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Seattle’s Upside Down: Unearthing the City’s Deeper Histories
June 18 – August 17, 2018
Over the last century and a half, Seattle and the Puget Sound have experienced major demographic and environmental transformations: from an early history as a meeting place for Duwamish and other Coast Salish Peoples to rapid urbanization with the logging industry; from devastating fire to dramatic physical re-shapings of the topography into brand new cityscapes; from the racist removal and internment of Japanese Americans during the second World War to new challenges brought by gentrification and the influx of the tech industry. What voices and experiences have been silenced or buried in the wake of these changes? Which have been brought to the fore? We will look at our landscape from multiple perspectives, from ecocriticism to ethnic studies, from performance studies to queer studies, from public health to geography, and everything in between. By using these and other frameworks of understanding, this immersive summer experience will celebrate the lives, and bear witness to the traumas, of the Seattle beneath.
Over the course of A and B terms, we will explore the deeper and sometimes darker histories layered in and underneath the strata of Seattle and the Puget Sound area. Through experiential field excursions to “sites of conscience” in Downtown Seattle, Tacoma, and Puget Sound and its islands, as well as discussions, guest speakers, and classroom and online exercises, Seattle’s Upside Down seeks to actively disrupt the conventional narratives of our area received through tourist and popular histories. The Summer Institute in the Arts & Humanities will culminate in student-driven, original research projects presented at the end of the course. We encourage projects that integrate digital, archival, and mixed-media resources, drawing upon multiple disciplines, including art and performance. In so doing, together we will excavate pasts obscured by rapid change, observe presents excluded from public view, and imagine more just futures.
Teaching Team
Scott Magelssen
Associate Professor, Theater History, School of Drama
Scott Magelssen holds a PhD in Theatre History, Theory, and Dramatic Literature from the University of Minnesota, and teaches Theatre History and Performance Studies. His most recent book, Simming: Participatory Performance and the Making of Meaning (University of Michigan Press, 2014), treats the ways tourism, businesses, and the military use live simulation and performance to create and reinforce meaning for participants. His current book project, “Performing Flight: Aviation, the Cold War, and Space Tourism” explores the way performance and human flight have shaped one another in public perception and consciousness.
Lauren Berliner
Assistant Professor, Media & Communication Studies, School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences
Lauren Berliner is an Assistant Professor in Media & Communication and Cultural Studies, School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences at UW Bothell. She is a scholar and media maker working in the area of critical media practice. Her research engages ongoing transformations in everyday digital media production, intervening in academic, intrapersonal, community, commercial, and activist contexts. She is co-curator of The Festival of (In)Appropriation, an international traveling showcase of contemporary, short audiovisual works. She has two forthcoming books, Producing Queer Youth: The Paradox of Digital Media Empowerment and Feminist Interventions in Participatory Media: Pedagogy, Publics, Practice (with Ron Krabill). Her recent research (with Nora Kenworthy) examines how Americans are using crowdfunding platforms to cover the extraordinary costs of healthcare.
Jason Groves
Assistant Professor, Germanics
Jason Groves is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Germanics at UW Seattle, where he offers courses on topics ranging from fairy tales to post-apocalyptic fiction. He is currently completing a book project, Mineral Imaginaries: German Literature and the Geologic Unconscious, which looks at narratives of human-mineral encounters that model more convivial relations with the earth. His work in the environmental humanities began at the Institute for Critical Climate Change and later the Critical Climate Change series at Open Humanities Press, where he co-edits Feedback, a blog in critical and cultural theory. Prior to joining the UW he held a 2015 Fellowship at San Francisco’s Exploratorium Museum, and from 2013-2015 he was a post-doctoral fellow in the Integrated Humanities at Yale University, where he also obtained his PhD.
Shelby Lunderman
PhD Student, Theater History, Theory, and Criticism, School of Drama
Shelby Lunderman is a doctoral student in Theatre History, Theory, and Criticism in the School of Drama at the University of Washington. She received her MA in Theatre Studies from Florida State University and her BFA in Theatre Performance with a minor in Political Science from Baylor University. Shelby researches the relationship between prison and theatre and has taught drama-as-process courses in correctional facilities in both Texas and Florida. Her next course, piloting in a Seattle correctional facility, will focus on deconstructing the relationship between racial identity and the American Dream through dramatic texts.
