Ithaca College

Several stipends are still available for faculty interested in teaching 1 credit hour block II mini courses in conjunction with the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival.  Faculty from all departments are encouraged to offer mini courses. Mini courses should be designed to take advantage of FLEFF films and events. FLEFF will run from April 6-12, 2015. The theme for this year’s Festival is Habitats.

Titles of mini courses in previous years include: Environmental Issues in Film, Business Stakeholders and Sustainability, Understanding Documentaries: A Survey of FLEFF Films, Sustainable Development, Poverty, and Health, etc. Students in FLEFF mini courses are required to buy Festival Passes offered at a discounted price (50%) and to attend events both on campus and downtown. Faculty receive free passes and are invited to FLEFF receptions and post screening parties. Most FLEFF mini courses start after spring break but alternative schedules to normal meeting times are possible. Some mini courses have been full semester courses.

Please contact Warren Schlesinger, FLEFF mini course coordinator, to discuss your interest and possible topics warren@ithaca.edu or 4-3951. While the schedule of films will not be known until March, courses with broad themes or topics should have no difficulty finding enough interesting films for students to view.

HABITATS

Environments inhabited by animals, plants, organisms, minerals, fungi, bacteria.   Terrains, waters, atmospheres defined by layers, relationships, and complexities surrounding the human and the nonhuman. Ecological systems offering sustenance and life. Territories sculpted by the small and the local: havens, dwellings, abodes, sites.

Habitus extends habitats: cultures anchored in bodies, groups, nations, habits, skills, styles, tastes. Through everyday life and historical memory, habitus spawns values and expectations.  Habitats and Habitus: generative havens, dynamic environments, sustaining locales.

But while habitat often implies stability, sustenance, and a natural order, conflicts and contradictions pervade actual habitats.  As competing organisms and species vie for niches, a habitat’s appearance of coherence can be illusory, disguising violence.

As habitats evolve from internal dynamics and external challenges, boundaries unhinge in constant flux. And how do we mark the borders of a habitat or habitus?  Are cities habitats? Parks?  Farms? Neighborhoods?  Skyscrapers? Museums?  Universities? Shopping malls?  War zones?  Prisons? Databases? Server farms?  Phone apps? Concert halls? Film festivals?