<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;">Dear all, <div><br></div><div><div dir="ltr"><div>The "Toxicity, Detritus and Waste" group (managed by Pamila Gupta and me) met this week to discuss ways of moving forward with this theme. In the long term, we hope to produce a collection of short, experimental verbal or visual essays (~2000 words), aimed at venues such as <a href="http://africasacountry.com/">Africa is a Country</a> <a href="http://somatosphere.net/commonplaces">Somatosphere</a> <a href="http://www.chimurenga.co.za/">Chimurenga</a> and others (suggestions welcome). Steps toward that goal include articulating preliminary ideas, reading works in common, holding a workshop, and others to be determined. </div><div><br></div><div><b>Step 1: sharing preliminary abstracts</b></div><div><br></div></div></div><blockquote style="margin: 0 0 0 40px; border: none; padding: 0px;"><div><div dir="ltr"><div>We agreed to share preliminary abstracts: low-stakes paragraphs merely intended to sketch out initial ideas about what we each want to explore. Capitalizing on the momentum we've built, we agreed to do these by <b>TOMORROW, Friday 16 May. </b>We'd initially thought we'd upload these into Dropbox, but Natasha heroically seized the day and built a WordPress site. So, please follow the instructions below to upload your abstract directly onto our Wordpress site! It's very simple, we promise. </div></div></div><div><div dir="ltr"><div><br></div></div></div><div><div dir="ltr"><div>NOTE: We welcome your participation even if you couldn't attend the retreat (and thus the discussion). Please just let me and Pamila (<a href="mailto:Pamila.Gupta@wits.ac.za">Pamila.Gupta@wits.ac.za</a>) know that you'd like to join us. We will ask that you too upload an abstract, but we'll give you an extra week to do it (i.e., until Friday 23 May). <b><i>Please do pipe up soon: we will create a separate email list for this theme, so as not to burden the whole Sugarman site. If we don't know about your interest, we can't include you!</i></b></div><div><b><i><br></i></b></div><div>These abstracts will enable us to identify and clarify common interests and sharpen our focus and intentions. We can consider them as provisional, so you need not feel that you're locking yourself in!</div></div></div></blockquote><div><div dir="ltr"><div><br></div><div><b>Step 2: sharing bibliographic material</b></div><div><br></div></div></div><blockquote style="margin: 0 0 0 40px; border: none; padding: 0px;"><div><div dir="ltr"><div>In order to have a common base, we ask everyone to submit up to 5 bibliographic items pertaining to our theme by <b>15 June</b>. These can be texts, video, artistic material, etc. We will send more detailed guidelines later -- for now this is just a heads up.</div></div></div></blockquote><div><div dir="ltr"><div><br></div><div><b>Step 3: setting a workshop date</b></div><div><br></div></div></div><blockquote style="margin: 0 0 0 40px; border: none; padding: 0px;"><div><div dir="ltr"><div>By the end of August, we aim to have set a date for a workshop sometime in the 2nd half of 2015. Keep an eye out for emails on this point.</div></div></div></blockquote><div><div dir="ltr"><div><br></div><div>Looking forward to interesting collaborations!</div><div><br></div><div><b>WORDPRESS UPLOAD INSTRUCTIONS</b></div><div><br></div><div><b>A. Overview<br></b></div></div></div><blockquote style="margin: 0 0 0 40px; border: none; padding: 0px;"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><br></div><div>As mentioned above, Natasha Vally went ahead with setting up our site, and with writing instructions for all of us. THANK YOU Natasha! The intention is to have a very simple website that we can use for collaboration and sharing of text, video, audio and pictures. We will also use it for our longer term scheduling. View this as an experimental space -- we can update and shape it as needed. </div></div></div></blockquote><div><div dir="ltr"><div><b><br></b></div><div><b>B. Wordpress Instructions</b><br></div><div><b><br></b></div><div>These are really very simple and, if you have email, should not be a challenge at all. In order to keep this fun and collaborative, we need everyone to "buy in" by doing your bit!<br><br></div></div></div><blockquote style="margin: 0 0 0 40px; border: none; padding: 0px;"><div><div dir="ltr"><div>To add your abstract to the site <a href="http://toxicityandwaste.wordpress.com/">http://toxicityandwaste.wordpress.com/</a></div></div></div><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div><div><br></div></div></div></div></div><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div><div>1. Go to the Wordpress login page at </div></div></div></div></div><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div><div><a href="https://en.wordpress.com/wp-login.php" target="_blank">https://en.wordpress.com/wp-login.php</a></div></div></div></div></div><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div><div><br></div></div></div></div></div><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div>2. As your </div></div></div></div><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div><b>username</b>: toxicitywastedetritus</div></div></div></div><div><div dir="ltr"><div><b>password</b>: toxicityandwastepassword</div><div><br></div></div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="margin: 0 0 0 40px; border: none; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="margin: 0 0 0 40px; border: none; padding: 0px;"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><i>(Note: if you already have a Wordpress account, you'll need to log out of that and log back in with the above username)</i></div></div></div></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="margin: 0 0 0 40px; border: none; padding: 0px;"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><br></div></div></div><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div>3.You will be taken to the Toxicity and Waste Wordpress site</div></div></div></div><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div><br></div></div></div></div><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div>4. On the left you'll see a tab that says "pages", <i>click</i> on "all pages"</div></div></div></div><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div><br></div></div></div></div><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div>5. If you scroll down you will see a page called "preliminary abstracts" and when you hover your mouse under it you will see "edit" <i>click</i> that </div></div></div></div><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div><br></div></div></div></div><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div>6. Now you just need to insert your paragraph into the block, below the ones already there. Please format your text following the ones that are already there: title in bold, your name and affiliation in italics, then your abstract in regular font. </div></div></div></div><div><div dir="ltr"><div><br></div></div></div><div><div dir="ltr"><div>7.Once you are done, <i>click</i> "update" on the right hand side of the page (it is is a blue button) </div></div></div><div><div dir="ltr"><div><br></div></div></div><div><div dir="ltr"><div>8. Done! You can view all the abstracts and all other information at <a href="http://toxicityandwaste.wordpress.com/">http://toxicityandwaste.wordpress.com/</a></div></div></div><div><div dir="ltr"><div><br></div></div></div><div><div dir="ltr"><div>If you are having serious issues, you can email <a href="mailto:natasha.vally@gmail.com">natasha.vally@gmail.com</a> for assistance. But <i>please</i> don't just ask her to do it for you -- give it your best effort first!</div></div></div><div><div dir="ltr"><div><br></div></div></div><div><div dir="ltr"><div>Closer to June, we will resend instructions on how to add your bibliographic suggestions. They are very similar to the instructions above.</div></div></div></blockquote><div><div dir="ltr"><div><br></div><div><br></div></div><div apple-content-edited="true">
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px;"><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; border-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><div style="font-family: Corbel;"><a href="http://gabriellehecht.org"><b>Gabrielle Hecht</b></a><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br></b><div style="font-weight: normal;"><b>Professor of History, </b><b>University of Michigan</b></div></div></div></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Corbel;"><b>Director, </b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; border-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><a href="http://www.lsa.umich.edu/sts">Program in Science, Technology, and Society</a></span><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><div style="font-family: Corbel;"><div style="font-weight: normal;"><b>Associate Director, </b><a href="http://www.ii.umich.edu/asc/">African Studies Center</a></div></div></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; border-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><div style="font-family: Corbel;"><br></div></div></span></div></span></div></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><br></div><br></div></body></html>