Students
Below are the participants in the 2018 University of Washington Summer Institute in the Arts and Humanities:
Alena Ahren
Major: Media & Communication Studies (Bothell)
Alena Ahren is a senior at the University of Washington, Bothell. She is majoring in Media and Communication Studies, focusing on the relationships between media and its consumers. Having grown up in Fairbanks, Alaska, Alena is particularly interested in finding ways to preserve Alaska and Washington’s indigenous history and traditions in and through our fast-paced, ever-changing world of technology. Her video work has been featured at the University of Washington, Bothell’s Alive 2.0 Festival. In addition, she has led production planning for multiple video projects.
Yabsira Alemeshet Wolde
Major: Communication
Yabsira Alemeshet Wolde is a fifth-year student at the University of Washington attaining her double degree in Photomedia and Communications. She is a first generation immigrant from Ethiopia and the youngest of 6 children. Her future goals include getting a Master’s degree in design, traveling the world, and living back home in Ethiopia. She is rooting for everyone who identifies as Black.
Elle Brown
Major: Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies
Elle Brown is a bread-baking bookworm whose favorite question is “Who says?” She has an Associate’s Degree in General Studies from Portland Community College, and will graduate in 2019 with a Bachelor of Art in Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies and a minor in American Indian Studies focusing on decolonization. Fancying herself a bit of cyberpunk, Elle is always looking for ways to use technology to disrupt dominant narratives, whether that be a graduate program that loves difficult women, research that pushes buttons and asks the frustrating questions, or waged employment under protest. You can find her playing Pokémon Go (Team Instinct ♥︎), developing tweaks and themes for jailbroken iOS devices, or complaining via text messages.
Elizabeth Calvillo
Major: Interdisciplinary Visual Arts
Elizabeth J Calvillo Dueñas (eh-lee-sah-beth) is currently a junior at the University of Washington, Seattle. She is double majoring in Photomedia and International Studies and minoring in Political Science. She is from Michoacán, Mexico and seasonally migrates between Everett and Seattle depending on food supply, the weather, and time of year. Her interests include analyzing a wide range of power dynamics in international, domestic, and community levels including questions of race, gender, class, citizenship and education.
Yaran Cui
Major: Art (Photography)
Yaran Cui is a junior at UW Seattle studying Photomedia. Born and raised in southwest China, Yaran was immersed in music and art at an early age. Volunteering at an orphanage in Sri Lanka has driven her interests in humanity, leading Yaran to take an adventure alone to South Africa in order to pursue self-actualization within art. Currently tech director of the student organization China Entrepreneur Networking, (CEN), Yaran is also interested in computer science and technology. She believes in Abraham Maslow’s saying: “What a man can be, he must be.”
Brian Dang
Major: English; Drama
Brian Dang is a senior majoring in English and Drama. He is passionate about the power of stories and the intersection between creative and critical writing. He is an avid theater artist focusing on playwriting and theatrical design. He also spends his time with literary research. Together, these two modes help him explore the nuances of storytelling. Brian hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in English Literature after graduation.
Safaa Darwish
Major: Mathematical Thinking and Visualization
Safaa Darwish is a senior at University of Washington Bothell (UWB) studying Mathematical Thinking and Visualization. After earning her Associates in Engineering, she spent a year studying classical Arabic at Najah National University in the West Bank. While studying at Najah, she volunteered at the American Corner Nablus (an American Consulate-Jerusalem program), co-founded the Speech and Debate Club, and taught English. She entered UWB in 2017 to finish her Bachelor Degree and now works as a student assistant in the school of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences. Her research interests includes GIS, spatial statistics, and spatial humanities, with a specific interest in looking at the relationships between land and indigenous communities. She is a former organizer for Seattle Middle East Peace Camp and a founder/organizer for the Middle East and North African Literature Festival (MENAL Fest).
Madi Eggerding
Major: Comparative History of Ideas
Madi Eggerding is a senior, and will receive her BA in Comparative History of Ideas after this quarter. She aspires to make the transition from interdisciplinary humanities to a graduate education in medicine or immunology. She’s passionate about cross disciplinary projects and hopes to help build a more equitable world.
Mariela Galvan
Major: Education, Communities, and Organizations; American Ethnic Studies
Mariela Galvan is from Chelan, Washington and a senior at the University of Washington, Seattle. She is double majoring in American Ethnic Studies and Education, Communities, and Organization (ECO) with minors in Oceania Pacific Islander Studies and Diversity. Her research interests involve incarceration of non-white populations, immigration, and migrant farm-working communities. She also works to support underrepresented students in higher education as a mentor in the College Assistant Migrant Program and as a UW Undergraduate Peer Advisor.
