Fern Thompsett was raised in Gubbi Gubbi Country, also known as the Sunshine Coast, in Queensland, Australia, and is currently working on her Ph.D. in cultural anthropology at Columbia University. Her research explores ways in which people are living according to “anti-civilisation” theories based on environmental, anti-capitalist, and anti-colonial critiques of mass agriculture. She lived and worked for a decade in Meanjin, or Brisbane, where she co-founded the Brisbane Free University, co-hosted a community radio show on 4ZZZ fm, and played in several bands. With Richard Hill and Kristen Lyons, she is author of Transforming Universities in the Midst of Global Crisis: A University for the Common Good, published by Routledge Press in 2021.

Readings

Gaston Bachelard, “The Dialectic of Imaginary Energies: The Resistant World,” Earth and Reveries of Will, 13-26
Henri Lefebvre, “Image,” Critique of Everyday Life: Foundations for a Sociology of the Everyday, 287-290
Susan Sontag, “The Image-World,” On Photography, 153-182
Giorgio Agamben, “The Face,” Means without End, 92-99
Georg Simmel, “Aspatial Gaze,” Rembrandt: An Essay in the Philosophy of Art, 98-100
David Summers, Selections from Real Spaces: World Art History and the Rise of Western Modernism: 1. “The Origins of Images," 251-252, 4.2 “Realities of Images," 252-254, and 4.3 “Images and Cultural Difference," 254-255
Hans Belting, Selections from Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art: “The Images’ Loss of Power and Their New Role as Art,” 14-16, and “Why Images: Imagery and Religion in Late Antiquity,” 30-46
Vilém Flusser, Selections from Writings: “Line and Surface,” 21-34; “The Codified World,” 35-40; “Orders of Magnitude and Humanism,” 160-164
Vilém Flusser, “Why a Philosophy of Photography Is Necessary,” Towards a Philosophy of Photography, 76-82, and Lexicon of Basic Concepts, 83-85
Hito Steyerl, “Ripping Reality: Blind Spots and Wrecked Data in 3D,” Duty Free Art: Art in the Age of Planetary Civil War, 190-205

READINGS

Selections from Norbert Elias, The History of Manners: “On Behavior at Table,” 84-129, and Appendix 1: Introduction to the 1968 Edition, 221-263

Philippe Braunstein, “Toward Intimacy: The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries,” in A History of Private Life, Volume II: Revelations of the Medieval World, ed. Georges Duby, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (series eds: Phillippe Ariès and Georges Duby), 534-630

Reading

Jacques Rancière, “Are Some Things Unrepresentable?” The Future of the Image, 109-138

Ellena Basada is a writer based in Portland and Berlin. She holds a BA in English and Philosophy from Pomona College, where she was graduated cum laude, receiving the Crookshank English Department Thesis Award, and an MA in Critical Studies from the Pacific Northwest College of Art, where she was the recipient of a Hallie Ford Research Scholarship and served as Founding Editor of the art-criticism journal Discursive Impulse. A 2019-2020 Fulbright Fellow, she is the organizer of Affect Zoom Salon and Ad.Doc Archive, online platforms meant to build globally accessible intellectual communities. Her work—a hybrid of research, creative writing, poetry, criticism, and autofiction—can be found in VICE, LA Review of Books, The New Inquiry, Heavy Traffic Lit Mag, and Soft Surface Poetry, among others

The author will read from his "memoir in essays" on Thursday, August 25, 7:00 p.m., at Malaprop's Bookstore, Asheville, North Carolina

Click here to register for the Zoom event

Chibụìhè Obi Achịmbà reads his poetry at the inaugural OICR Yard & Field School, July 31, 2020

Chibụìhè Obi Achịmbà is a poet whose work can be found in The New York Times, Harvard Review, Guernica, Adirondack Review, EXPOUND, Heart, Cosmonauts Avenue, and collections for Arrowsmith Press, among others.  He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best New Poet; and in 2018, was named a finalist for the Gerald Kraak Award.  In 2019-2020, he was a Scholars at Risk Fellow and Research Scholar in the Department of English at Harvard University.  In fall 2020, he will begin his MFA candidacy at Brown University.  He is currently at work on his first book.  

Read “an easter hymn featuring my grandmother doing god’s will” here

https://www.brown.edu/academics/literary-arts/chibuihe-obi-achimba

In public testimony at the Department of State Lands in Salem on Tuesday, December 10, 2019, OICR urges the members of the Oregon State Land Board to leave the Elliott State Forest inviolate and inviolable, with a complete ban on roads and logging.

