[Yale-forests-reading-group] Resource syllabus and upcoming event

[Reid L]

*A syllabus of resources and an upcoming event*

We hope you are doing as well as possible and enjoying the snow. We
tragically lost a member of the Yale School of the Environment community
this past week. Before beginning this post, we encourage you to hold a
moment of silence for Kevin Jiang. A remarkable member of our community and
many others, Kevin is dearly missed.


--


The start of the year tends to be a time of reflection, and in this spirit
we are using this time to look back on a project nearly a year in the
making. The idea behind starting this reading group was relatively simple:
we wanted to take time each month to consider the relationship between land
and the lives and stories of its Indigenous stewards. For those of us who
practice forestry and other forms of land stewardship, land is central to
our work, study, and play. It is fair to say that we love Connecticut’s
forests, and during our time at Yale and Yale-Myers Forest have built a
relationship with the land. But we believe that loving the land isn’t
enough; in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whom we celebrated
last month, "nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere
ignorance and conscientious stupidity." This project was an attempt to
learn from Indigenous voices about the land which we are currently
stewarding. This means facing some difficult truths and acknowledging our
complicity in stories and structures that have caused disproportionate harm
to Indigenous peoples. It has meant casting our curiosity further than
forests managed by Yale University, beyond New England, into the past,
present, and future. The past, present, and future are not separate from
each other— rather, they speak to one another and must be held in
conversation with one another.



Since our first post in July of 2020, we have structured this project in
the form of collated resources under a theme. For the beginning of 2021, we
have taken these resources and combined them into a syllabus. We hope that
this can serve as a resource clearing house for those following along with
us through this process.


That syllabus is hosted on the Yale Forests website here:
https://forests.yale.edu/resources/yale-forests-indigenous-narratives-working-syllabus



In the coming months we will continue to post on themes related to land and
Indigenous stories. We are also bringing these stories and readings to life
by engaging in discussion with Native scholars this spring. The first event
will be an interactive exploration on the theme of "stewardship" with Dr.
Rae Gould, Associate Director of the Native American and Indigenous Studies
Initiative at Brown University, on February 16th. We hope you'll save the
date.


The event flyer is attached, and you can register for the event here:
https://yale.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwrcemoqjwrH9ZOumpbxiSvfvpVn2AsCZ7P



Thanks again for following along, and we hope to see you next week.

--

Thanks so much for joining us. Have thoughts, comments, or reflections
you'd like to share? Are there resources you feel we should have included?
We hope you'll send an email our way:
yale-forests-reading-group at mailman.yale.edu or check us out on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/yaleschoolforests/. Let us know if you would like
us to consider sharing your comment with the whole group. If you would be
more comfortable sharing thoughts and feedback with us anonymously, please
do so here: https://forms.gle/4tPajvuuB6vpC9mGA.

Think a friend might enjoy subscribing? They can subscribe and learn more
at our info page:
https://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/yale-forests-reading-group. You
can find more resources in our syllabus:
https://forests.yale.edu/resources/yale-forests-indigenous-narratives-working-syllabus
.

We would like to express our gratitude for those whose knowledge and
experiences we have shared throughout these past months. Our most sincere
thanks to the Indigenous creators whose content we have learned from and
shared. Thank you.
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