Professor Carlos Alonso Nugent will give a talk titled “Whiteness and/as Water Infrastructure along the Colorado River” on Tuesday, December 3rd at 5pm in Schermerhorn 754. A reception with refreshment will follow. If you are not a Columbia affiliate but would like to attend, or if you would like to attend virtually, please contact Benjamin Hulett at bnh2130@columbia.edu.
With the US–Mexico borderlands running out of water, many are blaming the politicians who passed imprudent laws and the bureaucrats who built destructive dams. But by following such figures to smoke-filled rooms, academics and activists have overlooked the media that popularized water (mis)management. Engaging everything from the promotional print culture of the Southern Pacific Railway to the “Prize Odes” performed at International Irrigation Congresses, this talk explains how Anglo Americans came to feel entitled to Indigenous land, racialized labor, and the “magic touch of water.” Moving from Reconstruction to the New Deal, the talk thus reconstructs the rise of environmental obliviousness, which is my term for the experiential repertoires that naturalize our constant consumption of earth, water, plants, animals, and ultimately other people.
Join the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race for our end-of-semester holiday party! Dinner will be catered from Massawa. We encourage CSER students and faculty especially to attend for an evening of community and celebration.