SOURCES

Friends of OSU Old Growth

Rob Davis, “After logging 420-year-old tree, Oregon State announces new protections for old growth,”The Oregonian/Oregon Live, updated Oct 22, 2019; posted Oct 21, 2019.

George Plaven, “OSU celebrates opening of mass timber research lab,” Capital Press, October 15, 2019

READING

Sir James Frazer, “Departmental Kings of Nature,” The New Sacred Bough, 70-72

“Time is a permanent argument, the core of which is unknown.  One part of its movement inclines toward affirming, the other toward repudiating.”

— Róbert Gál                                                               

RÓBERT GÁL is a Slovak writer, editor, and publisher based in Prague, the Czech Republic. Working at the intersection of genres and media, heis the author of several books of aphorisms, fiction, and philosophical fragments available in English translation, including Naked Thoughts (Black Sun Lit, 2019), Agnomia (Dalkey Archive Press, 2018), On Wing (Dalkey Archive Press, 2015), and Signs & Symptoms (Twisted Spoon Press, 2003), and has also collaborated with composers, dancers, filmmakers, and visual artists in performance and installation work across Europe and the U.S. In Fall 2019, he was a Resident in the 12-week International Residency for Established Writers at the International Writing Program, University of Iowa. He is the 2019 IWP@OICR Writer-in-Residence at the Oregon Institute for Creative Research.

THE OREGON INSTITUTE FOR CREATIVE RESEARCH IS PROUD TO JOIN THE YOUTH CLIMATE LEADERS OF PDX, OUR FRIENDS AROUND THE GLOBE, AND FELLOW INHABITANTS OF EARTH, OF EVERY AGE AND FROM ALL WALKS OF LIFE, IN SUPPORTING THE GLOBAL CLIMATE STRIKE TOMORROW, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2019, WITH THE PORTLAND RALLY COMMENCING AT PORTLAND CITY HALL, 10:30 A.M.

READINGS FOR EVENT

Devra Davis, “The Miseducation of America on 5G: The New York Times Gets It Spectacularly Wrong,” Medium, July 22, 2019

https://medium.com/swlh/ten-corrections-to-william-j-78094d3c1aee

Americans for Responsible Technology

https://www.americansforresponsibletech.org/issues

We are Americans who believe in the implementation of safe, reliable and responsible technology. We believe in the democratic process, and in our right to determine how new technologies will be integrated into our neighborhoods, our homes and our lives.  We believe the issues that surround the widespread deployment of new wireless 4G/5G technologies must be addressed before taxpayer money is used to expand them.  No vague promise of future benefits is worth jeopardizing our democratic principles, our freedom of choice, or our health, safety, security and privacy.

Feinstein, Blumenthal Demand Answers on FCC Role in Frivolous 5G ...

https://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=6D69E7FF-C301-4051-9274-C1BDFE377BCF Jan 30, 2019 -Washington—Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein (D -Calif.) and Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) ...

Physicians for Safe Technology

https://mdsafetech.org/problems/5g/

Paul Héroux, “5G and IoT: A Trojan Horse,” La Maison du 21e siècle, February 11, 2018

https://maisonsaine.ca/english/5g-and-iot-a-trojan-horse.html

International Society of Doctors for Environment 

“5G networks in European Countries appeal for a standstill in respect of the precautionary principle”

http://www.isde.org/5G_appeal.pdf

Martin L. Pall, “Electromagnetic fields act via activation of voltage‐gated calcium channels to produce beneficial or adverse effects,” Journal of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Volume 17, Issue 8, August 2013, pages 958-965

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jcmm.12088

The Internet of Things Poses Human Health Risks. Scientists Question the Safety of Untested 5G Technology at International Conference

https://ehtrust.org/key-issues/cell-phoneswireless/5g-internet-everything/20-quick-facts-what-you-need-to-know-about-5g-wireless-and-small-cells/

Sue Halpern, “The Terrifying Potential of the 5G Network,” The New Yorker, April 26, 2019

The future of wireless technology holds the promise of total connectivity. But it will also be especially susceptible to cyberattacks and surveillance.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-communications/the-terrifying-potential-of-the-5g-network

Gandhi, O.p., and A. Riazi. “Absorption of Millimeter Waves by Human Beings and Its Biological Implications.”

IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, vol. 34, no. 2, 1986, pp. 228–235., doi:10.1109/tmtt.1986.1133316. [online] Available at: 
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1133316/authors#authors [Accessed 5 Jun. 2019].

With recent advances in millimeter-wave technology, including the availability of high-power sources in this band, it has become necessary to understand the biological implications of this energy for human beings. This paper gives the millimeter-wave absorption efficiency for the human body with and without clothing. Ninety to ninety-five percent of the incident energy may be absorbed in the skin with dry clothing, with or without an intervening air gap, acting as an impedance transformer. On account of the submillimeter depths of penetration in the skin, superficial SAR'S as high as 65-357 W/Kg have been calculated for power density of incident radiation corresponding to the ANSI guideline of 5 mW/cm/sup 2/. Because most of the millimeter-wave absorption is in the region of the cutaneous thermal receptors (0.1 - 1.0 mm), the sensations of absorbed energy are likely to be similar to those of IR. For the latter, threshold of heat perception is near 0.67 mW/cm/sup 2/, with power densities on the order of 8.7 mW/cm/sup 2/ likely to cause sensations of "very warm to hot" with a latency of 1.0+-0.6s. Calculations are made for thresholds of hearing of pulsed millimeter waves. Pulsed energy densities of 143-579 µJ/cm/sup 2/ are obtained for the frequency band 30-300 GHz. These are 8-28 times larger than the threshold for microwaves below 3 GHz. The paper also points to the need for evaluation of ocular effects of millimeter-wave irradiation because of high SAR's in the cornea.

Joel Moskowitz, University of California, Berkeley, "Cell Phones, Cell Towers, and Wireless Safety"

https://youtu.be/zE-ff6oSY0k

Joel Moskowitz is a Research Faculty Member at the University of California, Berkeley, in the School of Public Health. His talk "Cell Phones, Cell Towers, and Wireless Safety" was presented as part of the "Balancing Technology" Series at the University Health Services, UC Berkeley on February 27, 2019

Nasim, I. and Kim, S. (2019). Human Exposure to RF Fields in 5G Downlink

Available at: https://arxiv.org/abs/1711.03683 

[Accessed 5 Jun. 2019].

While cellular communications in millimeter wave (mmW) bands have been attracting significant research interest, their potential harmful impacts on human health are not as significantly studied. Prior research on human exposure to radio frequency (RF) fields in a cellular communications system has been focused on uplink only due to the closer physical contact of a transmitter to a human body. However, this paper claims the necessity of thorough investigation on human exposure to downlink RF fields, as cellular systems deployed in mmW bands will entail (i) deployment of more transmitters due to smaller cell size and (ii) higher concentration of RF energy using a highly directional antenna. In this paper, we present human RF exposure levels in downlink of a Fifth Generation Wireless Systems (5G). Our results show that 5G downlink RF fields generate significantly higher power density (PD) and specific absorption rate (SAR) than a current cellular system. This paper also shows that SAR should also be taken into account for determining human RF exposure in the mmW downlink.

Verizon CEO Vestberg [sic] Takes 5G Hype to 11 at CES – Multichannel

https://www.multichannel.com/blog/verizon-ceo-vestberg-takes-5g-hype-to-11-at-ces

Jan 9, 2019 - ... Hans Vesterberg stressed during his jam- -packed CES keynote at the ... was New York Times CEO Mark Thompson, who presented how 5G ...

Preview YouTube video US Senator Blumenthal Raises Concerns on 5G Wireless Technology Health Risks at Senate Hearing 

https://ehtrust.org/5g-and-its-small-cell-towers-threaten-public-health-harvard-phd-scientist/

“Mill Valley Joins Effort to Constrain 5-G Proliferation”

By ADRIAN RODRIGUEZ | arodriguez@marinij.com | Marin Independent Journal

PUBLISHED: September 9, 2018 at 4:09 pm | UPDATED: September 9, 2018 at 5:44 pm

The city of Mill Valley has enacted an urgency ordinance to regulate “small cell” towers amid concerns that cellphone companies want to grow their 5G networks and install new equipment in Marin.

https://www.marinij.com/2018/09/09/mill-valley-joins-effort-to-constrain-5g-proliferation/ - comments

“Head of NOAA says 5G deployment could set weather forecasts back ...,Head of NOAA says 5G deployment could set weather forecasts back 40 years. The wireless industry denies it,” Washington Post, May 23, 2019

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/05/23/head-noaa-says-g-deployment-could-set-weather-forecasts-back-years-wireless-industry-denies-it/

May 23, 2019 - Last week, Neil Jacobs, the acting head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told Congress that 5G interference could set the accuracy of weather forecastsback 40 years. ... (The study, a collaborative effort between NOAA, NASA and the FCC, still under deliberation, is not public.

