One Campus, One Book
Finding common ground through a shared reading experience. This academic year, "Pollution is Colonialism" by Max Liboiron will serve as an entry point for discussions about challenging and changing science, anticolonial practices, Indigenous methodologies and inclusive practices.
Upcoming Events
Reading Relations Sep 25 @ 3-4p, Egan Library Room 211 or Zoom
Come connect and practice good relations with some new folx over a common book! All are welcome and there will be pop rocks and fizzy drinks (seriously!). We’ll be talking about this year’s One Campus, One Book selection, Pollution is Colonialism. Come prepared to talk about the second half of the Introduction and first half of Chapter 1: Land, Nature, Resource, Property (up to page 42). Scroll to the full Events section below for more info and Zoom link.
2024-25
Pollution is Colonialism by Max Liboiron is the One Campus, One Book Selection for the Academic Year 2024-25.
Complimentary student copies will be provided for New Student Orientation attendees through funding support from UAS First-Year Experience.
Additional books for faculty and campus events are supported through a partnership with Sealaska Heritage Institute and its Indigenizing Education for Alaska program, funded by a grant from the Alaska Native Education Program under the U.S. Department of Education. The program aims to increase the number of Alaska Native teachers in the state.
- Ebook access is available for UAS students, staff and faculty via JSTOR (login required).
Complementary copies may be available to community members beginning mid-September (while supplies last) at the UAS Library.
Additional copies are available at the Egan Library and library locations throughout Juneau and Southeast Alaska.
Read the Introduction (from Duke University Press)
In Pollution Is Colonialism Max Liboiron presents a framework for understanding scientific research methods as practices that can align with or against colonialism. They point out that even when researchers are working toward benevolent goals, environmental science and activism are often premised on a colonial worldview and access to land. Focusing on plastic pollution, the book models an anticolonial scientific practice aligned with Indigenous, particularly Métis, concepts of land, ethics, and relations.
Liboiron draws on their work in the Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research (CLEAR)—an anticolonial science laboratory in Newfoundland, Canada—to illuminate how pollution is not a symptom of capitalism but a violent enactment of colonial land relations that claim access to Indigenous land. Liboiron's creative, lively, and passionate text refuses theories of pollution that make Indigenous land available for settler and colonial goals. In this way, their methodology demonstrates that anticolonial science is not only possible but is currently being practiced in ways that enact more ethical modes of being in the world (from the publisher).
Max Libioron
"Recycling is like a Band-Aid on gangrene." -Max Liboiron
Dr. Max Liboiron (Michif, they/them) develops and promotes anticolonial research methods in a wide array of disciplines and spaces. Their lab, CLEAR, is an interdisciplinary plastic pollution laboratory whose methods foreground humility and good land relations. Liboiron has influenced national policy on plastics and Indigenous research, invented technologies and protocols for community monitoring of plastics, and is the author of Pollution is Colonialism (Duke University Press, 2021) and co-author of Discard Studies: Wasting, Systems, and Power (MIT Press, 2022). Dr. Liboiron is a Professor in Geography and served as the inaugural Associate Vice-President (Indigenous Research) at Memorial University from 2018-2020. Dr. Liboiron was elected to the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists in 2021, and has received both the President’s Award for Outstanding Research (2022) and the Marilyn Harvey Award to Recognize the Importance of Research Ethics (2021) from Memorial University.
Events
Reading Relations
Sep 11 @ 3-4p, Egan Library Room 211 or Zoom
Come connect and practice good relations with some new folx over a common book! All are welcome and there will be tea and biscuits (seriously!). We’ll be talking about this year’s One Campus, One Book selection, Pollution is Colonialism. Get a free print copy at the Egan Library or read the ebook via JSTOR. We’ll discuss this year’s themes which include the history of plastics and plastics pollution, barriers to participation in science, reciprocity, good relations and discard studies. Facilitated by Jonas Lamb (Associate Professor, Egan Library). Come prepared to talk about the Acknowledgements and Introduction (up to page 19).
