A River Semester

What approaches are there to sensing a specific cultural or political product or even a human habit? How might transformative engagements with sensing remake social, political and environmental relations?

Environmental political scientist Joe Underhill’s research project draws on a five-day river expedition to explore the paradox of the embodied experience of, on the one hand, the vitality and resilience of the human and natural communities that inhabit the Upper Mississippi River and its watershed and, on the other hand, the varied impacts and harms caused by climate change, settler colonialism, racial injustices and large-scale river engineering. In a live-streamed discussion, the river travelers report on the spaces they have moved through and the species they have moved with.

With Linda Buturian, Margot Higgins, Jason Lukasik, Michelle Garvey, Stuart Deets, and students from Augsburg University and the Higher Education Consortium for Urban Affairs (HECUA)