6.5 Minutes With... | C21

C21 Graduate Fellow, Jamee Pritchard, interviews Charmaine Lang, Ph.D, a certified healing centered coach and organizational development consultant, about her work on slow care. Lang helps clients find joy and balance in their personal lives and careers and specializes in creating sustainable, people-centered operations and cultures of care. Her work is deeply rooted in Black Feminist Praxis. Charmaine earned a Ph.D. in African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Lang defines slow care as intentional pausing and community support, a practice she observed in her dissertation on Black women activists in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, titled "Learning to Take the Excess Baggage Off": An Ethnographic Study of Black Women Activists' Self-Care Practices.

She emphasizes the importance of self-care practices like meditation, therapy, and journaling, and acknowledges the difficulty that many Black women face in asking for help due to societal expectations. As a healing-centered coach, Lang supports her clients avoid burnout by encouraging them to meditate and reflect on their needs to foster their healing journey.

For further information on the topic of slow care and healing, check out the following recommedations:

1. In Our Mother's Gardens (2021), directed by Shantrelle P. Lewis, is a 2021 documentary that celebrates the resilience, strength, and healing practices of Black women across generations. The film highlights how Black women have passed down love, wisdom, and resilience through their matrilineal lines, emphasizing how they care for themselves and their communities despite enduring trauma and oppression. The documentary features stories from Black women across the African diaspora, particularly in the United States and the Caribbean, showcasing how these women have preserved their mental, spiritual, and emotional health through practices rooted in cultural traditions and communal care. This documentary is available on Netflix.

2. How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell challenges the relentless drive for productivity in a capitalist society by advocating for intentional withdrawal of attention from exploitative systems. Blending philosophy, nature writing, and cultural critique, Odell emphasizes the importance of observation, presence, and deep engagement with the natural world. She argues that resisting the attention economy is an act of reclaiming personal autonomy and creativity. Through concepts like ecological attention and collective care, the book offers a powerful framework for slowing down, reconnecting with ourselves, and finding fulfillment beyond constant productivity and societal expectations.

Desiree McCray, a womanist scholar, explores the intersections of race, gender, class, and Black religion and culture. She advocates for "slow knowing" and "slow care" in education, public theology, and activism, emphasizing intentionality, community, and radical empathy.

McCray describes slow knowing as a radical act of resistance against the frantic pace of modern life, promoting rest and mindful engagement. Slow care, she explains, involves resisting the urge to overload students with information, instead fostering an inclusive space for critical engagement.

She highlights the value of patient observation, deep listening, and embracing unanswered questions in her scholarly practice. In her teaching, she incorporates journaling, guided meditation, and moments of silence to encourage reflection and personal connection to learning.

In public theology, McCray resists the pressure to have all the answers, embracing humility and openness as essential to meaningful discourse.

McCray's Reading Recommendations:

Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto by Tricia Hersey

Hersey challenges grind culture, advocating for rest as a form of radical resistance, particularly for Black communities. She redefines rest as a reclaiming of time, dignity, and liberation, emphasizing that slowing down disrupts capitalism's demands and fosters healing, creativity, and collective well-being.

We Will Rest!: The Art of Escape by Tricia Hersey

Inspired by hymnals and abolitionist pamphlets, this work offers a sacred guide to self-care, refusal, and transformative escape.Blending poetry, storytelling, and art, Hersey subverts capitalism's demand for productivity, advocating rest as liberation.

Mark Freeland, Director of the Electa Quinney Institute and Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, discusses the cyclical nature of time in indigenous worldviews, particularly among the Anishinaabe. He contrasts this with the linear time concept in Western cultures, emphasizing the importance of place and relationships in indigenous understanding. Freeland highlights the challenges of translating indigenous concepts into Western languages and the need for dialogical knowledge production. He also addresses the intergenerational process of decolonization, stressing the importance of creating spaces for indigenous culture and language in universities and society.

