EHI Spring 23 Mellon Lecture

Julia Spicher Kasdorf and Steven Rubin are the Spring 2023 Mellon lecturers Tuesday, March 28. This will be an in-person lecture, with a Zoom option. The lecture, “SHALE PLAY; An Engaged Poetry and Photography Project on Natural Gas Extraction,” will be held from 4-6 p.m. in SCE 302.

With the war in Ukraine creating fuel shortages in Europe and our own increasing energy needs, fracking — an expensive and extreme method of natural gas extraction — has finally become profitable. (If one doesn’t count the cost of environmental and public health harms.) Illinois, which sits atop the large, untapped New Albany Shale Field, issued its first fracking permit in 2017. In this presentation, documentary photographer Steven Rubin and poet Julia Spicher Kasdorf will present images and stories from the established fracking fields in Pennsylvania. They will show how artists and humanists can intervene in polarized conversations to amplify local voices and reveal experiences that often get overshadowed by corporate interests.

Zoom option.