Not all violence during the Civil Rights Era was visible.

In Anniston, a large part of the violence was slow, that is, it was structural, happening unseen and over time through the largely invis-ible force of toxic pollution. This violence is a theme of Baptized in PCBs: Race, Pollution, and Justice in an All-American Town, the 2014 book by Dr. Ellen Griffith Spears.

Spears, an assistant professor in New College and the Department of American Studies, became in-terested in environmental justice while working at an Atlanta-based Civil Rights think tank, the South-ern Regional Council, in the 1990s. Through her work, she met a group of women in Gainesville, Georgia, called the Newtown Florist Club, who introduced her to environmen-tal forms of racial inequality.

“They were no ordinary florist club,” Spears said. “They were caregivers to their neighbors in the African American community. The women often collected money to help fami-lies when someone died. They also cared for the sick, stood up at fu-nerals for people, and were flower bearers at local churches, which is

where their name originated.”

In the late 1980s, the women be-gan noticing a large number of peo-ple with severe respiratory illnesses and witnessed what they felt to be a surprising number of people dying in their community. They thought there might be some sort of envi-ronmental connection, Spears said.

“In 1990, it was discovered that 13 of the 16 manufacturing and agri-cultural plants in the county that reported releases of toxic chemi-cals to the EPA were within a nar-row radius of their community,” she said. Club members felt that the chemicals were having detri-mental effects on residents’ health, widening the gap of inequality that already existed.

Spears discovered a similar situa-tion in Anniston while she was pur-suing a doctorate at Emory Univer-sity. After meeting local activists in 2002 and discovering what she felt to be a very compelling story, she began interviews one year later. The decade-long project, which even-tually became Baptized in PCBs, was awarded the American Pub-

RACISM AND TOXICEXPOSURE IN ANNISTON Award-winning book documents “slow violence”

Dr. Ellen Spears, assistant professor in New College and the Depart-ment of American Studies, published Baptized in PCBs: Race, Pollu-tion, and Justice in an All-American Town in 2014.

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Nick Burroughs barely had time to breathe during his last semester at the

Capstone. In addition to cho-reographing a piece for Dance Alabama! and finishing finals, he was also shuttling between Ala-bama and New York, audition-ing numerous times for the lead role in the national production of the Tony Award-winning musical Kinky Boots.

After seven callbacks, Burroughs was crushed when the part was cast with another actor. But while waiting for what he thought was his final flight home from New York City, he received a phone call from his agent that turned disappointment into joy.

“My agent said, ‘You’re not go-ing on the Kinky Boots national tour because they want you on Broadway as the understudy for Tony Award-winning Billy Por-ter,’” Burroughs said. “I could not believe her. I was losing my mind. I was hysterical in the air-port.”

Burroughs got his first break into Broadway theatre through UA’s New York Showcase, produced by the Department of Theatre and Dance. Held each spring, the showcase provides seniors and graduate students in the acting and musical theatre pro-grams the chance to perform be-fore an audience of agents and

ALUMNUS LANDS ROLE ON BROADWAYtheatre companies looking for new talent.

“The musical theatre program is designed to prepare us to be working actors in New York,” Burroughs said. “All the classes that we take – acting classes, voice lessons, different genres of dance – are preparing us for the profession. I often tell my friends who are still in college that being on Broadway is the same as be-ing part of theatre communities at educational institutions. Right now, at this stage of my career, I’m a freshman learning and growing every day, and soon I’ll be a sophomore. You live in New York what you learned at UA.”

Musical theatre wasn’t always part of Burrough’s career plan. He grew up with a love for sing-ing but an even bigger love for running track. He always as-sumed he would go to college on a track scholarship. But on the first day of his freshman year of high school, he auditioned for the school play on a whim. His performance landed him a call-back and ultimately a supporting role.

With the help of a “no quitting what you start” rule in his fam-ily, Burroughs stuck with theatre that first semester, and he fell in love with acting.

“Track wasn’t starting until the second semester, so I asked my theatre teacher if I could do both,” Burroughs recalled. “My teacher said, ‘Let me ask you something: Do you want a schol-arship for track or a scholarship for musical theatre? Because if you stick with us, I can get you one for musical theatre.’”

He stuck with it and four years later won the scholarship.