Avery Gardner
Major: Comparative History of Ideas
Avery Gardner (He/Him, They/Them) is an artist, senior at the University of Washington Seattle, and Seattle, Washington native who continues to express his intersecting identities through the narration of performance art. Avery has grown up watching the city change in very drastic ways which prompted him to question “What groups of people have been left behind?” and “How are their stories and perspectives documented?” These questions embody Avery’s identity as a dancer as well as his experiences as a young Black male, while providing a very unique perspective within a city that is booming in left-brained tech, gentrification, and perpetual construction.
Nikeesha Gooding
Major: Comparative History of Ideas
Nikeesha Gooding is a senior in the Comparative History of Ideas program at the University of Washington’s Seattle campus. Her research interests include film and media studies, and journalism. She has actively explored the overall consumption of narratives and affectivity, while participating in the Summer Institute in the Arts and Humanities. Nikeesha also works as a photographer and enjoys writing, drawing, and studying arthropods in her spare time.
Shelley Hardwick
Major: American Ethnic Studies
Shelley Hardwick is an American Ethnic Studies major at the Seattle campus. As a rising senior, she will graduate in the spring of 2019. Shelley wants to pursue her Ph.D. in African American Studies, and will begin the application process for graduate school in the fall.
Min Su Kim
Major: Pre-Major
Min Su Kim is a second-year student at the University of Washington, Seattle, who intends to major in Law, Societies, and Justice. Her research focuses on the forces that influence human perception, including the psychological, legal, and societal impacts that drive our daily decisions and notions of “common sense.” Throughout SIAH, Min Su focused on how rhetoric, in the context of the law and media, can shape the way society perceives immigrant communities.
Ista Mencavage
Major: Media & Communication Studies (Bothell)
Ista Mencavage is a senior majoring in the Media Communications program at the University of Washington’s Bothell campus. Her passions include media studies, visual design and interactive narratives incorporated throughout history. The latter has been her focus while participating in the Summer Institute in the Arts and Humanities. She also works with photography, and enjoys writing, drawing, and reading in her spare time. Ista hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in Media Studies after graduation.
Yunue Moore
Major: International Studies: Latin America
Yunue Moore is a senior at UW Seattle, majoring in International Studies: Latin America and the Caribbean. Yunue came to UW Seattle after working in an immigration law firm as a paralegal and translator, and earning her Associate of Arts degree at Seattle Central College.
Calvin Paulson
Major: History: Empire and Colonialism
Calvin Paulson is a rising junior at the University of Washington, Seattle campus. He is currently pursuing a major in History with a thematic emphasis on the History of Empire and Colonialism, and a minor in French studies. He plans to pursue a doctoral degree in history with the aim of researching British imperialism during the long 19th century.
Sonia Rodriguez
Major: Culture, Literature, and the Arts (Bothell)
Sonia Rodriguez is a junior at the University of Washington, Bothell. She intends to double major in Cultures, Literatures and the Arts and Interactive Media Design, with a minor in Information Technology. Her research includes social media marketing, creative storytelling through different mediums, and tech policies relating to children and social media. Through SIAH, Sonia has focused on the untold histories of Seattle and positionality in relationship to storytelling.
Roshni Sinha
Major: International Studies; Anthropology
Roshni Sinha is a rising junior at the University of Washington majoring in Anthropology and International Studies. Her passions include leadership, human rights, humanitarianism, and forensic anthropology. In the past, she has lead a cultural exchange program through Unite UW, interned for the Refugee Women’s Alliance, and designed websites for UW Student Life. After college, Roshni plans to join the Peace Corps for two years then go to graduate school. Her dream is to work for UNICEF and travel the world. In her free time, Roshni loves to go sailing.
Brittany Thomas
Major: Drama: Design
Brittany Thomas is a junior studying Drama with an intended Math minor on the Seattle Campus. Her future career interests include stage managing, working in arts administration, and teaching. She is interested in the role of gift shops in society and play analysis. American classics, especially Tennessee Williams, have her heart. She would like to thank the teaching team and her peers in SIAH for helping her learn and grow for the better.
Johnny Wheeler
Major: Law, Economics and Public Policy (Bothell)
Johnny Wheeler is a student from the UW Bothell Campus with a major in Law, Economics and Public Policy and intended minor in Human Rights. His academic interests revolve around economic inequality, human/civil rights, and environmental protection. He also has interests in history and politics.