Dear Sewanee Community,
I’m excited to invite you as well as your students, colleagues, friends, and anyone else you’d like to bring to a free, public screening of the documentary film One with The Whale in cooperation with the duPont Library, the Environmental Arts & Humanities program, and Sewanee’s Indigenous Engagement Initiative (IEI) on Sunday, February 11th at 3 pm in the Gailor Auditorium. You’ll find a trailer here.
This 2023 film, to be featured on PBS’s Independent Lens later this year, is directed by Jim Wickens, Peter Chelkowski, and Yaari Walker and centers on the controversial issue of native subsistence whaling in North America. The film documents a Siberian Yupik whale hunt and its aftermath in Sivuqaq/Gambel, Alaska on St. Lawrence Island. A longer description of the film, as well as a flyer, are attached at the end of this email.
The film will appeal to faculty, students, and community members engaged with environmental issues, justice, policy, & activism in the age of climate change as well as those interested in Indigenous lifeways and culture: including but not limited to religion and food studies.
We hope to see you there, and please consider sharing the event with your students who might be interested.
Please email Dr. Ian Jensen in English and Environmental Arts & Humanities (ikjensen@sewanee.edu) with any thoughts or questions.
Best, Dr. Ian K. Jensen
Independent Lens provides a summary: “Hunting whales is a matter of life or death for the residents of St. Lawrence. When a shy Alaska Native teen becomes the youngest person ever to harpoon a whale for his village, his family is blindsided by thousands of keyboard activists brutally attacking him online—without full perspective on the importance of the hunt to his community’s well-being.” The film’s co-creators write, “ONE WITH THE WHALE is a film aimed at breaking down barriers, and building bridges while showing the human side of our Indigenous Lifeways that have survived for thousands of years, as we fight for a more just world. We are and have always been stewards of our planet.” https://www.onewiththewhale.com/ trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MhAKncpVzk https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/documentaries/one-with-the-whale/