Reading Relations
Sep 25 @ 3-4p, Egan Library Room 211 or Zoom
Come connect and practice good relations with some new folx over a common book! All are welcome and there will be Pop Rocks and fizzy drinks (seriously!). We’ll be talking about this year’s One Campus, One Book selection, Pollution is Colonialism. Get a free print copy at the Egan Library or read the ebook via JSTOR. We’ll discuss this year’s themes which include the history of plastics and plastics pollution, barriers to participation in science, reciprocity, good relations and discard studies. Facilitated by Jonas Lamb (Associate Professor, Egan Library). Come prepared to talk about the second half of the Introduction and first half of Chapter 1: Land, Nature, Resource, Property (pages 19-42).
New Science: Queer and Intersectional Identities Exhibit
Opening Reception Oct 22 @ 5:30-6:30p UAS Glacier View Room (EG 221) Exhibit runs Oct 23-Dec 20 @ UAS Egan Library
Queer and intersectional identities are revolutionizing how science gets done. This exhibit celebrates the contributions of LGBTQ+ women and gender minorities of color working in STEMM. The people you'll meet in New Science represent a range of backgrounds, career stages, and areas of work, but they share this: Each has hit old walls and made an entirely new kind of door, pulling others through with them. On the other side? A world that’s inclusive instead of exclusive, diverse instead of uniform, and powered by the communities we hold. A better place, in other words, for science itself. If you have a story to share, 500 Queer Scientists (an LGBTQ+ STEM visibility campaign) welcomes contributions.
The exhibit is supported in part through a partnership with Sealaska Heritage Institute and its Indigenizing Education for Alaska program, funded by a grant from the Alaska Native Education Program under the U.S. Department of Education. The program aims to increase the number of Alaska Native teachers in the state
A virtual exhibit is available via Google Arts & Culture at the link below.
Guts: A short film about the work of the CLEAR lab
Dr. Max Liboiron is changing how science is done
Resources
- Checkout the Egan Library Featured Books section for a selection of titles related to Pollution is Colonialism.
- Anticolonial Science (CLEAR Lab resource): CLEAR is a feminist and anti-colonial laboratory. But what does that mean?
CLEAR Lab Book: The CLEAR Lab Book is a living manual of the lab's values, guidelines, and protocols. Part manifesto and part ‘how to’ guide, it outlines how the lab works socially and scientifically.
- Plastics in the Gut: A search for sand on a rocky shoreline upends colonial science by Max Liboiron, Orion Magazine (2020).
- Microplastics in Alaska and the Arctic (recent news and studies)
- Arctic residents face high risk from toxic effects of plastics, report finds (Alaska Public Media, Aug 2024)
- Southcentral Alaska waterways survey finds widespread microplastics (Alaska Public Media, Jan 2024). Joi Gross (current UAS Student and Alaska Sea Grant Fellow) contributed to this research.
- Microplastics low and high in Alaska (UAF News, May 2024)
- A Future History of Water by Andrea Ballestero (open access) traces the unspectacular work necessary to make water access a human right and a human right something different from a commodity.
- 500 Queer Scientists: A visibility campaign for LGBTQ+ people and their allies working in STEM and STEM-supporting jobs — a group that collectively represents a powerful force of scientific progress and discovery. 1,926 stories and counting....
- AISIS: Advancing Indigenous People in STEM. AISES is a national nonprofit organization focused on substantially increasing the representation of Indigenous peoples of North America and the Pacific Islands in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) studies and careers.
- I Am A Scientist: Science reflects the biases of society. To counteract the stereotypes and ensure a more equitable future for STEM, we need more classrooms and resources that celebrate the incredible range of personalities, interests, backgrounds, and pursuits that drive discovery and progress.
Program Information
Out of recognition that integrating One Campus, One Book selections into UAS courses takes time, two books will be announced each selection cycle.
2024-25: Pollution in Colonialism by Max Liboiron
2025-26: TBA
Previous One Campus, One Book Selections
Information about previous OCOB selections and links to audio/video when available.
