LEVI VAN SANT
University of Georgia, Athens
ADDRESS
Room 149
Geography/Geology Building
University of Georgia
Athens, GA 30602
leviv@uga.edu
EDUCATION
University of Georgia, Athens, Ga.
Department of Geography,
PhD. Candidate in Conservation and Geography
University of Georgia, Athens, Ga.
M.A., History, 2009.
University of Georgia, Athens, Ga.
Graduate Certificate, Conservation Ecology,
Odum School of Ecology, 2009.
University of Georgia, Athens, Ga.
B.A., History and Political Science, 2004.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Fall 2011-present, graduate school assistantship,
UGA Center for Integrative Conservation Research
Fall 2010-Spring 2011, teaching assistant, UGA
Department of Geography
2009, archival manager, UGA Hargrett Library
2008, research assistant under Dr. Shane Hamilton's
NSF Scholar's Award
2007-2009, teaching assistant, UGA History Department
CURRENT RESEARCH
Food and Agriculture; Postcolonial Studies; City and
Country; Critical Physical Geography; The Politics of
Land
Through a study of recent agrarian change in the South
Carolina Lowcountry - the area surrounding the port
city of Charleston - my dissertation investigates the
ways that shifting forms of state power and dynamic
racial ideologies shape the region's uneven geography.
PUBLICATIONS
Book review: John Warren, et al., The Agri-Environment, in
Agricultural History, Winter 2010.
R. Vercoe, N. Heynen, D. Hardy, J. Demoss, S. Bonney, K.
Allen, P. Brosius, D. Charles, B. Crawford, S. Heisel, R.
de Jesús-Crespo, N. Nibbelink, L. Parker, C. Pringle, A.
Shaw, L. Van Sant, M. Welch-Devine, “Acknowledging Tradeoffs and Understanding Complexity: Exurbanization Issues in
Macon County, North Carolina,” Ecology and Society,
forthcoming Spring 2014.
“Lowcountry Visions: Race, Foodways, and the Politics of
Myth,” Gastronomica, under review.
“Metropolitan Geographies: Country, City, and other
Legacies of Colonial Capitalism,” Annals of the Association
of American Geographers, in preparation.
NEWSPAPER ARTICLES
Athens Urban Food Collective, “Repurposing Public Space to
Meet Local Food Needs,” Flagpole Magazine, Athens, GA.,
December 2010.
“Immigration and Agribusiness in Georgia,” Flagpole
Magazine, Athens, GA., June 2011.
NEWSLETTER ARTICLES
“Wilderness and Agriculture,” Trek Country, summer 2008.
GRANTS
American Association of Geographers Dissertation Research
Award (2013)
Harvard History Project Research Grant (2013)
UGA Graduate School Dean's Award (2014)
FELLOWSHIPS
Harvard Center for the Study of Capitalism Research
Fellowship (2013)
GRANTS UNDER REVIEW OR IN PREPARATION
National Science Foundation - DDRI
PRESENTATIONS
INVITED LECTURES
“Ecosystem Ecology: A Southern Science?” UGA History
Department, Fall 2008.
“History of Science and Epistemology,” UGA Odum School of
Ecology, Fall 2009.
“Sustainability, Social Justice, and Local Food Systems,”
UGA Center for Integrative Conservation Research,
Fall 2012.
"When Local Comes to Town: Race and Agricultural Governance
in the South Carolina Lowcountry," Dr. Catarina Passidomo's
"Geography of Food" Course, UGA Dept. of Geography
INVITED WORKSHOPS
2013 Emory Postcolonial Studies Workshop,
"Class Analysis and the Politics of the People"
PAPERS PRESENTED AT PROFESSIONAL MEETINGS
2013 Association of American Geographers Annual Conference,
“When Local Comes to Town: Towards a Political Ecology
of the Urban-Rural Rift”
2013 Dimensions of Political Ecology, University of
Kentucky, “Geographies of Food and Agriculture:
Towards a Theory of Urban-Rural Rift”
2012 Dimensions of Political Ecology, University of
Kentucky, “Reading Wendell Berry as Critical Theory:
Political Ecology, Environmental History, and
Agrarianism”
2011 Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Conference
2010 NiCHE “Place and Placelessness” Workshop,
“Southern Regions Revisited: Eugene Odum,
Ecological Research, and the Fallacy of Placeless
Knowledge”
2010 Forum on Agricultural, Rural and Environmental
History, “Eugene Odum, Coastal Conservation, and
the Politics of Place”
2009 American Society for Environmental History Conference,
“Searching for the Fundamentals of Ecology: Eugene
Odum, Ecosystem Ecology, and Environmental Politics”
2009 Southern Forum on Agricultural, Rural, and
Environmental History (FARE),
“A Tale of Two Cities: Towards a Thick Integration of
Geography and History”
2008 Southern Regional History of Science and Technology
(HoST) Conference, “Ecosystem Ecology: A Southern
Science?”
2008 Forum on Agriculture and Rural History,
“Backlashes, both Environmental and Social:
Ecology and Agriculture in the Age of
Environmentalism”
2007 WHEATS Conference, Discussion participant.
2006-2010 Workshop on the History of Agriculture and the
Environment (WHAE) at UGA, Discussion participant and
presenter.
PANELS ORGANIZED AT PROFESSIONAL MEETINGS
2013 Association of American Geographers Annual Conference,
“Fragments of an Anarchist Geography: A Conversation”
2011 Agricultural History Society Conference,
“Making Markets,” comment by Barbara Hahn.
2009 American Society for Environmental History Conference,
“Science and Health at the Dawn of American
Environmentalism,” comment by Scott Kirsch.
2009 Southern Forum on Agricultural, Rural, and
Environmental History (FARE),
“Foodways and Agriculture in the American South”
ACADEMIC ACTIVITIES
UGA Food and Agriculture Discussion Group,
Founder, Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Workshop,
Political Ecology and STS Reading Group,
Co-convener, UGA Geography Department.
“Food, Agriculture, and the Future” Research Node,
Co-convener, UGA Center for Integrative Conservation.
Georgia Writers Bloc,
UGA History Department.
Space, Nature, and Society Workshop,
UGA Geography Department.
ACADEMIC WORKSHOPS FACILITATED
National Climate Assessment - Rural Communities Workshop,
Rapporteur, February 13-14, 2012.
COMMUNITY WORKSHOPS (CO-) ORGANIZED AND/OR FACILITATED
Athens Food Activist Networking Session (AFANS; with Craig
Page of Promoting Local Agriculture and Local Experience
(P.L.A.C.E), and the Athens Urban Food Collective (AUFC))
CURRENT PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
American Society for Environmental History
Society for Conservation Biology, UGA Chapter
American Associantion of Geographers,
Socialist and Critical Geography, and Political and
Cultural Ecology Interest Groups