Today, Burroughs can be found at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre six nights a week performing in Kinky Boots, which tells the story of a struggling shoe fac-

tory owner who partners with a drag queen named Lola to save his business. Burroughs plays an Angel, part of the ensemble, and when Porter is unavailable, Burroughs steps into the lead role of Lola. For him, looking at a packed audience of fans is the greatest feeling.

Prior to landing his dream role on Broadway, Burroughs performed in and choreographed various local and national productions, many of which received awards and honors. His Birmingham per-formance of Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar, for instance, won a Broadway World Award for Best Local Actor in a Musical. That show stands out for Burroughs because he worked with the same directors with whom he worked in high school, but in a professional setting.

“I feel like every show I’ve ever done has been a learning expe-rience,” he said. “I learned so much from the faculty at UA. Every experience I had in college prepared me for Broadway.”

Burroughs continues to hone his craft. He is training to perfect his performance as Lola with re-nowned vocal coach Liz Caplan. Caplan has worked with Tony and Emmy award-winning ac-tors, including Amanda Seyfried in preparation for her role in Les Miserables.

But Burroughs’ most memorable moment on Broadway includes a different celebrity.

“Kinky Boots won an award for the most money raised by a Broadway show for Broadway Eq-uity Fights AIDS, and Hugh Jack-man hugged me on stage when we received the award,” he said. “I couldn’t believe Hugh Jack-man hugged me on a Broadway stage.”

Burroughs is happy to be living his dream as a Broadway actor. He holds a permanent contract with Kinky Boots until he finds greener pastures or the show closes.

But he is already contemplating new career goals.

“I want to choreograph on Broad-way and do television and film,” Burroughs said. “I would love to create and star in a production on Broadway.”

For students interested in pursu-ing careers in musical theatre, Burroughs offers some advice.

“Work as hard as you can,” he said. “Don’t just say, ‘I’m going to do my best,’ but eat, sleep, dream, and love what you do. Go into this field because you want it, not because you have to. Honest-ly, you can’t get anywhere in this business without breathing this business.” •

Department of Theatre and Dance alumnus Nick Burroughs landed his dream role in Broadway’s Kinky Boots through UA’s New York Showcase.

“Every experience I had in college prepared me for Broadway. “

– Nick Burroughs

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CELEBRATING EXCELLENCE

Having attended an all-girls middle and high school in Germany, Claudia Mewes

thought nothing peculiar of her in-terest in science until she went to college, where she was one of only two women majoring in physics.

Now, as an assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and a faculty member in UA’s Center for Materials for Information Technology, Mewes considers herself lucky. She be-gan studying physics, chemistry, and biology in the fifth grade, and compared to women from co-ed high schools, she witnessed a much higher percentage of her fe-male classmates pursuing careers in science.

“At a certain age, I think it be-comes more difficult for girls to be open about enjoying science,” Mewes said. “Many people, espe-cially boys, react strangely to girls who they think are too ‘science-y.’ At my school, we were all girls, so it wasn’t unusual to see a girl really interested in science.”

Her experiences also showed her that men are no better at science than women are; men simply are more encouraged to follow their passion for the subject.

“I’ve always felt that we need to do something to encourage girls to consider science as a career option,” she said. “Based on my background, there is no differ-ence – girls can do science just as well as boys can. It’s only during this developmental stage that girls often become uncomfortable to excel in those areas.”

As the recipient of a prestigious $500,000 CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation, Mewes is hoping to change that. Although the majority of the award will further her research on spin-tronics, which aims to use the spin

and charge of electrons to develop highly functional and energy-effi-cient devices, the award’s educa-tional component will attempt to increase the number of young girls pursuing careers in science.

Along with other women at UA who are conducting research in science, technology, engineering, and math, Mewes will host a day of hands-on science activities this fall for female high school students attending Tuscaloosa City Schools. She hopes to expand the program annually.

“I think a lot of young girls don’t think about careers in science because they don’t typically see women in science, and they may not understand what a scientist does,” Mewes said. “I hope that by getting these students involved in workshops that are run by female scientists, they might consider working in science themselves.”

Conversely, Mewes says she “grew up in the lab.” Her father was a mechanical engineer. She fondly remembers visiting his lab and enjoying the collaborative at-mosphere as a child.

Although her father died when she was very young, her interest in science continued, and she cred-its two women who inspired her to pursue her passion.

The first, the French-Polish physi-cist and chemist Marie Curie, in-spired Mewes from the day she learned about Curie’s life during a seventh-grade French lesson. Curie’s research revolved around radioactivity. Curie also married a scientist, much like Mewes, whose husband is also a faculty member in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.