2023: Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century edited by Alice Wong
2022: Eat Like a Fish: My Adventures Farming the Ocean to Fight Climate Change by Bren Smith
The 2022 program was made possible in part through at grant from the Alaska State Library. Bren Smith visitied with UAS Classes on Juneau Campus (March 6-7, 2023). He also gave the keynote, "Sea Farming, Sustainability and the Future of Food" which explored the relationship between agriculture and climate, explaining how he bridges land and sea farming to create a new model that brings a high yield with a low impact. Learn more about the exciting possibilities of 3D ocean farming, from fresh food sources and flavors to climate change protection and prevention.
Smith traveled to Sitka where he visited with students from Sitka, Pacific and Mount Edgecumbe High Schools and gave the keynote, "Ocean Farming and the Fight for Equality in a Changing World" (March 9) at Sitka Harrigan Centennial Hall.
Additional campus events were held at UAS Campus Kickoff, Bedding Down: Seaweed Service Day (in collbaoration with BIOL 108 and UAF Cooperative Extension) and a Local Foods Tour of Barnacle Foods. During a virtual panel, "Ocean to Table: Let’s Talk Mariculture in AK" (March 25) participants discussed their roles in mariculture and reflect on local foods, sustainability and growing a new industry in Alaska. The event featured Max Stanley (Barnacle Foods), Chelsea Goucher (Foraged & Found), Dr. Schery Umanzor (UAF College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences), Hannah Wilson (Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation) and Dan Lesh (McKinley Research). Watch Recording.
2021: An American Sunrise: Poems by Joy Harjo
In collaboration with the Juneau Public Library's NEA Big Read Grant programming, events were held throughout the year around town and online.
Big Read Juneau Kickoff, in-person event at the Juneau-Douglas City Museum (Fall 2021) during which visitors explored the exhibit "Echoes of War” which told the largely ignored story of Unangax̂ people who were forcibly removed from the Pribilof islands and held at Funter Bay in Southeast Alaska from 1942-44 while listening to a recorded soundscape of Harjo poems read by 17 volunteer Alaskan readers (Poetry in the Air). The poems and the exhibit both spotlight the history of forced displacement of Native people. The event received press coverage and was featured in a story by KTOO, "Juneau poetry event spotlights forced displacement of Native people."
A Most Powerful Song, virtual panel featuring Indigenous poets Vivian Faith Prescott, Marie Tozier and X’unei Lance Twitchell. Participants read from their work and discussed poetic lineage, the influence of U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo and the importance of increasing visibility of Indigenous people and poetry. The event was moderated by Sol Neely (Fall 2021). [Video Archive]
UAS Open Mic Night @ Auke Bay Cafe, in-person event co-sponsored by UAS Student Housing (Fall 2021).
An American Sunrise: Southeast Alaskan Writers Celebrate the Work of Joy Harjo, in-person event at the Alaska State Museum co-sponsored by 49 Writers (Spring 2022). [Video Archive]
2020: If Our Bodies Could Talk: Operating and Maintaining a Human Body by James Hamblin
Invited speaker, James Hamblin, discussed his work as a public health professional and author in the midst of a global pandemic. The conversation included questions from participants and was moderated by Jonas Lamb [watch].
2019: Cancelled
2018: Spare Parts: Four Undocumented Teenagers, One Ugly Robot, and the Battle for the American Dream by Joshua Davis
Invited speaker, Oscar Vazquez, one of the teenagers whose trials and triumphs are documented in the book, visited with UAS classes (Spanish), had a luncheon with the UAS Student Veterans and Family Association and provide the afternoon keynote, "La Vida Robot, STEM, and Immigration" during the Power & Privilege Symposium. [watch]
Campus screenings of the feature film, Spare Parts and the documentary Underwater Dreams, illustrated how the boys left an enduring legacy that has inspired generations of young Latino advocates to raise their voice on issues of immigration, the DREAM act and equitable access to STEM education.
