Hybrid Workshop – Postcards as Pedagogy

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Postcards as Pedagogy

with Subhankar Banerjee

1 October 2024 – 10 – 11:30 am EDT – In-Person and Zoom

Bata 206 – Trent University
Registration required for in-person attendance by September 25 – (lunch will be provided to in-person participants at 11:30am)
Register Here

The Centre for Teaching and Learning and Lady Eaton College warmly invite you to join us for a conversation with 2024 Ashley Fellow Subhankar Banerjee (Professor of Art and Ecology, University of New Mexico) about his use of postcards in the classroom. Banerjee will explain how postcards can encourage active learning about the interplay between visual images, environmental activism, and social justice. Banerjee was co-curator of the award-winning project “A Library, a Classroom, and the World,” which was included in the Personal Structures exhibit of the 2022 Venice Biennale. Part of the exhibit included a collaborative project, Beyond Fortress Conservation: Postcards of Biodiversity and Justice, with Trent History Professor Finis Dunaway. The project considered how iconic postcards have supported colonialist visions of conservation, while also highlighting examples of justice-based approaches to biodiversity. For Banerjee, “all projects are seeds that lead to other projects,” and so it was not long before he started to think about how to transform this postcard exhibit into a teaching and learning experience for his students. The result was a guided project in which undergraduates created postcards portraying biodiversity and justice issues. In this talk, Banerjee will share his experience fusing his research and teaching practice. He will explain why he believes postcards present such an effective assessment tool and opportunity for active student learning as well as how they might be used in diverse classroom settings, including Indigenous Studies, Environmental Studies, Gender and Social Justice, History, and Cultural Studies.

  • A postcard that reads "Rain Crow" and shows a drawing of a bird sitting on a branch. The bird and sky are in color and the foliage is in black and white.
    Drawing (ink and oil pastel), writing and design by Paloma Chapa, 2023
  • Rain Crow Once nesting all the way from British Colum bia to northern M exico, the W estern Yellow-billed Cuckoo has seen its habitat range decrease to only a few patches along rivers in New M exico and Arizona. A highly secretive species, the Cuckoo was overlooked and very few realized that the bird was on its way to extinction. Finally, and thankfully, the Western Yellow-billed Cuckoo m ade it on the radar of the U.S. Fish and W ildlife Service, which in 2014 listed the species as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. A m igratory species, the W estern Yellow-billed Cuckoo spends winter in the Andes M ountains of South Am erica. In m id-April, they return to their riparian habitat in the southwestern United States for the breeding season, which lasts from M ay through Septem ber. A shy species, they can be seen perched and still on a cottonwood or willow branch identifiable by their long black tails with parallel white spots. Not that long ago, in the early 20th century, you would have heard the Cuckoo’s distinct call preceding a thunderstorm . W hen people heard their calls, they knew a rainstorm was soon to follow, earning the species the nicknam e, Rain Crow. It would be an honor for m e to m eet one of these birds in the Rio Grande bosque and hear their calls before a rainstorm , but I know this opportunity is becom ing increasingly rare. But not all hope is lost, as the Rain Crow is beginning to find visibility and voice through initiatives like the “Rain Crow IPA,” an IPA created by a local brewery in Tucson with the aim to raise awareness about a local endangered bird that once had cultural connection to the people of the Southwest. I’m doing m y sm all part, and I invite you to add color to the front of this card, write or draw on the back, and m ake it unique to your own experiences in the bosque.
    Drawing (ink and oil pastel), writing and design by Paloma Chapa, 2023
  • A postcard that reads "Greetings from the Other Side, 'The Grass is Greener'" - let postcard is colorful with multi-colored butterflies bordering the text.
    Drawing and collage, (colored pencil, marker, and stickers on paper) Writing and Design by Erin Cassidy, 2023
  • If you look up “vintage postcards” online, something sort of like this will be the first thing to show up. The bright colors, the big letters, the cheery appearance, it’s all very classic Americana. But America, as we know it today, contradicts that rose glasses image. I based this design on those vintage postcards, but the card wasn’t sent from somewhere in America. The idea of “the other side” comes from the classic saying “The grass is greener on the other side” and I liked the idea of a card being sent from a place where things are already better. I wanted to treat this project optimistically because I feel like there are so many negatives in the world of ecology right now that it's easy to get bogged down in the more depressing side of it. I used bright colors and that Americana vibe as inspiration for this design to present a reality where America does live up to that image in the vintage postcards. I wanted it to say “Even though things are rough right now, we shouldn't give up because we can make a difference.” One day we will reach the other side,
    Drawing and collage, (colored pencil, marker, and stickers on paper) Writing and Design by Erin Cassidy, 2023

Subhankar Banerjee describes himself as “an Indian–born American photographer, writer, conservationist, and public scholar. Since the turn of this century, my work has and continues to focus on the two most consequential planetary crises of human history, namely BIOLOGICAL ANNIHILATION and CLIMATE BREAKDOWN. Biological annihilation and climate breakdown are two separate but entangled crises as each contributes in significant ways to the escalation of the other. Both crises are human–caused and are intensifying.” You can read more about Subhankar and his work on his website.

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Subhankar Banerjee and Finis Dunaway

SUBHANKAR BANERJEE is Professor of Art and Ecology at the University of New Mexico, where he serves as the founding director of the Center for Environmental Arts and Humanities. He co-curated “a Library, a Classroom, and the World” for the 2022 Venice Biennale art exhibition Personal Structures, which received the ECC Award for University and Research Project, and is the co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Contemporary Art, Visual Culture, and Climate Change. FINIS DUNAWAY is professor of history at Trent University. He is the author, most recently, of Defending the Arctic Refuge: A Photographer, an Indigenous Nation, and a Fight for Environmental Justice (2021), which received book awards from the Association for Literature, Environment, and Culture in Canada, the Western History Association, and the Western Writers of America. He has also developed a public history website companion to the book: defendingthearcticrefuge.com.

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