“She grew up during a difficult time in Europe,” Mewes said of Curie. “And when her husband

NSF CAREER AWARD WINNER ENCOURAGES WOMEN IN SCIENCE

me, and she always said to go and do whatever your dreams are, even though a lot of people told her not to let her daughter study physics. They said, ‘That’s something men do. What will she do with physics?’ But she showed me that you can do whatever your dreams are.”

Mewes gives the same advice to her students.

“I say to my students, ‘The most important thing is that you always do what you really love to do, no matter what it is or what other people think.’ I encourage my students to try different research areas to figure out what they want to do. I tell them, ‘It’s a decision nobody can make for you. Your professor can say that you’re ex-cellent at something, but you still

died in an accident, she took over his position at the University of Paris. She was the first female professor there, although she had to fight for it because women weren’t allowed in faculty posi-tions at the time.”

“That’s remarkable especially during that time and for a female scientist,” Mewes said. “But she also had a family and made it all work together. That was really, re-ally inspiring to me.” Even today, Curie is the only person to have won a Nobel Prize in both physics and chemistry.

Mewes was equally inspired by her mother.

“My mom is one of the strongest people I know,” she said. “After my father died, it was not easy for her with my younger brother and

Dr. Claudia Mewes, assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, is using part of her $500,000 CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation to engage female high school students in science.

Bryan Hester

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Although the lush, 60-acre, University of Alabama Ar-boretum has long served as

an outdoor classroom for teaching the public about the environment, this aspect of its mission has, in recent years, been given a new name – citizen science, or the act of regular people collecting data.

The term just recently entered the Oxford English Dictionary, in 2014, providing a new identity for an old practice, that of engaging the public in scientific research. Monica Watkins, director of UA’s Arboretum, said the possibilities for citizen science have exploded as technology has evolved, ex-panding what it means for the public to collect and analyze data.

In the case of the Arboretum and its large forest, gardens, green-houses, and walking trails lined with native plants, citizen science is especially promising, said Wat-kins, who was named director of the facility in 2014. She envisions installing a wireless network of meters that would take constant measurements of soil temperature and moisture, which students and members of the public could ana-lyze to understand how everyday weather conditions affect the lives of plants. She also hopes to use forest measurement plots as tools for teaching undergraduates, K-12 students, and the public about for-est responses to climate change. By identifying and measuring tree

diameter, height, and canopy cov-er, citizen scientists could then use equations to calculate biomass and estimate carbon storage.

“There are so many things you can do with technology today that you couldn’t do several years ago, like plugging a meter into a tablet and doing a lab in the forest,” Watkins said. “The idea is that we can do more science and get more data if more people are trained to collect it. You don’t have to know how to do an upper-level meta-analysis to learn how science is done or to learn the value of science.”

Part of the value of engaging the public in science, according to Watkins, is that it communicates key scientific issues in ways that everyday people can understand.

“Issues that really affect people, like climate change, often get drowned out by politics,” Watkins said. “Sci-entists agree that climate change is happening and that we need to do something about it, but their research is disconnected from the public. If people could actually do some of the science and see some of the things that are changing, then they might understand better where scientists are coming from.”

Bloom times, for instance, change with climate change, Watkins said. As a botanical institution with a large plant collection (and data on that collection), anyone could

ARBORETUM FOSTERS “CITIZEN SCIENCE”

Monica Watkins, director of The University of Alabama Arboretum, is work-ing to revive the Arboretum’s environmental education program.

use the Arboretum to compare bloom times from decades ago with bloom times now. Watkins will incorporate these ideas as she reorganizes the Arboretum’s environmental education program, aligning it with Alabama’s new education standards to make field trips worthwhile for K-12 teachers.

“We want kids to have fun and have a good experience in the for-est, but we also need to make sure they’re getting what they need out of it,” Watkins said.

One trend in education that the Ar-boretum could address is the need to integrate science and math.

“When you start collecting data, you start getting numbers,” Wat-kins said. “Not only can the stu-dents practice math with data, but they can see an application for math. It’s not so abstract and be-comes something they can use.”

Although Watkins’s expertise is in hands-on science education – she is currently working on a doctorate in the subject at the University of Southern Mississippi – she hopes

to use the Arboretum as an out-reach wing of UA’s Department of Biological Sciences in other ways, collaborating with faculty mem-bers whose research aligns with the Arboretum’s resources.

