SLICE holds a wide range of public events each year that approach questions of environmental justice from an interdisciplinary perspective. From panels charting a course toward activism and participation in global teach-ins, to poetry readings and workshops in digital mapping, students and community members have the chance to approach pressing issues from perspectives that might not previously have been on their horizon.
Each spring, students in SLICE courses at Sarah Lawrence and Bronx Community College gather for two off-site “Interludes” that center experiential learning and present their work from the semester at the SLICE Symposium.
Since 2022, these events have been supported by a Humanities for All Times grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
2024 Slice Events
Care and Climate Justice
Multiple sites | January 30 - May 12, 2024
Across four art exhibitions at Sarah Lawrence College, Bronx Community College, and the Center for the Urban River at Beczak, Care and Climate Justice turns to modes of care in response to violent pasts and presents, and in anticipation and prefiguration of other futures. As both an ethic and an aesthetic, care takes the form of grief and remembrance, of slowness, attention and refusal, of adaptation and kinship, of expansive imagination and story. Though care—the noun or the verb—might seem abstract, the eight artists involved in Care and Climate Justice constellate a range of situated methods and actions grounded in dispersed but interrelated material conditions, prompting diverse visions of Indigenous, Black, and Brown futurity. This collaboration between Groundwork Hudson Valley, The Center for the Urban River at Beczak, Bronx Community College, and Sarah Lawrence College was made possible by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Care and Climate Justice website offers a list of recommended readings and more information on individual exhibitions and events.
SLICE Interlude: Urban Farming as Activism
Bronx Community College | February 29, 2024
For the first of the two 2024 interludes, when regular classes are suspended and the entire SLICE cohort engages in collaborative experiential learning, Sarah Lawrence students traveled to Bronx Community College, where Professor Raffaella Diotti (Biology, BCC) organized an activity in collaboration with the Randall’s Island Park Alliance to plant dozens of flats of pollinator plants to grow on the island this spring. This planting activity was followed by presentations about the connections between healthy food, healthy communities, and cultural heritage by DK Kinard, Food and Agriculture Steward and Community Lead at New Roots, BCC alumna and former New Roots intern Ashley Rosado, and Professor Charmaine Aleong (Dietetics and Nutrition Science, BCC).
2023 Slice Events
SLICE Interlude: “Marshes in the Hudson River, Past and Present”
Bronx Community College | March 3, 2023
For the first of the two 2023 interludes, when regular classes are suspended and the entire SLICE cohort engages in collaborative experiential learning, Sarah Lawrence students and faculty visited their peers at Bronx Community College for a tour of the Hall of Fame and an interdisciplinary panel on the ecological and human history of marshes in the Hudson River Valley. Dorothy Peteet (NASA/GISS, Columbia University) and award-winning historian and poet Daniel Wolff discussed their article “Why a Marsh” (Places May 2022), which brings science and poetry together to explore the human impact on these ecosystems, as well as conservation strategies. Curtis Zunigha, enrolled member of the Delaware Tribe and co-founder of the Lenape Center, framed the conversation within the context of the history of the Lenape people and their relationship to Lenapehoking.SLICE Interlude: Exploring Van Cortlandt Park
Van Cortlandt Park | April 28, 2023
Students from all SLICE classes at SLC and BCC gathered again during the second SLICE interlude for a field trip that featured three learning stations through which groups of students rotated. Artist Miguel Braceli led students on a hike along the bed of Tibbetts Brook, the site of an ambitious ecological restoration project, and talked about “Daylighting Waters,” a filmed performance he developed in response. SLC faculty member Michelle Hersh (biology) led an activity through which students identified species of flora and fauna, and Ashley Hart Adams spoke about the history of enslaved peoples in Van Cortlandt Park. Once all student groups had experienced the activity at each station, we all gathered for a picnic lunch.
SLICE Student Symposium
Sarah Lawrence College | May 5, 2023
Students from Sarah Lawrence and Bronx Community College gathered at the Barbara Walters Campus Center for a day-long symposium featuring academic and creative work by their peers in the full cohort of SLICE classes. Kicking off the eight student panels was a keynote address given by environmental justice advocate and storyteller Kiana Kazemi, Director of Programming at Intersectional Environmentalist; Kazemi also led a workshop at the end of the day’s events before the closing reception. More information and a full list of presentations at the symposium can be found here.SLICE Spotlight on Community Engagement
Sarah Lawrence College | September 12, 2023
This student-centered event featured presentations from students who completed internships with SLICE community partners in the spring or summer of 2023. Following a student panel, students were able to gather over lunch to reconnect after the summer break and speak with representatives from community partner organizations.