Spare Parts author, Joshua Davis, recorded a welcome video for incoming UAS students. [watch]
2017: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandell
UAS partnered with the Juneau Public Libraries on their NEA Big Read Grant. An initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest, the NEA Big Read broadens our understanding of our world, our communities, and ourselves through the joy of sharing a good book. Station Eleven served as a starting place for a community wide conversation on the themes of remembering and coping with historical trauma through cultural and artistic forms, boosting community knowledge of emergency preparedness and infectious disease prevention, and promoting kindness and respect for different perspectives despite humans’ sometime violent and intolerant nature. Fewer events were hosted on campus this year due to the abundance of community-wide events held by JPL and other Big Read partners.
Dr. Micaela Martinez, Assistant Professor at the Columbia University, New York, UAS Biology and Math Alumna gave the lecture, "The Clockwork of Epidemics, Health & Disease."
Two films interpreting future worlds (Mad Max and The Circle) were screened on campus. A game night featuring the board game, Pandemic was held in student housing as were weekly book discussions.
UAS created a website for the project [view the archived website]
2016: Mixed: Multiracial College Students Tell Their Life Stories
Invited speaker, Christina Gomez, co-editor of Mixed visited with 3 classes on the Juneau Campus (Humanities, Spanish, Sociology) and had a lunch time conversation about educational journeys, graduate school, advocacy and passions with the UAS students in the Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program (ANSEP).
Gomez participated and lectured as part of the 1st UAS Power and Privilege Symposium on November 9th, 2016 and gave the talk, "The Act of Dreaming: Undocumented Students in the United States."
Gomez also gave the One Campus, One Book lecture, "Negotiating Identity in America" as part of the Evening at Egan series on November 11th, 2016.
2015: Blonde Indian: An Alaska Native Memoir by Ernestine Hayes
“One of the most important books to come out of Alaska. There have been other great memoirs by Alaska Natives, but few if any have been made with such disarming humor, such bravery and such warmth.” --The Anchorage Press
Hayes' visited 15 classes on the Juneau and Sitka campuses, attended a reception in her honor held by the UAS Honors Program and participated in 3 community events culminating in her Evening at Egan Lecture, "An Animate World", Nov. 6th, 2015.
Hayes moderated the panel, "The Making of Never Alone" an interdisciplinary discussion focusing on the video game, Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna), winner of the 2015 British Academy Games Award: Best Debut. The panel featured cultural ambassadors Ishmael Hope and Amy Fredeen and a team from E-Line Media appeared via video (Matt Swanson — Producer, Ian Gil — Lead Designer, David Koenig — Technical Director, Casey McDonnell — Art Director). The discussion raised the question, how can new media platforms be used effectively to tell traditional stories in order celebrate indigenous language, contribute to decolonization efforts and share a vibrant, in-tact culture with younger generations?
Hayes' donated the pre-publication Blonde Indian manuscript and author's correspondence to the Egan Library. It can be viewed online in ScholarWorks@UA. Access to original manuscript materials are restricted to in-library use at the University of Alaska Southeast Egan Library and requires pre-approval from a reference librarian. Researchers are encouraged to use the online version of this collection.
Blonde Indian was selected by Alaska Writer Laureate, Frank Soos and the Alaska Center for the Book as the inaugural selection for Alaska Reads 2016, a statewide celebration of Alaskan literature. Hayes' travelled extensively throughout the state during the month of February and free copies of Blonde Indian were distributed to public libraries courtesy of the Alaska State Library.
In March 2016, Hayes was featured on "The Artist" @ 360 North. The event was recorded and rebroadcast later on 360 North public television and on YouTube. Additional info about "The Artist @360". [watch]
Native Voices: Native Peoples' Concepts of Health and Illness an exhibition on loan from the National Library of Medicine was hosted @ Egan Library September-December 2015
The Juneau Public Library collected interviews on campus as part of their StoryCorps grant “Every Voice Matters: Recording and Sharing Alaska Native Educational Experiences”. UAS students and faculty facilitated interviews at the Egan Library. Recordings will be available on CD at the Juneau Public Libraries in Summer 2016. Select interviews from the project can be streamed from KHNS (Haines, AK Public Radio).
