The University of Oregon Center for Environmental Futures is pleased to announce that we are now accepting applications for the fourth annual Understories Writers’ Workshop in the Environmental Humanities, supported by generous funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the University of Oregon’s Center for Environmental Futures.
The purpose of the workshop is to encourage those in the Environmental Humanities to present their scholarly work using the
techniques of literary nonfiction to engage broader public audiences.
The workshop will take place in person, June 19-25, 2022, at the Menucha Retreat and Conference Center, located within the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, approximately 30 minutes north of the Portland Airport. Accommodations include separate sleeping rooms for each
participant, and meals will include vegetarian and vegan options, if desired. Proof of vaccination
and a booster shot is required. For more information, see: https://menucha.org/
The workshop is limited to 12 participants, with approximately 8 from the University of Oregon, and 4 from beyond the UO community. Eligibility is restricted to faculty, graduate students, and independent scholars in the Environmental Humanities and allied fields (for example ecological approaches to literature, gender, religion, politics, philosophy, the arts, and/or race; animal studies; indigenous studies, environmental justice, ethics and sustainability; environmental history, historical/cultural geography; anthropology, or sociology). Both aspiring and accomplished nonfiction writers who want to learn a more literary narrative style to engage a wider public audience are encouraged to apply.
The workshop, lodging, meals, and transportation are free of cost to UO faculty and graduate students. Those selected from outside the UO community will receive a $500 stipend to offset travel costs to Portland, including airfare and ground transportation to Menucha, with no charge for the workshop, lodging, and meals.
Applicants should send a CV, a letter that explains why you would benefit from this workshop and provides a brief description of the essay or book/dissertation chapter you intend to work on during the workshop, and a writing sample to Alayne Switzer, alayne@uoregon.edu, by May 15, 2022.
Successful applicants will be notified by May 30.
The workshop will be led by Jenny Price, a creative public writer, artist, and environmental
historian.
Price is the author of Stop Saving the Planet!: An Environmentalist Manifesto (WW Norton, 2021) and Flight Maps: Adventures with Nature in Modern America (Basic Books, 2000), as well as “Thirteen Ways of Seeing Nature in L.A.” and other essays on urban environments.
A co-founder of
the LA Urban Rangers and Project 51 art collectives, she helped create Malibu Public Beaches, Public Access 101: Downtown LA, Play the LA River and other socially engaged projects. Price has been a visiting professor in American Studies, the arts, and environmental humanities at Princeton
University, and has taught at UCLA, USC, and Antioch-Los Angeles. She has been a Guggenheim fellow, a National Endowment for the Humanities fellow, and a Rachel Carson Center fellow in Munich. She is currently a research fellow at the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis, where she is working on several environmental justice projects.
For more information, see: https://www.jennyjjprice.net/