Cultural Sustainability

This question keeps knocking around in my head, and I would like to start a conversation–not just a flurry of posts–about it. This conversation is part of what draws me to the Goucher program. Most of what I have learned about cultural sustainability as a whole, I have learned my colleagues in the program, especially [...]

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For several months now, I have been toying with the idea of writing a post about Cittaslow–Slow Cities. Related to Slow Food but a bit less developed, Slow Cities is a full-blown part of the Slow Movement. They have guidelines, they offer memberships, and they even have a charter that they sometimes call a manifesto. As [...]

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http://www.stockholmresilience.org/newsandvideos/generalnews/elinorostromawardedeconomicsnobel.5.1fe8f33123572b59ab800030085.html
The video on this page is remarkable. In some ways Ostrom makes a cornerstone argument for the importance of culture in sustainability, culture as a collectively created and negotiated process.

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Without compassion there can be no cultural sustainability:

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For all those interested in cultural sustainability and the place of culture in the public policy of the United States, I recommend you take a look at and help endorse Art and the Public Purpose. For a very nice comment on this framework by co-author Arlene Goldbard (who incidently helped advise Goucher on our program), [...]

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An interesting post from Tierneylab at the NY Times on the Non-Tragedy of the Commons. A quote from the piece, which shares the work of recent Nobel Prize Recipient in Economics Elinor Ostrom:
International donors and nongovernmental organizations, as well as national governments and charities, have often acted, under the banner of environmental conservation, in a [...]

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This is a very compelling essay by Jason Baird Jackson on the troublesome dynamics of corporate control of academic publishing:http://jasonbairdjackson.com/2009/10/12/getting-yourself-out-of-the-business-in-five-easy-steps/
Priniciples of sustainability, diversity, access, equity, local control are at work here. At Goucher we are building a program that uses open source tools, and that is committed to the unfettered flow of helpful, voluntarily shared [...]

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Goucher College will host a catered information session lunch on the Master of Arts in Cultural Sustainability at the American Folklore Society Annual Meeting in Boise Idaho from 12:15-1:30 on Thursday October 22. We will share information about the Goucher program and have a chance to further discuss cultural sustainability and its relationship to folklore. [...]

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Important work in the area of cultural equity:
ACE REPATRIATION PROJECT SELECTED BY CLINTON GLOBAL INITIATIVE
ACE’s Haiti Repatriation and Cultural Preservation Project was selected as an outstanding project of the Clinton Global Initiative in Haiti, sponsored by the Green Family Foundation, a humanitarian agency based in Miami and operating in Haiti, and a partner of the [...]

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Have you ever heard of Xoomei, also known as throat singing or overtone singing? Imagine that one person is playing a didgeridoo while one or two others are singing melodic tones. Now imagine that all of these sounds are being sung by one person at the same time! This unique musical tradition [...]

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