Rent’
November 2, 2011 By
OXFORD, Miss. – “Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes. How do you measure, measure a year?” Whether it’s your first time or your 100th time hearing those lyrics, you won’t want to miss the Department of Theatre Arts’ upcoming production of “Rent” at the University of Mississippi. Joe Turner Cantu, associate professor of theatre, [...]
Two Students Start ‘ONE’ at the University of Mississippi
October 25, 2011 By Leave a Comment
UM students are generally known for being top partiers, having an involved Greek life and frequenting bars. But two students, Kristin Volker and Abby Olivier, are adding something else to that title: charitable.
Volker, a sophomore, and Olivier, a senior majoring in public policy leadership, have established the Ole Miss chapter of ONE, a non-partisan activist group that works toward bringing awareness to the hardships faced in Africa. Because the organization does not raise money on its own, the members are unable to actually travel to Africa, but they do have an impact on American policy and how Americans see the problems facing Africa, according to Olivier.
The national organization was founded in 2004 by a group of 11 non-profit humanitarian groups, including that of U2 lead singer Bono. Since its inception, the group has been influencing political ideals with a highly visual campaign aimed to show the public hardships faced by the people of Africa. Because of the national organization’s connections to Congress and wealthy celebrities, the group has played a role in the welfare of Africa. [Read more...]
