EP #349 - 09.30.2021 - Environmental History in COVID Times

Today I speak with Gonzalo Bacigalupe about his project the Quarantine Series. Gonzalo Bacigalupe, EdD, MPH, is professor of Counseling Psychology at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He is principal investigator of the Mediated Technologies for DRD at the National Research Center for Integrated Disaster Risk Management (CIGIDEN), and adjunct professor at the Catholic University of Chile School of Engineering. His research with colleagues in Chile, Mexico, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, and the USA, focuses on the impact of emerging media adoption on families, the role of patient online communities, the use of emerging media to build community resilience for disaster risk reduction, and family health. Bacigalupe has published and presented on research addressing the role of emerging digital technologies and vulnerable populations including transnational families and couples, political and family violence, family health and disparities (celiac disease, chronic pain, and medication strategies and literacy), e-health, and social technologies. He is presently studying the role of digital volunteers and the use of drones to strengthen disaster risk reduction among vulnerable communities in Chile.

Today in this 500th episode I discuss COVIDCalls: how it started, what I’ve attempted to do with the project, and some of the ways I hope people will use it in the future. Thanks for tuning in!

My name is Scott Gabriel Knowles, I am a historian of disasters and since March 16, 2020 the host of COVIDCalls, a daily discussion of the pandemic with a diverse collection of disaster experts. Today I will be reading some memorials from victims of COVID.

Today I have Marco Lienhard on for a musical performance and discussion. Marco Lienhard studied the shakuhachi under Master Katsuya Yokoyama, quickly mastering the instrument and becoming a virtuoso solo artist. Marco Lienhard mastered Taiko drumming as a member of Ondekoza for 18 years. While touring as a professional taiko player in Japan, Lienhard also studied the fue and the nohkan (Noh theater flute) with Yukimasa Isso. In 1995, Lienhard founded Taikoza in New York, where he now makes his home. With Taikoza he has toured, the US, Japan, Mexico and Europe. Lienhard has performed more than 3000 concerts in Europe, Oceania, Asia and North and South America with appearances at some He toured Japan with Carnegie Kids program. He regularly teaches and performs in Japan, South America, US and Russia. His best selling albums include award nominated Taikoza Cd, best selling Music of Hayao Miyazaki 1 and 2 Cd.  He recently recorded two albums for Piano and Shakuhachi; the critically acclaimed: Travelers's Song as well as the Classical music collection: Rêverie.  He recorded music for  the new Nintendo wii game Red Steel 2. In 2015., he released two CDs of his music composed and arranged for Taikoza: Voice of the Earth and Tree Spirit.

Today I speak with Hyunah Keum, Seulgi Lee, Hyeonbin Park, & Joelle Champalet about the pandemic in Korea Joëlle Champalet is a doctoral student at the Graduate School of Science and Technology Policy, in Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. She is interested in the intertwined relationship between technology and territories, everyday practices and smart cities. During her master’s thesis and the pandemic, she focused on the transformation of everyday practices of inhabitants by smart systems in South Korea. Hyunah Keum is a doctoral student at the Graduate School of Science and Technology Policy, in Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. She is interested in the materiality, socioeconomic, and environmental impacts of various wastes. She wrote her master’s thesis about plastic wastes during COVID-19 in South Korea, to investigate different practices to regulate or promote the use of plastic from the perspective of slow disaster. She wants to expand her research fields into revealing unequal relationships around waste, and its impacts on different beings, not just humans but also non-humans.  Seulgi Lee studied chemistry in her undergraduate and became a master's course student in STP KAIST starting from last year. She is interested in the dynamics between disaster and victims' identity, especially from a feminist perspective. Hyeonbin Park is a doctoral student in the Graduate School of Science and Technology Policy at KAIST. He got his Master's degree in theoretical cosmology, but social and environmental disasters have attracted him, so he moved down to the Earth to pay more attention to human and nonhuman lives in the world. His research interests cover broadly Disaster studies, and Environmental humanities & social sciences. He would like investigate how disaster shapes the world and to develop a way of living together with various humans and nonhumans.   

Today I speak with Steve Knowles, my father, about the pandemic. Steve Knowles was born in Odessa, Texas, and is a fourth generation Texan with a deep appreciation for the unique heritage of growing up and living in West Texas. His experiences of a boyhood developed in a postwar America framed much of his positive outlook for his entire life. Knowles earned a B.B.A. degree from the University of Texas at Austin, and a M.B.A. degree from the University of Texas of the Permian Basin. He is a 40-year veteran of human resources management, and retired from the Farm Credit Bank of Texas as their Vice President of Human Resources. He now resides in the Sun City community located in Georgetown, Texas. Steve is married to Harriet, a retired Pediatric Physical Therapist and has five children and seven grandchildren. He is a member in the Presbyterian Church, and an avid Texas Longhorns’ fan.

Today I talk about Dance in the Pandemic w/David Brick David Brick David is Artistic Director and Co-Founder of Headlong Dance Theater, a platform for performance research and grassroots artist support, founded in Philadelphia in 1993. He also directs the Headlong Performance Institute, a supported residency and training program. David collaborates broadly in making dance, participatory installations and community. The experience of growing up as a hearing person in a Deaf family continually influences his thinking about performing bodies as being both subjects and agents of culture. His writings about art practice as a form of thinking and experience can be found on The Quiet Circus Blog.

Today I talk about COVID and the Research Community w/Kim Fortun, Lori Peek, & Jason Ludwig Kim Fortun is a professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine.  Her research and teaching focus how people in different geographic and organizational contexts understand environmental problems, uneven distributions of environmental health risks, developments in the environmental health sciences, and factors that contribute to disaster vulnerability.  Fortun is the author of Advocacy After Bhopal Environmentalism, Disaster (2001). Jason Ludwig is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Science and Technology Studies. His research interests converge around race, disaster, and the possibility of a radical politics of science and technology. Lori Peek is professor in the Department of Sociology and director of the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado Boulder. She has written and edited several books on marginalized populations in disasters, and she leads the National Science Foundation-funded CONVERGE initiative.