“Many faculty members are in-volved in research that previously hasn’t been thought to intersect with the Arboretum,” Watkins said. “For example, Asma Hatoum-Aslan, assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sci-ences, has expressed interest in phage hunting at the Arboretum. She is hoping to find viruses, bac-teriorphages, that combat antibi-otic resistant bacteria. You need environmental samples to do that.”

Other fields, like ecology, one of the department’s strengths, align more directly with the Arbore-tum, providing faculty members a wealth of organisms to study in a unique environment.

Watkins, a former Arboretum volun-teer during her undergraduate days at UA, sees this “current science” by faculty researchers as a way to get kids excited about the subject. •

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regulatory impairments detailed how sweating is involved in the exercise process.

“I think a lot of emphasis for the SEC is put on sports,” Allen said. “The symposium really showed me that every SEC university has so many brilliant people who are working on some of the coolest innovations and research.”

Unsure of what to expect from the symposium, Allen was relieved to find the other University Ambas-sadors were just as anxious. The group quickly bonded and con-tinues to stay in touch.

The most valuable parts of the symposium were the connections she made, Allen said.

Allen met Nancy Brown, the chief executive officer of the American Heart Association, and Dr. John Hall, the 2014 SEC Professor of the Year.

“The entire symposium was an extremely memorable experi-ence,” she said. “I broke out of my comfort zone by introducing myself to and asking questions of very influential people.”

In many ways, attending the sym-posium reminded her of mov-

Mathematics majors don’t often have clear-cut ca-reer paths, a reality that

became all too evident when Ka-tie Allen started thinking about life after college. She knew she was interested in numbers and medi-cine, but she didn’t know how to combine them in a practical way.

At an impasse, she sought help from someone with a bit more experience – Dr. Shane Sharpe, Honors College dean.

“I asked Dr. Sharpe if he could help connect me with someone who uses math to solve health-related issues,” Allen said. “He pointed me in the direction of Dr. John Higginbotham, a profes-sor in the College of Community Health Sciences whose work in-volves biostatistics.”

Biostatistics proved especially at-tractive to Allen who was a bio-chemistry major before switch-ing to mathematics and who had long considered going to medical school.

Allen began working with Higgin-botham. Their research, recently published and presented at the University of Toronto, involves un-diagnosed attention deficit hyper-activity disorder, or ADHD, and the potential role it plays in fatal car accidents of unionized taxi drivers in Ghana. Allen worked to input the data gathered by CCHS researchers into statistical analy-sis software and performed ana-lytical tests to determine whether a relationship existed between the two factors.

“It was a great way to marry health and numbers,” Allen said.

Her work with Higginbotham opened up other opportunities as well. Nearly eight months in, Allen received an email from Higginbotham asking if she would like to be nominated to represent The University of Ala-bama at the 2014 Southeastern Conference Symposium.

SENIOR REPRESENTS UA AT SEC SYMPOSIUM

The SEC Symposium, hosted through the SEC’s academic ini-tiative SECU, addresses annu-ally a significant scholarly issue based on the research strengths represented by all 14 SEC-mem-ber universities. The 2014 sym-posium, “Prevention of Obesity: Overcoming a 21st Century Pub-lic Health Challenge,” featured keynote addresses from leading health organization executives, a poster exhibition, and presen-tations from university profes-sors. The event showcases the research and innovations of SEC universities for an audience of academics, government officials and grant-funding agents.

Allen was one of 14 volunteer University Ambassadors, one from each SEC school, who pro-vided logistical support to the symposium. Their duties ranged from stuffing goodie bags to welcoming guests at check-in. Although they primarily worked behind-the-scenes, the ambas-sadors also participated in the sessions.

Allen was particularly impressed with a session on the “Physiology of Obesity Prevention” presented by a researcher from the Univer-sity of Arkansas. His multi-year-long work investigating thermo-

Bryan Hester

ing to Tuscaloosa from Raleigh, North Carolina, her freshman year of college. With no ties to the University, she was forced to pave her own path, just as she was forced to make the most of her time at the symposium.

“Both experiences helped me grow as a person and helped me figure out what I really wanted to do,” she said.

Allen will graduate this May, but, for now, plans for medical school have been put on hold. Instead, she has accepted an offer with State Farm in Dallas, Texas, where she will work as a busi-ness analyst with a team. She will help ensure that State Farm’s in-formation technology aligns with the company’s customer-focused mission.

