Brown Bag Lecture Series
College of Arts and Humanities
SUNY Fredonia
Fredonia, NY 14063
NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SUNY FREDONIA PRESENTS AN INTERDISCIPLINARY ROUNDTABLE ON SUSTAINABILITY
EFFORTS ON CAMPUS AND IN OUR COMMUNITY
FREDONIA, N.Y. (April 1, 2008) – As a tie-in to Earth Week activities and ongoing sustainability
efforts, SUNY Fredonia is proud to present an interdisciplinary roundtable on conservation and
environmental issues. During this informal presentation, SUNY Fredonia faculty members will explore
connections between their scholarly and creative projects, their personal lives and their commitments to
strengthening sustainability efforts on campus and in our community. This event, which is part of the
Brown Bag Lecture Series, will take place on Wednesday, April 1, from 12:00 to 12:50 p.m. in S-104 of
the Williams Center.
In “Greening a Toxic Art Studio: Theory and Practice in Printmaking,” Timothy Frerichs, an associate
professor of Visual Arts and New Media, will discuss the personal and professional processes of
switching to more environmental and healthy “green” studio practices. During his talk, Professor
Frerichs will also share images of recent artwork produced using sustainable methods. Tracy Marafiote,
an assistant professor of Communication, will explore the tensions that arise in corporate-“green”
partnerships in her presentation, “Meeting the (Sustainable) In-laws: The (Unholy?) Union of Business
& Environmental Organizations.” Dr. Marafiote will focus specifically on debates within
environmental communities about the practicality and ethicality of environmental groups allying with
corporate America. Concluding the panel, Christina Jarvis, an associate professor of English and
American Studies, will share the origins of a new scholarly project on conservation in her talk, “My
Grandmother’s Curtains: Discovering a Usable Past for a Sustainable Future.” Dr. Jarvis will examine
selected post-World War II cultural artifacts and the importance of rethinking American consumption
practices during that era. Jeremy Linden, the Head of Archives and Special Collections at Reed Library,
will introduce and be the respondent for the event. Professor Linden brings to this role his current
research interests in preservation-environment monitoring in archives and museum studies, as well as
his experience managing archival resources relevant to the environmental history of our region.
Brief biographies of the four participants follow.
 Timothy Frerichs is an associate professor of art in the Department of Visual Arts and New
Media. He received a Bachelor of Arts from St. Olaf College, MN, and a Master of Arts and
Master of Fine Arts from the University of Iowa, Iowa. Professor Frerichs has received a
number of awards including a 2007 Senior Fulbright Lecture Award through which he taught
drawing and printmaking (non-toxic) courses at the Universität Osnabück, Germany. This was
Professor Frerichs’ second Fulbright to Germany; he had previously received an award for the
year following his MFA in 1991. Professor Frerichs also received a Salton-Stall Foundation
Grant for Printmaking in 2007. He has also spent time doing research in Uppsala, Sweden, first
through an American-Scandinavian Fellowship, and later as a Visiting Artist with the
Universität Uppsala Botanical Gardens. Professor Frerichs’ drawings, prints and multimedia
work have been widely exhibited internationally and nationally. His artwork is included in
international and national public and private collections.
 Tracy Marafiote is an assistant professor of communication studies in the Department of
Communication. Dr. Marafiote earned her Ph.D. at the University of Utah with a focus on
critical inter/cultural studies and environmental communication. Motivated to bridge her
environmental activism and academic work, Dr. Marafiote pursues scholarly interests that lie
broadly with the discursive/cultural constructions of identity and difference (particularly as
related to race/ethnicity, gender, class, and sexuality) and the natural world. Reflecting these
areas of culture and communication, much of her current research explores the contributions
and influences of historical discourses, cultural formations, and social constructions of identities
on the passage of a historic piece of political/environmental legislation: namely, the Wilderness
Act of 1964. Her future research goals include examining the intersections of gender, race,
class, and nature with sustainability and social/environmental justice.
 Christina Jarvis is the director of American studies and an associate professor in the English
Department, where she teaches courses in 20th-century American literature and culture, gender
studies, and sustainability. Professor Jarvis earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in English from Penn
State University, and she also holds a B.A. in History and English from Rutgers University. She
is the author of The Male Body at War: American Masculinity during World War II (2004), and
she has published articles on gender and embodiment in journals such as Women's Studies, The
Southern Quarterly, and War, Literature, and the Arts. While her past publications have focused
on intersections between war and gender, she is currently working to translate new research on
sustainability and American consumer culture into a book project and various forms of public
engagement. This year she is the campus Earth Week coordinator and chair of the academics
sustainability subcommittee.
 Jeremy Linden is the Head of Archives and Special Collections at Reed Library. He holds an
M.A. in History and an M.L.S. with a concentration in Archives from the University of
Maryland, College Park, and he worked as an archives and museum consultant before joining
the Fredonia faculty in May 2006. Among the many holdings that Mr. Linden manages are
resources concerning the environmental history of the region, including the Records of the West
Valley Coalition on Nuclear Wastes at SUNY Fredonia. His current research interests include
preservation-environment monitoring in archives and museum repositories and the connection
between document preservation, preservation environment management, and sustainability in
archives settings.
The Brown Bag Lecture series, sponsored by the College of Arts and Humanities, offers informal talks
on the first Wednesday of each academic month, October through May, featuring new creative and
scholarly work by members of the SUNY Fredonia faculty. Each talk and/or presentation is followed
by a brief discussion. Refreshments will be served, and all members of the campus and community are
welcome to attend these free events.
For more information on the lecture series, please contact Natalie Gerber, series director, at 716-6733855 or at natalie.gerber@fredonia.edu.
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