Designing Nature's Futures

Reading the Environment in Speculative Fiction and Art

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LATE: “The World We Made”

Summer Dunsmore
November 26, 2017
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After reading through the sections of The World We Made, I found that it was still lacking in some of the specifics regarding a cultural shift towards sustainability, the role of entertainment in this new world, or of the lifestyle of those in a “share economy”. Other sections definitely support…

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Pitch for Final Project – Summer Dunsmore

Summer Dunsmore
November 26, 2017
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At the beginning of the fall 2017 semester, I shared with Amanda a dystopian science fiction story I had been writing about environmental pollution and disease. In this story, women were becoming barren or were giving birth to deformed children, and given this rapid fall in human births, an apparatus…

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LATE post: “Ecotopia”

Summer Dunsmore
November 26, 2017
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November 26. I’ve been invited to visit the country of Ecotopia by the higher-ups in Washington. I’m instructed to fly to the edge of the territories, somewhere in Nevada, and complete three months of observation while living in San Francisco. I’m to publish an article analyzing my experiences. Ecotopia has been…

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LATE post by Summer Dunsmore: Policy Initiative

Summer Dunsmore
November 11, 2017
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I want to start by addressing the fact that the US is officially the only country in the world that has not put forth a good-will declaration and signed the Paris Agreement. Even if the Paris Agreement and the COP23 are just for fueling momentum towards, creating momentum, being ambitious…

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Reflection on Meeting Catherine Flowers

Summer Dunsmore
November 3, 2017
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It was an invigorating experience to meet Catherine! As someone who’s involved in policy, her actions take broad strokes in moving our local communities and our country forward towards resilience and climate change mitigation. She is part of a movement of community members, politicians, students, and public intellectuals – her…

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Permacultural thinking

Summer Dunsmore
October 16, 2017
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What role, if any, might permaculture play in designing nature’s futures? I’d like to write about the concepts behind permaculture that I believe are relevant for embracing the challenges of designing nature’s futures. When we watched Inhabit in class, one of the strongest questions that emerged from the narrative was:…

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There’s always hope (even in the Anthropocene)

Summer Dunsmore
September 22, 2017
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I think it’s not only important – but vital – to remember that hope still exists, even in the dismal landscape of the Anthropocene. I believe, similar to Rebecca Solnit, that hope is rooted in action. I think realism is an excuse for inaction – it is a safe island…

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Creative response to “Pacific Edge”

Summer Dunsmore
September 15, 2017
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The aspects of Pacific Edge that still stick with me are Tom’s journals, or the italicized memories at the beginning of most chapters. I like their musing nature, the nonlinear disconnections, the passionate tone for change. They are opportunities for KSR to emerge alongside Tom as the grand narrator, to…

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Fictional Art as a Document of History?

Summer Dunsmore
September 8, 2017
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How can fiction positively or negatively shape our narratives of the design of nature’s future(s)? [Note: I’ve read a couple of other students’ posts and they seem to be answering how fiction can both positively and negatively affect our narratives. I interpreted the question as asking me to select how…

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Narrating Nature – Week 1 – Blog Response

Summer Dunsmore
September 1, 2017
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The wilderness is not a symbolic construction. There is a danger that lies in the early romanticization of nature and in the separate-ness and alienation from it in our contemporary technocratic society. To both idolize and consume “the wilderness” is to misunderstand it, and in so doing, lies the tragic…

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RSS Duke Sustainability Events

  • Earth Month 2023
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RSS Duke Health & Wellness Events

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  • CABC Seminar: "HIV and substance use comorbidity: from social to neural networks"
  • A Celebration of the Scholarship of Diane Nelson

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Environment Farming Food Health & Wellness Smart Cities Speculative Fiction Sustainability Terraforming Visioning

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