“I’m excited to be able to apply the skills I have learned during my time at UA to the innovative projects that State Farm is work-ing on,” Allen said. “I’ll have the chance to work with multiple large data sets to help the com-pany achieve greater results, which means my work will have meaning. I feel so blessed to be able to use my skills right out of college, because that is a pretty rare thing nowadays.” •

Senior Katie Allen was selected as UA’s University Ambassador for the 2014 SEC Symposium on health.

CELEBRATING EXCELLENCE

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When Steven Ramey was traveling in India in the late 1990s, he stumbled

upon a group of people, called Sindhi Hindus, that piqued his interest because of the way they seemed to fuse together, harmo-niously, elements of different reli-gions. Visiting their temple, he saw shrines of Sufi saints, which are associated traditionally with Islam, alongside images of Hindu deities and the Guru Granth Sahib, the central text of Sikhism.

“I assumed at first that they were a positive example of religious har-mony with all of these different ele-ments incorporated,” Ramey said.

But his research revealed a dif-ferent story, one of a people pro-claiming harmony among Hindus and Muslims on the one hand while simultaneously feeling a ten-sion, and in a few cases hatred, toward both groups on the other.

Ramey, an associate professor in the Department of Religious Stud-ies and director of the UA’s Asian studies minor, has since con-nected Sindhi Hindus to broader issues of identity and how the very act of creating categories can be used to empower some groups at the expense of others.

In the case of the Sindhi Hindus living in northern India, tensions were largely historical and the re-sult of what some felt to be forced migration to the area. During the Partition of India, Pakistan was created to be a home for Muslims. Many Sindhi Hindus living there chose to migrate to northern India, where they had to reestablish their lives in a very different context. Though they were identified as Hindu in their home region, they were rejected as Hindus in north-ern India because their religious practices differed.

Tensions with their new commu-

nity developed, not only as a result of differing views of Hinduism, but also due to the strife that Sindhi Hindus experienced in leaving their homeland, which many often associated with Muslims.

“I quickly realized that Sindhi Hin-dus’ experiences in India spoke to broader issues of identity, specifi-cally the ways that labels such as ‘Hinduism, ‘Islam,’ and ‘Sikhism’ mean different things to different people,” Ramey said. “Part of my work, more recently, has been to bring awareness to the fact that when we label something and say, for example, that the Guru Granth Sahib is a Sikh text, then we’re tak-ing sides in a battle between peo-ple who understand it differently, and we empower a dominant nar-rative, and group, while marginal-izing the other.

“My interest has been to challenge the ways we talk about religious identification by trying to be more conscientious in our language, and, rather than apply these labels, identify who is doing the applying and to what end. For example, we might say, ‘These communities identify as Sindhi Hindu,’ rather than, ‘They are Sindhi Hindu,’ or, ‘Sindhi Hindus identify the Guru Granth Sahib as a Hindu text while Sikhs identify it as a Sikh text.’”

Ramey has found that these ideas can be applied globally and very contemporarily to the “nones,” an abbreviation for “no religion” that groups together the growing number of people with no religious affiliation.

“The idea of the ‘nones’ is being constructed today just as identities of Hindus and Muslims were con-structed at particular points his-torically,” Ramey said. “Their ideas about politics, the existence of dei-ties, religious freedom, and many other things vary greatly, but the label hides all of that diversity, and

DECONSTRUCTING IDENTITY THROUGH RELIGION

manities more generally, is de-velop important skills for analyzing the world around us, and I think it’s important to present that to a broader audience outside of the college classroom.”

The blog has become an avenue for the group to connect its research to current events, allowing for quicker response times than are possible with traditional publications.

“The blog doesn’t replace pub-lications and scholarship in a more formal sense,” Ramey said. “But I think it’s an important ad-dition that says, in the connect-ed world of today, the scholar-ship that we do is relevant. The blog allows us to demonstrate that and make it accessible.”

Much of Ramey’s research is typi-cal of his discipline. The field of re-ligious studies is not about promot-ing particular religions or ideas of religion, as is commonly assumed; it’s about looking at the different ways that people use religion and looking at what people accomplish

it becomes useful for people trying to take advantage of the numbers to gain political leverage. Like oth-er groups, they’re able to negotiate political resources through their category or label.”

