Ecological Feminism Doc Screening & In Search of Mycotopia
Donna Harway – Story Telling for Earthly Survival discussion!
Dear Fellow Myconauts,
Our feminist and queer mycology discussions have been ever so productive and inspiring! A central question arising from these discussions has been, after learning how domesticated love, family, and home have become – how do we expand our love to more-than-humans such as fungi? After all, we are in their homes too!
The screening next week follows this train of thought and we get to meet another important feminist science thinker, Donna Harway, weaving together the humanities and sciences. Personally, she has been fundamental to my growth as a scientist and person.
Then we finally begin our dive into “In Search of Mycotopia.”
Screening of "Donna Haraway: Story Telling for Earthly Survival"
Monday, July 17th, 7pm @ Arlington Garden, Pasadena, CA
"It matters what stories tell stories, which concepts think concepts... which systems systematize systems." – Donna Haraway
Continuing to follow our inspiration from Lynn Margulis’s paradigm-shifting work on introducing symbiosis into evolution, we will be meeting the influential feminist science studies thinker, Donna Haraway who is directly responding to Lynn Margulis.
We will be screening the documentary "Donna Haraway: Story Telling for Earthly Survival" (2017, subtitled, 81 minutes).
Donna Haraway describes herself "as a scholar with skills in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences who tends to work in areas of science studies, particularly on questions of environmentalism, the well-being of plants and animals, and the interactions of diverse human cultures with what many call “nature.”
Her work is foundational to many of the authors we've discussed in the Mycoverse such as Merlin Sheldrake, Michael J Hathaway, and Anna Tsing. In fact, Anna Tsing and Haraway are close colleagues at the University of Santa Cruz, coming up with all sorts of Trouble.
Before the discussion we invite you to:
Read the Los Angeles Review of Books interview: Making Kin: An Interview with Donna Haraway
Read the below excerpt:
In another interview, Donna Haraway talks about intentionally incorporating collective thinking and all perspectives:
"It isn't that systematic, but there is a little list. I notice if I have cited nothing but white people, if I have erased indigenous people, if I forget non-human beings, etc. I notice on purpose. I notice if I haven't paid the slightest bit of attention ... You know, I run through some old-fashioned, klutzy categories. Race, sex, class, region, sexuality, gender, species. I pay attention. I know how fraught all those categories are, but I think those categories still do important work. I have developed, kind of, an alert system, an internalized alert system.
In Search of Mycotopia – Community Mycologists (Part I )
Monday, July 24th, 7pm @ Arlington Garden, Pasadena, CA
In part 1 of 2 discussions, we will be discussing the first half of the book while finishing the rest of the book with a final discussion at the end of August. I found it to be a pretty quick read compared to what we typically read in the Mycoverse.
In the first half, here we meet many mushrooms and many mycologists focusing on building community with fungi such as our local SoCal phyto-myco-remediation mycologist, Danielle Stevenson, and other California mycologists!
Before the discussion, we invite you to:
Read chapters 1-6 (up to page 134 in the hardcover)
Mycoverse Field Trip - Oyster Mushroom Grow Kit Workshop [Postponed]
Thursday, July 13th, 5pm, @ Los Angeles State Historic Park 1245 North Spring Street Los Angeles, CA 90012
Note we are postponing our field trip today as James is on medical leave! We are wishing James a smooth and swift recovery.
Things that caught our eye
Lead Mushroom Grower job opportunity in Los Angeles - The Hungry Garden
Cheese Made from Michael Pollan’s Belly Button Fungi (2013 throwback)
Looking sporeward,
Aaron