Fellowship Under Pandemic
We asked 2019-20 CASBS fellows to express themselves or report on their experiences of fellowship under pandemic – residential fellowship replaced by the new abnormal of online-only fellowship – since mid-March. Here is how some responded.
This poem will appear in The New Farmer’s Almanac, Vol. V: The Grand Land Plan (January 2021). Copyright Rob Jackson. Shared with permission of the Greenhorns.
Fellows on Zoom
Covid-19 TechTalks
While Nicole Ellison embarked on a road trip to shelter in place at home in Michigan close to her son, and I was able to get a seat on the last direct flight from San Francisco back to Amsterdam so I could be close to my frail father, we exchanged emails with a plan to revive the CASBS tech group* to discuss emerging Covid-19 technologies. The first virtual meeting focused on testing strategies – we reflected on differences in the approach chosen in Taiwan, The Netherlands, and the U.S. At the next meeting we discussed surveillance strategies, focusing on the intention of Apple and Google to bring Covid-19 contact-tracing to three billion people. Our meetings start with a check-in – to find out how everyone is dong – followed by lively discussions, building on our diverse disciplinary backgrounds in communication sciences, political science, AI, law, psychology, philosophy, and anthropology.
Anita Hardon
2019-20 fellow
*Core group: Giulia Baroni, Nicole Ellison, Sandra González-Bailón, Jennifer Pan, Yukiko Uchida, Su-Ling Yeh
The opportunity to complete my quest
Who would have thought that, sheltered at home and away from CASBS, I am having the opportunity to complete a task – or should I call it a quest? – As Anita and Sandra* know (because they have read my manuscript) I have re-written the story of Don Quixote in a way that middle-school children will be able to read it.
Why would I do that? Anyone who has raised a child through early adolescence will know that, as the child becomes a person, they will need to decide, “What do I believe in? Should I let my friends tell me what I should believe and how I should act, or should I decide for myself?” On his own quest, as told by Cervantes, Quixote faces this challenge repeatedly. What I have done is time-warped Sandy Preston, a 12-year old boy from Idaho, into 17th century Spain to accompany Quixote on his adventures. Sandy assumes the role played in the original by Sancho Panza.
I had shared a description of this book project with Roby Harrington, from publisher W.W. Norton, when he visited CASBS. I was hoping they might want to publish the book I had written. While they did turn me down, Roby referred me to his brother Steve, who has self-published books for young readers. Steve put me in touch with a firm that helps authors self-publish. Just as the shelter-in-place order took effect, I found the way to get my book out there. If all goes according to plan, my book, Don Quixote and Me, will be on the market in a few weeks.
Some people have suggested that this project was quixotic. I will agree with that. What I will ask of you is to decide which definition of ‘quixotic’ you think applies (taken from the Oxford English Dictionary): “naively idealistic, unrealistic, impracticable”, or “visionary, enthusiastically chivalrous or romantic.”
Don Barr
2019-20 fellow
Fellows Continue Creating Important Work
Alta Charo got sketched in Newsweek!
"The Rationing of Care May Lead to Lawsuits Against Doctors. Here Is What We Should Do to Protect Them"
As Arundhati Roy, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Judith Butler, Enrique Dussel, Mike Davis, Noam Chomsky and many other critical, engaged voices have reminded us, this historical moment, ravaged by suffering and uncertainty on a global scale, is one of those when we need to reaffirm our active, compassionate commitment to those who are most powerless and thus most marginalized. This is the single greatest challenge we face as we reflect and act today as scholars, advocates, and citizens. Now more than ever we have to question and radically transform globalized systems and structures of power, exploitation, and discrimination that reinforce the inequities which the pandemic preys upon at the borders of our awareness and our imagination, and that undermine our common humanity. Now more than ever our fate as a planet and as a species depends upon the conscious and active mobilization of our capacity to love and build together the world our children and loved ones deserve.
"Yo soy tu, tu eres yo/ Yo soy, si tu eres" ("I am you, you are I/I am, if you are"), as Maya indigenous tradition teaches us, is the intricate, intertwined path of love with reciprocity that awaits us.
Camilo Pérez-Bustillo
2019-20 fellow