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Braiding Sweetgrass
April 12, 2022 @ 12:00 pm - 2:00 pm
This event is free for graduate and undergraduate students, as well as for faculty
**This event will be offered via Zoom. A Zoom link will be provided the day before the event.
Join the Association of Faculty Women and Professional Development Initiative book discussion on Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. Register here.
*Please plan for a 75 – 90 minute event*
A bit about Braiding Sweetgrass: As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a citizen of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces plants and animals as our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together through her memoir of living in the natural world and practicing heart-centered science. Drawing on her life as an Indigenous scientist, mother, and woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings offer us gifts and lessons, even if we’ve forgotten how to hear their voices. In a rich braid of reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. This reciprocal relationship also comes with responsibility, urging humanity to work toward gratitude and reciprocity for the gifts of Mother Earth.
How to Access the Book: Braiding Sweetgrass is available from the WSU Libraries as an e-book with unlimited concurrent users—so it is readily available to all at no cost:
What to Read: The book is a collection of independent though related essays, all exploring and valuing the interconnections between different ways of knowing. While we invite you to read widely in the book, we will focus on the following sections for our discussion:
• Skywoman Falling (pp. 3-10)
• The Council of the Pecans (pp. 11-21)
• *Asters and Goldenrod (pp. 39-47)
• *Mishkos Kenomagwen: The Teachings of the Grass (pp. 156-166)
• *Sitting in a Circle (pp.223-240)
• The Sacred and the Superfund (pp. 310-340)
• *Collateral Damage (pp. 348-359)
If you don’t have time to read all the sections, feel free to dip into the sections above as you can. Those marked with an asterisk are especially connected to higher ed. We would like to convey a sense of welcome to those who might attend. Reading all the selections suggested would be great, but reading just a few is also fine, as would watching the suggested (or other) video. Please do not shy away from joining, due to the suggested readings and video viewings. The sections are stand-alone, and each is an invitation to consider professional, cultural, personal, and ecological issues in fuller, more connected ways.
If you would like to view a video of the author discussing her work, Please view this video:
“Gifts of the Land: A Guided Nature Tour with Robin Wall Kimmerer” (20 min.), which features Kimmerer walking at a site near her SUNY campus at this time of year, and exemplifies her approach to the human and more-than-human world. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxJUFGlPYn4
Discussion Facilitators: Our conversation about the book will be facilitated by Dr. Sarah Fick, Assistant Professor of Science Education, and Dr. Karen Weathermon, Director of First-Year Programs, in collaboration with other faculty who will bring their disciplinary perspectives of reading and using the book.
Register here.