To dive deeper into this process of identification, Ramey co-founded a research collaborative with faculty in the Department of Religious Studies, which also includes faculty outside UA do-ing similar research. Dubbed “Culture on the Edge” in recogni-tion that cultures are constantly being challenged, constructed, and recreated, the collaborative publishes a book series as well as a blog. Both are aimed at ask-ing important questions regarding the process and strategy behind identification in many fields, not just religious studies.

“The blog was an experiment,” Ramey said. “But it’s an experi-ment we’ve been very happy with. The blog has become another avenue for engaging other schol-ars, as well as people outside of academia. A lot of what we do in religious studies, and in the hu-

Dr. Steven Ramey, associate professor in the Department of Religious Stud-ies, researches ways that religions are categorized.

See Ramey, page 8

Bryan Hester

CELEBRATING EXCELLENCE

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Celebrating EXCELLENCE

Robert F. Olin, Ph.D.Dean, College of

Arts and Sciences

Rebecca FlorenceDirector of

College RelationsAssociate Director of

Development

Stephanie KirklandEditor

Kathy YarbroughDirector of

Development

WritersStephanie Kirkland

Amy Gibbs

Graphic DesignAmy Gibbs

PhotographyBryan Hester

Matthew Wood

Celebrating Excellence is published in the spring

by the College of Arts and Sciences at

The University of Alabama.

We welcome your comments and suggestions.

Please send these to Stephanie Kirkland, editor, at stephanie.kirkland@ua.edu.

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Spears, from page 1

lic Health Association’s Arthur J. Viseltear prize shortly after it was published in 2014, recognizing its outstanding contributions to the history of public health. It was also awarded the Southern Environ-mental Law Center’s 2015 Reed Environmental Writing Award.

Spears’s interest in Anniston was twofold – she was interested in the production of inequality from a scholarly perspective, but she also wanted to understand the lives of the people who were impacted by toxic pollution. She would combine extensive archival research with oral his-tory, recording the voices of local people and weaving a narrative of their experiences.

Though founded in 1872 as “The Model City” of what Henry Grady dubbed the “New South,” the 20th century revealed Anniston to be far from ideal, as the book shows. Its residents faced two monumental battles over the un-safe disposal of chemicals, which affected the northeast Alabama city’s poorest residents.

The first battle involved the chemical company Monsanto, which filled landfills with poly-chlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, from the 1930s through the 1970s, contaminating communi-ty water sources in the process. The book’s title references just such contamination. Cassandra Roberts, a Civil Rights activist who grew up in a neighborhood next to the plant, said she “was baptized in it.” The baptismal pool of her church was fed by a drainage ditch that ran down a hillside from Monsanto’s landfills into Snow Creek.

The second battle involved one of the most powerful arms of the federal government, the U.S. De-partment of Defense. Anniston residents discovered in the late 1980s that their town was home to an Army depot that was one of eight stockpile sites used by the U.S. Army to store chemical weapons. Not only were tons of

highly toxic chemical weapons stored at the depot, including Sa-rin, VX, and mustard gas, but the Army was planning to incinerate the chemicals on-site. As Annis-ton residents learned more, their opposition to the plan grew, lead-ing to a decade-long campaign for the safe disposal of the weapons. Though Spears’s research began with Monsanto, she realized that southern industrial development was deeply interwoven with mili-tary installations, and both were contributing to toxic exposure.

Why did she feel the need to tell Anniston’s story now? To help end the debate about the existence of environmental racism.

“There’s proof of this pattern, that most hazardous waste facilities are placed near low-income, minority neighborhoods,” she said. “But there’s still this debate that maybe it’s just economics, or maybe it’s just class, or maybe these com-panies are locating these plants in places where the land is the cheapest, that there’s no racism or discrimination against the poor.

“Baptized in PCBs reveals that this pattern has a history, a long, layered, systemic history of race and class exploitation,” one which literary scholar Rob Nixon has termed “slow violence.”

In the case of Monsanto, the com-pany continued to make and im-properly dispose of PCBs even af-ter it learned of their toxic effects in 1937, but there were many other contributing players.

“Monsanto couldn’t have main-tained that secrecy without inac-tion by regulators,” she said.

The Environmental Protection Agency, for example, met with Monsanto representatives in 1971 and asked about the company’s use of PCBs in Anniston, but no one told the residents living in the area, “the people who most need-ed to know,” Spears said.

Similar incidents were docu-mented in 1960, 1966, 1967, and again the early 1970s.

