The Faculty Convivium is a luncheon lecture series featuring SUNY Oneonta faculty who present their research and creative activity projects, accessible to the non-specialist, in a collegial atmosphere.
Seating is limited. To reserve a seat please call 607-436-2517 at least several days before a scheduled Convivium talk. Vegetarian meals are available.
Questions? Comments? Email a member of the Faculty Convivium committee.
Spring 2025 Lecture Series
Ghosts of the Erie: How Ordinary People Transformed Life and Work in America
Wednesday, March 26, 2025
Dr. Mark Ferrara
The completion of the Erie Canal in 1825 was a monumental achievement. Yet few of the laborers who toiled along the canal shared in the prosperity it brought. Mark S. Ferrara tells the stories of the forgotten people who lived, worked, and died along the banks of the canal, emphasizing the overlooked role of the poor and working class in this epochal transformation.
Hiking to Document Hiking: Movement, Content Creation, and the Great Outdoors
Wednesday, February 26, 2025 Otsego Grille
Dr. Bryan Picciotto
In the digital age, outdoor recreation thrives on online communication about wilderness activities. From trail reviews on databases like AllTrails to blog entries on websites like SummitPost to influencer posts on platforms like Instagram, people are actively creating online discourse about firsthand experiences of nature. While recent research has revealed much about the social, cultural, and economic forces at play in this growing trend, such work tends to selectively examine online content about wilderness experiences rather than physical, in-the-moment experiences themselves. Shifting to a more embodied perspective, my presentation asks: How do people hike to document hiking? In response to this question, I explore an ethnographic case study with a wilderness blogger, which I conducted as part of a larger project on tourism in Maine in 2017. Drawing from interviews and fieldwork, I analyze how the blogger physically interacted with landscapes and cameras for communicative purposes, problematizing the role of embodied movement within digital content creation practices. From this analysis, I reflect on the possibilities, limitations, and value of studying communication from an embodied perspective, in and beyond wilderness contexts.