Environment + Genre with Shannon Davies Mancus
About the Episode
Have you ever thought about the way we “perform” differently in a bar than we do in a museum? Or how structural engineers are expected to be one way, while muralists are expected to behave another way? Have you ever felt like you didn’t fit in if you weren’t exactly like everyone else in your social circle? Or like you weren’t allowed to explore other options?
Well, Shannon Davies Mancus studies exactly that—the “genres” or “scripts” we follow, depending on what we study, or what job we have, or what social groups we’re a part of. More specifically, she studies how pop culture influences the narratives that tell us there’s only one “right” way to be an environmentalist, and how we can move beyond that script to reach new and better stories. Not just so we can “appear” a new way, but so that we might actually relate to one other more and begin to truly shift our environmental future.
Episode Details
About Shannon (she/her)
Shannon’s undergraduate and first degree was in musical theatre, and she has maintained a performance praxis through her second career as an academic. She is currently an Associate Teaching Professor and coordinator of the Nature and Human Values program at the Colorado School of Mines. Her work can be found in publications such as Performing Ethos, The Cambridge History of Science Fiction, and the Bloomsbury Handbook of Twenty-first Century Feminist Theory. Her work focuses on the political performativity of environmentalist media in visual and popular culture. She loves traveling, community, and sharing exciting ideas.
What We Discuss
The performance of environmental politics.
How scripts and genres have something to do not only with the media we consume but how we behave in the world.
The power of stories and something called “the information deficit model.”
Shannon’s story of living through 9/11 and the film that changed everything for her.
Why Shannon loves studying popular imagination around witches and how they connect to our sense of environmental doom.
How she weaved together all of the seemingly disparate things in her career into where she is now, but how that only became clear in hindsight.
And, why she loves teaching unexpected things to math and engineering students.
Sources Mentioned
Thirteen Ways of Seeing Nature in L.A., Part I, by Jenny Price
“Restricted choice,” which actually comes from card playing?
Elisabeth Anker on Orgies of Feeling: Melodrama and the Politics of Freedom
Linda Williams, Professor of Film & Media and Rhetoric
Darko Suvin on Estrangement and Cognition
Climate scientist, Katharine Hayhoe
“Savages, Victims, and Saviors: The Metaphor of Human Rights”
The Cloverfield poster Shannon mentioned, though she made sure to note how the original version of the poster that hung around the subway didn’t include the title of the film, an important part of using 9/11 imagery without any further explanation as a way to invoke fear.
The Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences Department at the Colorado School of Mines.
Here, too, is the work of Lincoln Carr and Toni Lefton, who I also mentioned. Here is my interview with Lincoln.
The Mari Andrew illustration on what things look like now vs. what they’ll look like in hindsight.
The documentary on Hilma af Klint, Beyond the Visible. I couldn’t remember it during our conversation, but af Klint’s coven was called “The Five” and they regularly held seances to commune with mystical spirits. That article, by the way, talks about how often female creativity is associated with occult forces—a.k.a., you know, witches. And, her exhibition at the Guggenheim in New York ran from October 12, 2018, to April 23, 2019.
The Jenny Slate special where she jokes about calling a museum "The Guggenheim.”
Or, Listen & Subscribe On
Spotify
Stitcher
Or wherever you get your podcasts.
Find Shannon Online
Twitter
Instagram
Get More This Plus That
Sign Up for the Newsletter
Follow on Twitter
Follow on Instagram
Credits
Audio engineering by the team at Upfire Digital.
All of my music is provided by the in-house musicians at Slip.stream.
Episode Transcript
Coming soon, hopefully! Would you be willing to help? Email me at brandi@thisplusthat.com!
