This symposium will reflect on solar energy infrastructure and environmental justice. The symposium features the following scholars: 

Jennifer Carlson (Cornell University)
Carlson is a cultural anthropologist specializing in the energy humanities. Her research focuses on the relationship between energy infrastructure, public feeling, and environmental action, particularly in the U.S. and Germany. Her book project, UNRULY ENERGIES (Duke University Press), shows how sentiment shapes public engagement with and surprising forms of exclusion from sustainable development in the Energiewende, a national transition to renewable energy.

Joshua Kirshner (University of York, UK - presenting remotely)
Kirshner is a Lecturer in the Department of Environment and Geography. Kirshner has carried out extensive field research in southern Africa and Latin America, on large-scale infrastructure, extractive industries, commodity frontiers, off-grid energy, low carbon transitions, transnational cooperation in energy systems, urbanization, migration and social exclusion. He is Co-investigator on a British Academy-funded project (2016-2018) that examines electricity and fuel access in urban Mozambique.

Dustin Mulvaney (San Jose State University)
Mulvaney is an Associate Professor of Environmental Studies. His research focuses on the social and environmental dimensions of food and energy systems. Since 2008, his primary focus has been on energy commodity chains with an emphasis on the solar industry, which is synthesized in his forthcoming book SOLAR POWER: INNOVATION, SUSTAINABILITY, AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE (UC Press 2019).

Lisa Parks (MIT)
Lisa Parks is Professor of Comparative Media Studies and Director of the Global Media Technologies and Cultures Lab at MIT, and a recent recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship. She will be sharing findings related to a project called Energizing Media based on fieldwork in rural, low-income communities in Tanzania and Zambia. Her most recent publication is RETHINKING MEDIA COVERAGE: VERTICAL MEDIATION AND THE WAR ON TERROR (Routledge 2018).

SCHEDULE
9:30am: Campus Solar Tour
Tour guide: Jordan Sager.
Meet at the Multipurpose Room (Student Resource Building)
11:00am: Session 1: Dustin Mulvaney
Respondent: Ranjit Deshmukh
12:15pm: Lunch
1:15pm: Session 2: Jennifer Carlson and Joshua Kirshner (presenting remotely)
Respondent: Jia-Ching Chen
3:30pm: Session 3: Lisa Parks
Respondent: Janet Walker