The ongoing Wastelands Faculty Seminar was first funded in 2014 by Washington University in St. Louis’ Center for the Humanities. In monthly meetings over the course of three years, participants read and discussed historical and anthropological scholarship on ruination, ecocritical literary theory, and philosophy on post-humanism. They also presented their original research, including a pilot digital mapping project to track representations and perceptions of a blighted urban corridor in St. Louis.

 

In 2016, we received a Sawyer Seminar grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to expand the reading group into a year-long comparative inquiry structured through a formal program of visiting scholars during AY 2017-2018.