2024 MIS Course List
PLAP 3160/GSVS 3160: Politics of Food // Paul Freedman
Session I : 5/20/24-5/31/24 // 10:00am-3:00pm
How and what we eat is basic to who we are as individuals, as a culture, and as a polity. This course looks at the production and consumption of food in a political context. Food politics and policies have critical implications for the environment, for public health, and for social justice and political equality. Ultimately, we will examine the ways in which the politics of food represents both a reflection and a distortion of fundamental democratic principles. We will also examine a number of current issues confronting food politics and the food system in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a 10-day seminar.
GSVS 3110/ANTH 3590: Sustainable Communities // Tess Farmer
Session I : 5/20/24-5/31/24 // 10:00am-3:00pm
This seminar investigates sustainable community practices from around the globe, exploring how communities think about and implement structures to support environmental quality, economic health, and social equity. Through case studies, class activities and site visits, we will examine what we can learn from many sources to reimagine and change our communities to achieve holistic sustainability. This is a 10-day seminar
Learn more about Prof. Farmer’s vision for the course here! (Passcode: yiWa@@9E)
ARH 4500/AAS 4005: Morven’s Enslaved & Descendant Communities // Scot French and Louis Nelson, with Morven Descendant, Lenora McQueen
Session III : July 15-Aug 2 (three weeks) TIME TBD
This course invites students to participate in the interpretive revisioning of UVA’s Morven Farm as a 19th Century Black cultural landscape, with a focus on the site’s enslaved and free communities. Through on-site lectures, guided research, seminar-style discussions, and field trips to archives and regional historic sites, students will develop strategies for interpreting Morven’s multi-layered history while exploring best practices for historic preservation, digital archiving, and cultural stewardship.
Learn more by watching Scot French and Lenora McQueen’s Flash Seminar, “Legacies of Enslavement at Morven.”
ETP 3500: Multimedia Practice for the Environment // Matthew Burner
Session III : 7/29/24-8/9/24 // 10:00AM-3:30PM
This class offers students a practice-based study in creative multimedia design for environmental research. We will focus on creative uses of sound, imaging, and poetics to design environmental messaging. We will study a range of media, emphasizing the use of environmental soundscape and sonification, and a focus on UVA’s Morven Farm. The class includes field excursions multimedia lab work, exhibition and discussion of student-created work.
2023 MIS Professors
Paul Freedman, Politics
“The Morven Summer Institute has definitely been one of the most exciting opportunities of my teaching career. To be able to come out to a place away from Grounds, a place that is situated in such a beautiful landscape, and have the chance to talk about, read about and connect with ideas about food, the environment, and sustainability, just makes sense.”
Paul Freedman (Ph.D. University of Michigan) is Associate Professor in the Department of Politics at the University of Virginia. Freedman teaches courses in public opinion, media and politics, voting behavior, research methods and the politics of food.
Tessa Farmer, Anthropology and Global Studies
“I’m really excited to take advantage of the resources at Morven to do hands on work with students that connects us to different practices from around the globe that people use to build sustainable communities. It’s a unique opportunity to combine theory and practice in order to develop our collective knowledge about how we can build better communities together.”
Tessa Farmer is Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology and the Global Studies Program, where she serves as the Track Director for the Global Studies-Middle East South Asia (GSMS) major. Her first book, Well-Connected: Everyday Water Practices in Cairo, focuses on water and wastewater in Cairo, Egypt (Johns Hopkins University Press 2023). She has a second book project underway on charitable water fountains, called sabils, that are an important part of the built environment and moral ecology of Cairo, and an ongoing research collaboration with Megawra, the Built Environment Collective, on urban farming.
Lenora McQueen, History / Geneaology
“My hope for the outcome of this course is the building of new memories, and the creation of a new narrative for Morven, constructed on historical truth, based on the forensic evidence. The goal will be to include all of Morven’s former inhabitants, as no one should be left behind, or forgotten. They were all important.”
Lenora McQueen is an educator, researcher, and advocate for the preservation and interpretation of African American historic sites in Virginia. A descendant of Kitty Cary and others enslaved at Morven, she will share insights from her family and community research and introduce students to relevant archival collections.
Scot French, History / African American Studies
"I’m excited to introduce U.Va. students to Morven as a cultural landscape with a complex, multi-layered history spanning hundreds of years. This is a great opportunity to explore the history of Morven’s enslaved and descendant communities while learning about digital research tools and methods."
Scot French (Ph.D., University of Virginia) is a digital public historian specializing in the study of cultural landscapes associated with 19th and 20th century African American history. He will share his collaborative research on Morven and other Central Virginia communities/neighborhoods, such as Albemarle County's Ivy Creek and Charlottesville’s Vinegar Hill, and introduce students to digital tools for research, data visualization, and exhibit curation. He has co-taught two previous courses at Morven and published a peer-reviewed article based on his research into Thomas Jefferson's and William Short's correspondence about the site.