Day One

We're excited to be starting Is Local Enough? this morning with a session on Farms, Policy, and Identity featuring Matthew Hoffman, Dale Potts, and Christopher Carden.

Tonight's public roundtable will feature Brian Donahue, Amy Trubek, Mateo Kehler, and John Carroll talking about A Vision for a Healthy Food Culture and Sustainable Farming in New England.

For a complete program, visit Sterling College's Rural Heritage Institute webpage.

And visit this page again throughout the Institute for updates.

Registration Now Open!

We're very excited to announce that registration is now open for this year's Rural Heritage Institute: Is Local Enough? Promises and Limits of Local Action from June 18-20 at Sterling College in Craftsbury Common, Vermont.


Are there limits to local thinking?


What is the relationship between rural and local? 


What is the role of local knowledge in an age of globalization?

Join us at Sterling College in Craftsbury Common, Vermont from June 18th - 20th for Is Local Enough? Promises and Limits of Local Action to explore these questions as well as the developing dialogue between local and global concerns as it applies to economy, agri culture, history, food, culture and rural identity.

Part of the third annual Rural Heritage Institute, Is Local Enough?, will include a diverse range of workshops, presentations and fea tured events.  Located at the heart of Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, the Institute capitalizes on the model of community and experiential learning at the center of the Sterling College curriculum and apparent throughout the surrounding communities.

Featured Presentations

Film showing and discussion Under the Cloak of Darkness: Vermont’s Migrant Mexican Farm Workers with Chris Urban and Erin Shea

Listen Globally, Sing Locally: Traditional Folk Music in Rural Vermont with Pete Sutherland

A Vision for Healthy Food Culture and Sustainable Farming in New England – Brian Donahue (author of American Georgics: Readings in American Agrarianism; The Great Meadow: Farmers and the Land in Colonial Concord; Reclaiming the Commons: Community Farms and Forests in a New England Town) and Mateo Kehler, owner of Jasper Hill Farm and The Cellars at Jasper Hill.

The Ways of the Woods Exhibit from The Northern Forest Center.

Selected Presentations & Workshops

Local Sustainability and Worldwide Movements

Small Farms and Agricultural Policy

Decentralizing Power:  Secession as a Path to Sustainability

Voices from the Fields and the Barnlot

Telling our Stories: Getting to the Heart of What Matters Most in Communities

Bioregional Cosmopolitanism: Reasserting the Local, Reimagining the Global

Local Democracy Unbound:  A Hopeful Narrative

Reading and Writing the Rural Landscape

Nature and Culture in the Northern Forest

Local Fiber, Dyeing, and Clothing

Migrant Workers, Local Agriculture, and Traditional Foods

Listen Globally, Sing Locally: Traditional Folk Music in Rural Vermont



To register or for more information, please visit the Sterling College website and download the registration form. 

Call for Proposals: Updated & Extended Deadline

CALL FOR PROPOSALS


Is Local Enough?
Promises and Limits of Local Action
An ASLE affiliated symposium

The Third Annual Rural Heritage Institute at Sterling College

June 17-20, 2010
Sterling College
Craftsbury Common, VT

Are there limits to local thinking? What is the relationship between rural and local? What is the role of local knowledge in an age of globalization? How are rural regions across the world implicated in global issues?

Panel, workshop, presentation, and roundtable proposals are solicited for Is Local Enough? Promises and Limits of Local Action from June 17th-20th at Sterling College in Craftsbury Common, Vermont. Part of Sterling's annual Rural Heritage Institute, this event will explore the developing dialogue between local and global concerns as it applies to economy, agriculture, history, food, culture, and rural identity.

Located at the heart of Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, Is Local Enough? capitalizes on the model of community and experiential learning at the center of the Sterling College curriculum and apparent throughout the surrounding communities.

Each year, The Rural Heritage Institute draws participants who are passionate about solidifying the connections among community, academic scholarship, and meaningful action in the field. The intimate atmosphere of the Institute (between 50-75 participants) enables productive conversations among a broad range of practitioners, scholars, community members, and under/graduate students who share an interest in exploring the intersections of local, regional, and global issues – particularly as manifested in the rural Northeast.

Is Local Enough? Promises and Limits of Local Action will be filled with four days of workshops, field sessions, seminar panels, roundtables, presentations, featured speakers, and hands-on experiences.

You are invited to submit proposals for this immersive and interdisciplinary Institute in areas including (but not limited to):

• Bioregionalism
• Local Action
• Sustainable Agriculture
• Glocalism
• Farmstead and Folk Arts
• Traditional Foodways
• The Rural Artisan
• The Northern Forest
• Globalization
• Regional Identity
• Rural Literature
• Mapping Place
• Oral History and Community Memory
• Local and Regional Economies
• New Economy Agriculture
• Radical Consumption
• Slow Food
• Gender and Rural Identity
• Agrarianism
• Cottage Industries
• The Rhetoric of Place
• Community-Based Food Systems
• Rural Ethnic Traditions
• Sense of Place

Please send one-page proposals to Pavel Cenkl at Sterling College at ruralheritage@sterlingcollege.edu by March 12, 2010