Oil + Water: The Case of Santa Barbara and Southern California

Oil + Water: The Case of Santa Barbara and Southern California

April 8 – 10, 2010
McCune Conference Room, 6020 HSSB
https://www.ihc.ucsb.edu/oil-water-socal/

This event is FREE and open to the public.  No reservations are necessary.

For information about each presenter, please click here

This conference will explore the ways in which oil and water have created and transformed the history and culture of Santa Barbara and Southern California. Topics will include the Santa Barbara oil spill; the impact of oil on Hollywood; agriculture and marine life; the Owens River Valley; the Salton Sea; cars and car culture; and environmental histories and their lessons.

Sponsored by the IHC’s Oil + Water series, the UC California Studies Consortium, and the Community Environmental Council.

Thursday, April 8

5:00 PM KEYNOTE ADDRESS: Oil Runs Through It: Power, Publics, and the Role of Place
Harvey Molotch (Social & Cultural Analysis, NYU) 

Click here to listen to a recording of Moltoch’s conference segment from the IHC’s series Oil and Water.

Friday, April 9

8:30 AM Coffee
9:00 AM Introduction
Ann Bermingham (Acting Director, Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, UCSB)
9:15 AM PANEL: Oil, Water, and Activism: The Case of Santa Barbara Linda Krop (Chief Council, Environmental Defense Center and Environmental Studies, UCSB)
The Environmental Politics of Off Shore Drilling 

Click here to listen to a recording of Krop’s conference segment from the IHC’s series Oil and Water.

Teresa Sabol Spezio (History, UC Davis)
Most Congressmen Care Little: The Role of the Santa Barbara Oil Spill in Changing Federal Environmental LawsEric Smith (Political Science, UCSB)
What the California Public Thinks About Off Shore Oil Development

 

Click here to listen to a recording of Smith’s conference segment from the IHC’s series Oil and Water.

11:00 AM KEYNOTE ADDRESS: Whales, Noisemakers, and Noise
Jim Nollman (Artist & Founder of Interspecies.com) 

Click here to listen to a recording of Nollman’s conference segment from the IHC’s series Oil and Water.

12:15 PM Lunch
1:30 PM PANEL: Oil+Water: The Case of Southern California
David Maisel (Photographer & Multimedia Artist)
The Lake ProjectLola Sheppard (InfraNet Lab, Toronto, Ontario)
Farming the Salton Sea 

Click here to listen to a recording of Sheppard’s conference segment from the IHC’s series Oil and Water.

Andrew Fitzpatrick (Interpretive Specialist, Ocotillo Wells)
Ocotillo Wells: California Oil History Encapsulated

 

Click here to listen to a recording of Fitzpatrick’s conference segment from the IHC’s series Oil and Water.

Kenneth Rogers, Caleb Waldorf and Bill Kelley, Jr. (Third Rail Group)
Slow Activism, Dialogical Practice and Environmental Remediation at the Inglewood Oil Fields

 

Click here to listen to a recording of Rogers’ confrence segment from the IHC’s series Oil and Water.

3:00 PM KEYNOTE ADDRESS: After Oil!: Petroleum, Media, and the California Experiment
Stephanie LeMenager (English, UCSB)
4:00 PM PANEL: The Culture of Oil Vanessa Osborne (English, USC)
Celluloid and Oil: Early Hollywood and the Oil Industry in Upton Sinclair’s Oil! 

Click here to listen to a recording of Osborne’s conference segment from the IHC’s series Oil and Water.
Jean-Paul deGuzman (History, UCLA)
At the Car Wash! Culture and Labor in the City of AngelsDesiree D’Alessandro and Diran Lyons (video artists)
World Water Shortage vs Golf Consumption and Jake Gyllenhaal Challenges the Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize

5:30 PM Reception

Saturday, April 10

9:00 AM Coffee
9:15 AM ROUNDTABLE: Oil and Water in the Santa Barbara County Agrifood System
David A. Cleveland (Environmental Studies, UCSB) and UCSB undergraduate students Ingrid R. Avison, Caitlin Brimm, Heidi Diaz, Sydney E. Hollingshead, Dominique C. Liuzzi, Nora M. Muller, Corie N. Radka, Tyler D. Watson, and Hannah Wright.
10:45 AM KEYNOTE ADDRESS: Near Goleta But Closer: An Unnatural History
Harry Reese (Art, UCSB)
12:00 PM Lunch
1:30 PM PANEL: Histories of an Unnatural History Karen Piper (Comparative Literature, Carnegie Mellon University)
Owens Lake: California’s Albatross 

Click here to listen to a recording of Piper’s conference segment from the IHC’s series Oil and Water.

 

Eliza Martin (History, UC Santa Cruz)
Making Rain, Creating Floods: Expertise and the Manufacturing of Disaster in San Diego’s Flood of 1916

 

Click here to listen to a recording of Martin’s conference segment from the IHC’s series Oil and Water.

David Zetland, (Agriculture and Resource Economics, UC Berkeley)
Joseph Jensen and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California

 

Click here to listen to a recording of Zetland’s conference segment from the IHC’s series Oil and Water.

Michael R. Adamson (History, CSU Sacramento)
Oil Booms and Boosterism: Local Elites, Outside Companies, and the Growth of Ventura California

 

Click here to listen to a recording of Adamson’s conference segment form the IHC’s series Oil and Water.