The Eighth Smoke Farm Symposium
Sat, Aug 27, 2016 at 12pm - Sun, Aug 28, 2016 at 12am
The Eighth Smoke Farm Symposium
Noon Saturday until Sunday afternoon, August 27-28
12731 Smokes Road, Arlington, WA 98223
Tickets: $20 (or more) suggested donation for talks and dinner made by chef Monica Dimas. All proceeds benefit Smoke Farm's year-round programming, but nobody will be turned away for lack of funds.
Since 2009, an eclectic group of scientists, activists, philosophers, artists, journalists, and other thinkers have gathered at Smoke Farm for a late-summer Symposium—a day of lectures and exchanges that culminates in a communal dinner.
We'd like you to join us.
Past speakers at the Symposium have included MacArthur Genius and Soros Foundation fellows, members of the Black Panther Party and George Jackson Brigade, astronomers, entomologists, an architect who designs environmentally sustainable cities for the Chinese government, a founder of Occupy Wall Street, ecologists, actors, philosophers, graphic designers, research physicians, and many others.
For our eighth Symposium (our octave year), we're trying something new—a return. All of this year's speakers have spoken at the Symposium before, and they'll discuss what they've been thinking about and working on since then.
This year's speakers are:
Mott Greene (historian of science and MacArthur Genius): "Science Now." Mott, the inaugural speaker at the 2009 Symposium, returns to talk about how science has shifted in the past few decades, under economic pressures, from the CUDOS model (communal, universalist, disinterested, organized skepticism) to SLIC (secret, local, interested, confirmation-based).
Tanya Erzen (associate professor of religion and gender studies at University of Puget Sound, who also runs the Freedom Education Project Puget Sound for women in prison): "Prison Beyond the Walls." Tanya discusses drone strikes, surveillance, E-Verify, weaponized ankle bracelets, and facial-recognition scanners, and how these technologies are creating a new era of punishment and control outside of the prison system.
Charles Mudede (journalist, essayist, filmmaker): "Inhabitants: An Anthropology and Philosophy of the Global Migrant." Charles, who came to the U.S. when his family fled Zimbabwe and is now a longtime writer for weekly newspaper The Stranger, talks about people who move across borders—legally or otherwise—looking for opportunities.
Ken Williford (deputy project scientist for the NASA Mars 2020 mission and director of NASA's astrobiogeochemistry lab): "Instinct." Ken, who also presented at the first Symposium, will talk about what "motivates" life on Earth and why human beings keep looking for signs of life beyond our own planet.
Sarah Rudinoff (writer, actor, singer): An excerpt from "NowNowNow." In 2010, Sarah gave a talk at the Symposium called "The Pretenders." That evolved into a full-length solo show for On the Boards titled "NowNowNow" about social media, "pretending" versus "authenticity," and how we fake ourselves through life. This year, she returns for another iteration of that inquiry.
This year's chef is one of our favorites: Monica Dimas, formerly of Campagne, Le Pichet, Monsoon, Spinasse, and Mkt., who now runs Neon Taco and Tortas Condessa. During the summer months, Dimas and her mother host Mexican dinners with the cuisine of her mother’s childhood in the Michoacán region.
There will be a cash bar and there's lots of room for tents if you'd like to spend the night. Please bring cash for lunch, sturdy shoes, a flashlight, and a towel if you'd like to swim in the Stillaguamish River.
About us: Smoke Farm is a former family dairy farm that has become a hub for community and arts programming (like the Sawhorse Revolution) near Arlington, about one and a half hours north of Seattle. The Symposium is co-hosted by Stuart Smithers (chair of the religion department at University of Puget Sound) and Brendan Kiley (a local journalist).
If you have any questions, please contact us at brendankiley [at] gmail.com.
