Stephan Miescher, along with Javiera Barandiaran (Global Studies), Mona Damluji (Film and Media Studies), David Pellow (Environmental Studies), and Janet Walker (Film and Media Studies) has been awarded, by the Andrew F. Mellon Foundation, a yearlong grant to support a Sawyer Seminar on “Energy Justice in Global Perspective” for the 2018-19 academic year. Sawyer Seminars aim to engage productive scholars in comparative inquiry that would (in ordinary university circumstances) be difficult to pursue, while at the same time avoiding the institutionalization of such work in new centers, departments, or programs. The grant will support a postdoctoral fellow and two yearlong UCSB graduate student fellowships, as well as visiting scholars and filmmakers.
The Seminar will aim for a deep and far-reaching exploration of energy justice, focusing on the development of alternatives to existing energy systems and practices in the the industrialized societies of the Global North, where a fraction of the global population consumes a super-sized portion of fossil fuels.