The Upstate Institute is among the Colgate sponsors supporting the upcoming “Dark Skies in Appalachian Identity, Culture, and Sense of Place” symposium in April. The symposium will bring writers, artists, musicians, filmmakers, scholars, and scientists to Colgate, April 4–6, to explore the human connection to the dark night sky.
Symposium sessions will feature many artistic and creative works influenced by the night sky including poems, novels, artworks, and songs. Others will focus on the physical nature of excessive artificial lighting at night and how it impacts human health and other species such as birds and insects.
Funding was awarded to symposium organizers Jeff Bary, Sweet Family Chair and associate professor of physics and astronomy and chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, and Mike Loranty, associate professor of geography and director of the environmental studies program, to support the event. Most sessions are free and open to the Hamilton community.
Bary gave two presentations in September titled “Where Have All the Stars Gone?” as part of the Upstate Institute’s Lifelong Learning Program, designed to bring awareness to the community of the impact of light pollution on human health as well as the darkness of the night sky, even in rural areas like the Village of Hamilton.
“To our knowledge, this will be a first-of-its-kind symposium bringing together a broad range of people with similar interests in the night sky,” says Bary. “As such, we hope to raise awareness in the scholarly community of the cultural significance of a dark night sky, while tying this awareness to the work of advocates working in the Appalachian region, but also across the country and internationally. The symposium will bring these like-minded individuals from vastly different academic and scholarly worlds together, building a community of scholars and advocates whose work may be shared broadly in support of dark sky preservation.”
The symposium will begin on the evening of Thursday, April 4, with an opening reception at 6 p.m. followed by a 7 p.m. screening of King Coal and Q&A with filmmaker Elaine McMillion Sheldon in Golden Auditorium in Little Hall. Friday’s events will include several sessions, including “Sense of Place and Preserving Dark Sky Places” and “The Night Sky in Indigenous Culture.”
The keynote event is with author Ann Pancake, and the evening will conclude with a Dark Sky Star Party beginning at 7:30 p.m., featuring Perry Ground, Haudenosaunee storyteller and cultural educator. On Saturday, the final day of the symposium will feature additional sessions, including “Composition and the Night Sky,” dinner with Lost Creek Farms, and will conclude with a concert and community square dance at the Palace Theater.
A full schedule of sessions, exhibits, speakers, and other events is available at the Dark Skies Symposium website.
In addition to the Upstate Institute, the symposium is sponsored by groups across campus, including:
- Colgate Arts Council
- Picker Interdisciplinary Science Institute
- Sweet Family Endowed Chair
- Live Music Collective
- Faculty Development Council
- Department of Physics and Astronomy
- Environmental Studies Program
- Core Communities
- Beyond Colgate