About

The Mississippi River Open School for Kinship and Social Exchange (2022-2024) is the working title for an expansive educational and research collaboration through the formation of five river hubs spanning the river’s headwaters to the Gulf. Our partners have been working on issues related to the river for years, and an earlier project, ​​Mississippi. An Anthropocene River (2018-2019), ​opened up an opportunity to continue to collaborate on a multi-year project on issues spanning the length of the river. 

The Open School takes up the concept of the Anthropocene as a point of departure for issues at the intersections of race, environment, and resource extraction. The Northernmost river hub (Welcome Water Protector Center) is coordinated by water protectors and land stewards as a hub for land-based education, cultural exchange, and action. The Upper Mississippi river hub is focused on forming a Black Studies concentration with an environmental humanities focus on race, ecology, and place. Along the vast midsection of the Mississippi’s meander, we’ve assembled three more hubs, in St Louis, Southern Illinois, and Memphis, where a constellation of people are working. The Southmost river hub is in and around New Orleans and comprises a group of cultural organizers, activists and educators who work in and around the Center for the Gulf South at Tulane University.

Three themes (Crossing, Welcoming and Repairing) and a method (Open School) have emerged in preliminary ideation. Each speaks to experimentation in different senses: in education, research, sociality, and action. These themes aren't constraints in our work and only when appropriate, intended to support collaboration along the river. Our work together will continue to be re-examined and refined in additional yearly gatherings, referred to as Confluences, where we'll have opportunities to reassess these themes and more. This project has been funded by a grant from the Mellon Foundation Humanities for All Times initiative.

River hubs

Welcome Water Protector Center (Headwaters Hub)
Upper Mississippi River Hub
Middle Mississippi River Hub
Lower Mississippi River Hub
Gulf South Open School

Website Credits

Editorial managers: Jeremy Meckler & Alya Ansari
Website design & programming
: Jacob Lindgren
Coordination & planning: Aron Chang (Civic Studio, Water Leaders Institute), Jennifer Colten (Sam Fox School at Washington University), Denise Frazier (New Orleans Center for the Gulf South at Tulane University), Michelle Garvey (University of Minnesota), Shana M. griffin (PUNCTUATE), Austin Harrison (Rhodes College), John Kim (Macalester College), Amy Lesen (Dillard University), Sarah Lewison (Southern Illinois University, Carbondale), Jason Ludwig (Cornell University), Shanai Matteson (Welcome Water Protector Center), Lynn Peemoeller (Sam Fox School at Washington University), Roopali Phadke (Macalester College), Kirisitina Sailiata (Macalester College), Rebecca Snedeker (New Orleans Center for the Gulf South at Tulane University), Joe Underhill (Augsburg University), Monique Verdin (Land Memory Bank, Invisible Rivers) and other contributors.
More credits to come.

A special thanks to the Anthropocene Curriculum, Haus der Kulturen der Welt and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science for their continuing support with this project.

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