‘Nature Doesn’t Exist’ with Ramón del Castillo
Sarah Lawrence College | October 3, 2023
Invited speaker, Professor of Philosophy Ramón del Castillo (UNED, Madrid), presented his books, El jardín de los delirios. Las ilusiones del naturalismo (The Garden of Delusions: The Illusions of Naturalism), and Filósofos de paseo (Philosophers on a Walk). In these books, influential in Spain but not yet translated into English, del Castillo discusses a wide range of philosophical theories about nature, and ecological projects and policies that are informed by them in different parts of the world. Through a plethora of cases and examples, he shows that responsible activism benefits from a critical awareness of our preconceptions about nature and their origins.2022 Slice Events
Participation in the Global Teach-In on Climate and Justice
Sarah Lawrence College | March 30, 2022
Sarah Lawrence, joining 300 institutions of higher education worldwide, hosted a series of conversations and events, including a workshop on climate justice mapping that allowed students to explore open data related to climate hazards in New York City and Yonkers, an academic panel titled “From Climate Anxiety to Climate Action,” an ecopoetry reading, and a presentation on music and the environment by David Rothenberg, professor of philosophy and music at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Participating SLC faculty and staff included An Li (economics), Eric Leveau (literature), Bernice Rosenzweig (environmental science), Peggy Gould (dance), Maia Pujara (psychology), Marie Howe (writing), and Maureen Gallagher, Assistant Vice President of Facilities and Campus Operations.
A Fever Dream of Environmental Crisis: An Interdisciplinary Conversation
Sarah Lawrence College | April 26, 2022
This panel centered on Samantha Schweblin’s Fever Dream (2014); the novel and its 2021 film adaptation (dir. Claudia Llosa) provided an opportunity for an interdisciplinary conversation on the relationship between the arts and environmental studies and the dangers of industrial agriculture. Students from all SLICE courses had read excerpts of the novel and were encouraged to watch the film before the panel. Panelists included Dr. Anthony Cak, Associate Director of the Environmental Sciences Initiative at the CUNY Graduate Center and SLC faculty members Una Chung (literature/global studies), Joshua Muldavin (geography), An Li (economics), and Heather Cleary (Spanish/literature).
Interdisciplinary presentations of student research projects
Sarah Lawrence College | SLICE Interlude 2, 2022
During the second interlude of the spring semester, faculty involved in SLICE courses coordinated so their students could attend and offer feedback on their peers’ final research project presentations in other SLICE classes, fostering interdisciplinary conversations.
Slow Money, Fast Action: Building Sustainable Food System for Local Communities
Sarah Lawrence College | September 19, 2022
As part of NYC Climate Week, Woody Tasch, founder of Slow Money, a national network that provides nurture capital for sustainable businesses in local communities, was joined by Sarah Lawrence faculty Peggy Gould (dance), Sarah DiMaggio (philosophy), and An Li (economics) for a panel on the complex relationships between monetary wealth and soil that provided multidisciplinary interpretations of climate justice and action.
Law and Activism: Environmental Justice Panel and Community Showcase
SLICE Mellon launch event | October 11, 2022
Celebrating the launch of the Mellon-funded collaboration between Sarah Lawrence College and Bronx Community College, the panel discussed topics ranging from environmental justice initiatives around the globe and in our local communities, advocacy around climate migration in Southeast Asia, and the effect on local policy of Groundwork Hudson Valley's heat mapping project in Yonkers. Students were offered a concrete sense of how to get involved and help shape the future through advocacy work. Panelists included Alejandra Rabasa Salinas, former president of the Interdisciplinary Center for Biodiversity and the Environment (CeIBA) and head of the environmental justice agenda at the Supreme Court of Mexico's Center for Constitutional Research; Brigitte Griswold, Executive Director of Groundwork Hudson Valley; SLC faculty Parthiban Muniandy (sociology) and legal scholar Mark Shulman (history).
The panel was followed by a reception and community showcase attended by BCC and SLC faculty participating in the 2022-23 SLICE course cluster, during which the SLICE summer interns presented the local institutions where they worked along with representatives from other local organizations focused on sustainability and social justice.
"The Art of Unmapping: Indigeneity, Decolonization, and Climate Justice,”
Virtual event | November 3, 2022
This virtual panel offered an examination of how maps have been used to control and contain spaces and the peoples that inhabit them, as well as how artists have used Indigenous ways of knowing spaces in order to dismantle the settler-colonial map. Participants included Anne Spice (Tlingit), Acting Assistant Professor, Toronto Metropolitan University; Jordan Reznick, Visiting Faculty, Bennington College; Lou Cornum (Diné/Bilagáana), Assistant Professor, NYU; SLC SLICE-Mellon Postdoctoral fellow Izzy Lockhart; and SLC faculty member Deanna Barenboim (anthropology).
“Digital Storytelling with Maps: A Demonstration of ArcGIS StoryMaps”
Digital Humanities workshop | December 2, 2022
In this online workshop opened to all BCC and SLC faculty, Sarah Lawrence College digital humanities librarian Claudia Berger demonstrated how to use the free version of ArcGIS StoryMaps in order to create interactive narratives by combining text, images, and maps to tell stories with spatial elements. The recording of this workshop is openly available on the SLC Library YouTube channel.