Further Reading:

1. Mark Freeland, Aazheyaadizi: Worldview, Language, and the Logics of Decolonization

Freeland explores Anishinaabe philosophy, language, and ways of knowing as a means of resisting colonial structures and advancing decolonization. The book examines how Anishinaabe concepts shape identity, relationships, and governance, emphasizing the importance of language in preserving Indigenous worldviews. Freeland critically engages with colonial impacts while advocating for the revitalization of Indigenous knowledge systems and self-determination.

2. Albert White Hat Sr., Life's Journey―Zuya: Oral Teachings from Rosebud

Life's Journey—Zuya: Oral Teachings from Rosebud by Albert White Hat Sr., compiled and edited by John Cunningham, shares traditional Lakota wisdom, philosophy, and cultural teachings. The book explores the concept of zuya (life's journey) through oral storytelling, covering topics like spirituality, language, history, and personal growth. White Hat, a respected Lakota educator and elder, provides insights into Indigenous perspectives on life, emphasizing balance, respect, and connection to the natural world.

In this episode, Jennifer Johung, director of the Center for 21st Century Studies, spends 6.5 minutes with Yevgeniya Kaganovich, a Belarus-born, Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based artist, whose hybrid practice encompasses jewelry and metalsmithing, sculpture, and installation. She is also a professor at the Peck School of the Arts at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.

Kaganovich discusses her on-going projects and installations at the Lyden Sculpture Garden and explains the implications of tree time, earth time, and human time within the context of C21's theme of Slow Knowing. Her collaborative research and art project, Slow Growing in the Time of Trees, explores three archetypes – trees, paper, and chairs – through their own unique perspectives. She asks speculative questions in search of physical answers. Like, does paper remember being a tree?

Check out the links below for more information about C21's collaborative with Slow Growing in the Time of Trees, Kaganovich's Tree Intuit Chair project, and further reading about the agency and perspective of non-human objects.

Lyden Sculpture Garden Events:

Tree Intuit Chair

In Tree Intuits Chair, artist Yevgeniya Kaganovich grows saplings into sculptural chairs, imagining how a tree might perceive its own transformation into furniture.

Slow Growing in the Time of Trees: Tree and Mushroom Walk:

Artist Yevgeniya Kaganovich and Lynden land manager, Robert Kaleta, lead a walk exploring the symbiotic relationship between trees and mushrooms.

Recommendations for Further Reading:

Vibrant Matter

Author Jane Bennett argues that non-human objects, from trees to trash, possess a form of vitality or agency, challenging anthropocentric views of materiality. She calls for a political and ethical shift, urging us to recognize and engage with the vitality of matter to address ecological and social issues.

Allien Phenomenology, or What It's Like to Be a Thing

Author Ian Bogost explores the idea of "object-oriented ontology," which asserts that objects, whether human or non-human, exist independently of human perception and have their own experiences. He advocates for a shift in philosophy to consider the subjective experience of all things, encouraging us to think about the world from the perspective of objects themselves.

UWM Professor of Sociology, Jennifer Jordan, talks about her book project, Before Craft Beer: Lost Landscapes of Forgotten Hops, and the importance of studying the history of the interactions between commodity, craft, and landscape.

Mishiikenh (Vernon) Altiman talks about his role at the Electa Quinney Center at UWM, working with trees and maple sugaring, as well as alternatives to "trust."

Leah Penniman, co-founder and co-director of Soul Fire Farm, talks about Black Earth Wisdom - Penniman's newest collection of essays and interviews that speaks to the multidimensional scientific and spiritual expertise of Black environmentalists.

Continuing the conversation about the role of trust in food justice efforts, C21 talks with Rayna Andrews, Executive Director, Advancement & Engagement for Food for Health in Milwaukee.

American Studies professor Psyche Williams-Forson talks about her most recent book project and the importance of digging deep into understanding individual food choices.

Sociologist Josh Sbicca talks through definitions of food justice and the work of the Prison Agriculture Lab to bring further context to the philosophies behind food and trust.