#29 Grad Students Pedal Their Way to Understanding

As a way to outflank the carbon footprint of air travel and give meaning to their journey, doctoral students J. Caity Swanson and David Rodriguez biked hundreds of miles to Detroit, Michigan to attend the 12th biennial conference for the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE).

Each expects to discover something about what type of impact travel has on perspective. The conference is the major international conference for interdisciplinary work in the humanities and environmental studies.

Doctoral students David Rodriguez and J. Caity Swanson set off for Detroit.

For Rodriguez, the inspiration to bike to the event stemmed from complications he experienced with arrangements traveling to the 2015 conference Moscow, Idaho.

Swanson said she views the unconventional travel mode as research into how slowing down travel and making it effortful can change the experience of attending a conference.

Rodriguez received the Stony Brook Graduate Student Organization’s “Distinguished Travel Award” and Swanson received ASLE’s travel award, which funded their trips.

You can learn more about their trip, in their own words, by visiting “Wicked Problem: a podcast about climate change,” a creation of the Department of Environmental Humanities.

Read more: http://www.stonybrook.edu/happenings/student-spotlight/grad-students-pedal-their-way-to-understanding/