What is 5G?

https://whatis5g.info

Proximity to a cell tower typically lowers property values by more than 20%.

See https://ehtrust.org/cell-phone-towers-lower-property-values-documentation-research/  A cell tower could easily take hundreds of thousands- if not millions- in value away from local real estate.

Susan Crawford (John A. Reilly Clinical Professor of Law, Harvard Law School), “Why 5G Makes Me Reconsider the Health Effects of Cellphones,” Wired, April 1, 2019 (ORIGINAL VERSION OF ARTICLE)

The FCC's safety standards for cellular communications date from 1996. 5G networks will require many more cell sites, operating at higher frequencies.

https://web.archive.org/web/20190401150103/https://www.wired.com/story/why-5g-makes-reconsider-health-effects-cellphones/

Susan Crawford, “5G and the Health Effects of Cell Phones,” Wired, April 1, 2019 (EDITED VERSION OF ARTICLE)

Editor's note: An earlier version of this story relied on some source materials that did not meet WIRED’s standards for scientific rigor. The piece has now been modified to cite more reputable sourcing and reflect their findings. You can read an archived version of the article here.

https://www.wired.com/story/why-5g-makes-reconsider-health-effects-cellphones/

See also YaleGlobal Online: https://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/unknowns-5g-health-effects-wired

Martin L. Pall, “5G: Great risk for EU, U.S. and International Health! Compelling Evidence for Eight Distinct Types of Great Harm Caused by Electromagnetic Field (EMF) Exposures and the Mechanism that Causes Them”

https://peaceinspace.blogs.com/files/5g-emf-hazards--dr-martin-l.-pall--eu-emf2018-6-11us3.pdf

Devra Davis, “Cell Phone Radiation: Is It Dangerous?” Huffington Post, THE BLOG,03/01/2011 07:20 am ET (updated May 25, 2011)

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/cell-phone-radiation-_b_828330

Tom Banse, “Pushback against superfast 5G wireless spreads to at least 7 Pacific Northwest cities,” May 31, 2019

https://www.klcc.org/post/pushback-against-superfast-5g-wireless-spreads-least-7-pacific-northwest-cities

Brian Liu presents “Because We Are Friends; Or, the Conspiracy of Friendship”

Medieval historian and critic Ivan Illich proposed a search for a new askesis, a set of practices that make virtuous action possible. Friendship is, for Illich, that new askesis, the only properly human response to radical dehumanization, the reduction of people into components of the several key systems he identified and analyzed over the course of some twenty years: economic systems, transportation systems, pedagogical systems, medical systems.  Friendship is a relationship built on faith, humility, and poverty of spirit.  It is the very basis of hospitality, impelling/inviting one to say “no, thank you” to the ruling assumptions of scarcity, progress, and competition that systems catalyze and on which they rely.  “Learned and leisurely hospitality is the only antidote to the stance of deadly cleverness that is acquired in the professional pursuit of objectively secured knowledge,” notes Illich in “The Cultivation of Conspiracy” (1998).  “I remain certain that the quest for truth cannot thrive outside the nourishment of mutual trust flowering into a commitment to friendship.”  Here, twenty years down the line, in an act of homage if not pilgrimage, I return to the meditations on otherness, powerlessness, and love of “the prophet of Cuernavaca,” the means by which he believed an art of living could be established and fostered.  With the help of a wide range of diverse interlocutors, including Hannah Arendt, Emmanuel Levinas, Giorgio Agamben, Wendell Berry, and Srecko Horvat, among others, I rethink, and think through, the possibility of the sovereignty of friendship today, the relationship that exists solely in itself and for itself, and, as such, categorically refuses assimilation into, and cooptation by, any system. 

Guest Lecturer Bennett Gilbert, Senior Instructor in University Studies, Portland State University, and author, A Personalist Philosophy of History (Routledge, 2019): “Two Ways to Think in Two Directions at the Same Time”