Ithaca College

Submitted on behalf of the Office of Energy Management & Sustainability

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 4TH 6 - 8 PM, CLARK LOUNGE: Join University of Southern California lecturer Jennifer Bernstein to discuss her recent article On Mother Earth and Earth Mothers: Environmentalism's Gender Problem

ABSTRACT: At a historical moment when women have liberated themselves from many of the demands of unpaid domestic labor, prominent environmental thinkers advocate a return to labor that stubbornly remains the domain of women. In both the developed and developing world, women are expected to eschew time-saving technological solutions and wage-based labor in favor of actions that prioritize the environment at the expense of their own objectives. This raises the question — what would an environmentalism that takes feminism seriously look like? This talk argues that modern notions of rights, identity, and agency cannot be reconciled with premodern social, economic, and political arrangements. Environmental ethics that reject those prerequisites in the name of the natural and pastoral are, simply put, irreconcilable with feminism.

DR. JENNIFER BERNSTEIN is a lecturer at the Dornsife Spatial Sciences Institute at the University of Southern California. She completed her PhD at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where she worked on developing quantitative metrics to assess contemporary environmental worldviews. While working towards her PhD, she was employed by UC Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara City College, and Hawaii Pacific University, where she developed and taught geography courses both face-to-face and online. Previously, she was employed by the political strategy firm American Environics, where she served as Senior Data Analyst. She also holds a Masters in Geography from UC Santa Barbara and a Masters in Science Education from Montana State Bozeman. Her research interests include American Environmentalism, Western American Environmental History, Distance Teaching and Learning, and California geography.

Wednesday, October 5th 6 - 8 pm - Clark Lounge

SPONSORED BY The Office of Energy Management & Sustainability and Women's and Gender Studies

Free and open to the public - Refreshments served from 6 - 7 pm in Klingenstein Lounge, presentation to begin at 7 pm.