“That kind of damage is not some-thing that happens at one point in time because a company decides where to put a plant,” she said. “There were lots of contributing players, and that secrecy was in large part responsible for the dam-age being so extensive.”

In 2003, Anniston residents who were affected by the chemicals won $600 million in the case against Monsanto, with another $100 million dedicated to clean-up.

“The 2003 settlement was an extraordinary victory, but people locally are still left with health is-sues,” Spears said. “I want people to understand that it’s not over for people in places like Anniston, and lawsuits, no matter how suc-cessful, don’t systemically address the problems that cause situations like this.”

And Anniston isn’t the only city of its kind.

“Every time I give a talk about these issues, people tell me of a new place where they see this happening,” Spears said. “It’s widespread. Baptized in PCBs is a local story in a certain way, but it has national and even global implications. This story stands in for hundreds, quite possibly thou-sands, of communities.”

The cleanup and study of PCBs is ongoing. Despite the fact that PCBs ceased being produced in the United States in 1977–they were banned by Congress in 1976–750 million pounds of PCBs, much of them in aging transform-ers, remains in the United States alone. There’s even a biennial, international workshop dedicated to the study of PCBs. An interna-tional agreement, the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, signed in 2001, seeks the complete elimination of PCBs by 2028.

“PCBs are referred to as ‘legacy chemicals’ because companies aren’t making them anymore,” she said. “Even so, it’s an area that more researchers ought to consider.” •

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Mewes, from page 3

need to love it.’”

She also says that students shouldn’t be in-timidated by new research areas. Mewes, in fact, has switched her research focus twice, most recently between her post-doctoral work at Ohio State University and her work at The University of Alabama, when she shifted fo-cus from quantum computing and quantum optics to spintronics.

“Spintronics at that point was an emerging field, which sounded very promising,” she said. “It involves computing, so it was a natu-ral fit for me. In any new field, there are a lot of challenges, but coming from a different perspective is helpful because you bring a different expertise to that field. You’re able to think about problems in different ways. Mak-ing the switch was challenging, but I like the challenge of doing something new.”

The most difficult part about being a woman in science, according to Mewes, is finding work-life balance. As a researcher, Mewes said the challenge is especially difficult be-cause research doesn’t happen between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m.

“Sometimes research happens in the middle of the night,” she said. “I’m lucky that I have a husband and daughter who understand and who are willing to live that kind of cra-ziness with me. I think all researchers need that – a partner and children who don’t think you’re completely nuts when you get up in the middle of the night because you have a great idea and you start writing it down. This is something you can’t change. That’s how research is.”

There are also advantages to being a woman in science, Mewes said. In her field of con-densed matter physics, especially, where women are more scarce than in other areas of

science, she is recognized and known when she presents at conferences.

“Everybody knows me even though I don’t know everyone, and that’s true of all women in my field,” she said. “You certainly have op-portunities because people know you.”

So what hinders women from pursuing ca-reers in science?

“I think a lot of women are afraid to continue doing research because they think it’s going to be too difficult to balance research and life,” she said. “I love research because it pro-vides a lot of flexibility.

“There are certainly times when I wonder what I got myself into, but I think that’s true for a lot of fields. At the beginning, when you’re just starting out as a young faculty member, it’s a lot of work, but you can make it. One has to try in order to find out.” •

when they say something is a religious convic-tion, he said.

“That category, religion, has such significance in society,” he said. “I read a story this morn-ing about an inmate who wanted to grow a half-inch beard for religious reasons, and the Supreme Court allowed it. Calling that a reli-gious requirement, as opposed to a cultural requirement, carries a different weight.”

Similarly, classes in religious studies recognize

that significance. They focus not on what reli-gions teach, but rather on the types of ques-tions students should ask when someone de-fines a religion in a particular way. The classes encourage students to recognize the power of such labels and definitions, Ramey said.

“And these questions aren’t just limited to the category of religion,” he said. “Students of-ten tell me that they go to their other classes, and they raise their hands and make com-ments that apply some of these concepts to other fields such as American studies, his-tory, and literature.”

Students have also shared stories of using these skills after graduation.

“We’ve started bringing back religious stud-ies graduates,” Ramey said. “To hear them talk about what they learned at UA and how that relates to what they’re doing now is re-ally interesting. They’ve used these skills in medical school, in starting businesses and in law school.” • For more information about the Culture on the Edge research group, book series, or blog, visit www.edge.ua.edu.

Ramey, from page 6