Ben Bridges
Ben BridgesTitle: Assistant Professor of Folklore and Environmental Humanities; Adjunct Professor in Environment, Ecology, and Energy Program (E3P)Contact Information benbridg@unc.edu Personal website: www.bhbridges.com Degrees: Dual PhD, Folklore and Anthropology, Indiana University Bloomington, 2024 About: I am a folklorist and anthropologist who specializes in the environmental humanities, material culture studies, and Indigenous studies. Broadly, I research how people respond to both drastic and subtle changes in their surrounding landscapes, often as linked to climate change and other environmental phenomena. This has manifested most prominently for me in Southeast Alaska, where I collaborate with Tlingit and Haida artists who work with red and yellow cedar trees in the context of climate change, logging, and a growing Alaska Native arts industry. My ethnographic fieldwork involves not only the standard procedure of interviewing and observing but also making intentional efforts to sustain cedar arts through assistance in harvesting, processing, and sharing cedar bark under the guidance and mentorship of experienced and expert weavers. This work has been conducted in consultation and collaboration with Alaska Native arts organizations and the local tribal government. My scholarly program beyond Alaska maintains a commitment to studying human-environment relations. Some of my additional work engages with landscapes more generally through the folkloristic lenses of tradition and social memory, considering the cultural and cognitive relationships humans develop with their surrounding environments. My developing project attends to these issues in my home state of North Carolina, understanding how people navigate environmental change and disaster at a local level. Publications:
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