2014: Log from the Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck
Steinbeck and Ricketts scholar Katie Rodger visited the Juneau campus for a series of class visits, reception and an Evening at Egan Lecture, 'Discovering Science: Finding the Story', Oct. 10th, 2014.
Artist and socio-ecological activist Colleen Flanigan visited the Sitka and Juneau campuses for a series of class visits and presentations on Merging Art and Environmental Sciences.
2013: At the Mouth of the River of Bees by Kij Johnson
Kij Johnson visited the Juneau campus for a series of class visits, the one-night only production of a staged reading and an Evening at Egan Lecture.
UAS Drama Club S.C.R.I.P.T performed "Finding True North", Nov. 6th 2013
Kij Johnson presented and Evening at Egan lecture, Egan Library, Nov. 8th, 2013
Narrative Endeavors: Visual and Literary Art Exhibition. One night only student art show with open mic and Google Hangout with Kij Johnson. Downtown Gallery, April 4th, 2014.
John Marzluff, author of Gifts of the Crow: How perception, emotion, and thought allow smart birds to behave like humans presented a different perspective on this year's OCOB theme of human-animal communication and communicating with the other at a Sound and Motion Lecture on April 18th, 2014.
2012: Being Caribou by Karsten Heuer
Karsten Heuer and Leanne Alison visited the Juneau campus for a series of lectures, film screening and classroom visits. Gwich’in elder Randall Tetlichi was elder-in-residence on the Juneau Campus and gave another perspective on related themes.
Gwich’in elder Randall Tetlichi presented an Evening at Egan lecture, Egan Library: Nov. 9th 2012 [watch ]
Leanne screened the related film, Egan Lecture Hall followed by a Q&A, Nov. 15th 2012 [watch]
Karsten presented an Evening at Egan lecture, Egan Library, Nov. 16th 2012 [watch]
Sarah Ray, OCOB 2012 Committee Chair
2011: The Truth About Stories by Thomas King
2010: Listening is an Act of Love by David Isay
One Campus, One Book is the common reading program at UAS-Juneau. It's a celebration of literature and the relationships and communities that develop between readers, writers and thinkers. Discussing a common book provides a forum for engaging in difficult dialogues that take multiple perspectives into account. The program's first year (2010) featured David Issay's Listening is an Act of Love and a corresponding campus oral history project ( The UAS Listening Project) collected the stories of students, faculty and staff. In 2012 the program was formalized as a program of the Egan Library, a selection committee established and in 2013 these program goals and criteria were adopted.
Goals
The UAS One Campus, One Book program will:
- Begin an exploration of interdisciplinary approaches.
- Create opportunities for learning in and out of the classroom.
- Foster student, staff and community participation and identification as contributing members of an intellectual community.
The One Campus, One Book (OCOB) program aligns with the mission and goals of the UAS First Year Experience (FYE) Program to support academic success and persistence, ease educational and social transitions to college, and foster student engagement in the UAS Community. OCOB activities incorporate two FYE student learning outcomes:
First year students participating in OCOB activities will:
- Develop a strong network of peers and professionals including:
- One faculty member they consider a mentor
- One staff member they feel can offer support
- Five peers that are conducive to their social and academic success
- Develop strong connections to the UAS campus by attending at least five events on the Don't Miss List
Criteria for book selection
- The extent to which the book matches program goals (touches on interdisciplinary perspectives and has the potential for integration into curriculum, is not too challenging in terms of reading level or topic).
- Has the potential for a variety of related program (themes).
- The book won’t have likely been assigned reading during high school.
- Accessibility: The book is between 250-350 pages in length, engaging, college-level reading and not a text-book
- Accessibility: is available currently in paperback
- Accessibility: bulk ordering of the book won’t require a reprint of the title.
- The author may be available to visit campus (within our modest budget).
Planning and Selection Committee
Please email committee chair, Jonas Lamb (uas.ocob@alaska.edu) if you are interested in participating on the committee or for information about the next selection.