Thank you, Elissa, for all your great work for the URock community and beyond!

UMA’s Professor of Transdisciplinary Cultural Studies Sarah Hentges has released her fourth book, “Demystifying American Yoga: Embodied Movement for Individual and Collective Transformation.”

Part storytelling, part cultural critique, part innovation and part practical application, “Demystifying American Yoga” is about more than yoga — it’s about American culture and our past, present and collective future. It is about how we care for ourselves and others amidst a toxic culture of individualism, perfectionism, consumption, exploitation, competition and other destructive ideas and behaviors.

Despite its popularity in the U.S., we are mostly unaware of yoga’s ancient roots as well as its contemporary applications.  Numerous misunderstandings surround American yoga. It is often seen as simple stretching, or a religious practice. Others feel it is an example of cultural appropriation, and that it is elitist and exclusive — a fitness trend for flexible, aesthetically ideal bodies. 

Focusing solely on the physical aspects of yoga overshadows its core elements: conscious breathing, mindful meditation, deep philosophy, and transformative healing. However, for Hentges, American yoga “is about the power of embodiment to connect us with ourselves and others,” she says. “It is about hope and joy and the ways in which yoga has evolved in the U.S. — how American yoga is full of promise and potential despite the ways it has been used to sell myths and bypass spirituality.”

Drawing from her experience as a professor and yoga teacher, Hentges explores the marginalized, feminist, queer, grassroots, underground, interconnected, creative, innovative and somatic elements of yoga. In “Demystifying American Yoga,” she offers exploratory embodied practices, mines diverse sources, and asks critical questions about identity, culture and power.

Hentges has over 25 years of experience teaching college courses and fitness classes, including 20 years of teaching yoga. Previous books by Hentges include “Women and Fitness in American Culture” and “Girls on Fire: Transformative Heroines in Young Adult Dystopian Literature.” Her work spans a variety of fields and themes, most recently centered around embodied social justice and transformation. 

A popular professor at UMA, Hentges teaches several courses including American studies, women and gender studies, and interdisciplinary studies as well as the courses Girls on Fire, Hip Hop America, American Fitness, and Cultural Criticism and Theory. She is also Â鶹APP program coordinator for interdisciplinary studies.

In addition to her academic credentials, Hentges holds certifications in trauma-informed yoga and JourneyDance facilitation, and is the founder and lead curator of The Spiral Goddess Collective, a Center for Mind/Body Movement in Bangor, Maine.

Dr. Sarah Hentges, Professor of Transdisciplinary Studies, presented “Embodied Social Justice Curriculum in (and Beyond!) the Nursing Classroom” at the 2nd World Virtual Conference on Nursing & Healthcare on September 27.

She also completed the YogaFit for Warriors 200 Hour Trauma Sensitive Yoga Teacher Certification in August.

Professor Sarah Cavar’s (Interdisciplinary Studies) debut novel, Failure to Comply is now available through Featherproof Books, and will be released in bookstores on September 24, 2024.

“Cavar’s Failure to Comply is an abolitionist text concerned with trans, disabled, and Mad liberation as a speculative art…

“Every story has its fugitives. ‘I,’ a deviant self-hacker with three arms, two stomachs, and no name, is on the run from RSCH, a high-tech, authoritarian government that mandates wellness and carves the contours of truth itself. When I is kidnapped at axe-point to be mined for forbidden memories, they must struggle against RSCH’s medical abuse to recapture their history, reunite with their lover, and rewrite their future—or risk remaining Patient forever.

“I crosses an epistolary, time-flipped dreamscape as they recollect their memories from RSCH’s hungry archive, and, in the process, write the story of their liberation.“

Dr. Sarah Hentges, professor of transdisciplinary cultural studies, and founder and lead curator of The Spiral Goddess Collective, a Center for Mind/Body Movement was presented with a Bangor Pride Rainbow Award on Saturday, June 22nd. Sarah received the Orange award for Healing, which “recognizes individuals who have made notable efforts to promote healing, wellness, and mental health awareness.”

Sarah Hentges (she/they/we) is deeply committed to promoting health, wellness, and mental health awareness in the Bangor community. As the founder of The Spiral Goddess Collective and a professor at UMA Bangor, she provides opportunities for healing through feminist, queer, trauma-informed embodied movement, making these modalities accessible to all members of the community regardless of financial means. Sarah’s dedication to healing and supporting others makes her a true hero in the community.

The 2024 WICCD awards are as follows:

Student: Terry Knight-Riddle, Interdisciplinary Major

Terry Knight-Riddle has served as a nurse and advocate for military veterans and their families throughout her life. When she came to UMA, she began to expand her previous experience and education, pursuing the Interdisciplinary Studies major and combining Human Services, Business, and nursing. Through her work in INT 208: Introduction to Interdisciplinary Studies, INT 331: Therapeutic Yoga: Theory and Practice for Self-Care and Holistic Healing, and INT 420: Feminist Praxis for Self and Community Care, Terry has broadened her approach by including an intersectional feminist analysis and framework for her work.

“I am an interdisciplinary studies major at the Â鶹APP, focusing on integrating various fields of human services, nursing, and business. This unique combination equips me with a comprehensive skill set to excel as a Family Assistance Specialist with the military. I chose this degree because it allows me to approach problems from multiple angles, bringing together diverse perspectives and methodologies to find innovative solutions. I understand the complex needs of military families and can provide holistic support by integrating emotional care, healthcare advocacy, and resource management.”

Staff: Joy Steward, Coordinator of Student Life: Wellness and Co-Curricular Enrichment

Joy Steward is the Coordinator of Student Life: Wellness and Co-Curricular Enrichment on the Bangor campus. In addition to overseeing the campus fitness center, Joy is actively involved in a number of activities on the Bangor campus that help to build community, connect people, encourage movement and wellness, and work toward food security and environmental stewardship. She organizes, for instance, the spring clean-up, Welcome Back events, the first annual Turkey trot Fun Run/Walk/Watch, and a variety of weekly activities including Zumba, disc golf, soccer, floorball, and pickleball. She’s also involved in managing the food pantry in Lewiston Hall and mini pantry in College Center and facilitating monthly meetings of the Food Security Coalition.

Faculty: Ann Kennedy, Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies

Dr. Kennedy joined the UMA faculty in the fall of 2022, bringing with her a career of teaching, publishing, and service in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality studies. Since arriving at UMA, Dr. Kennedy has developed several new courses that enhance the WGS curriculum including The Female Body in Western Culture (to be offered in the fall of 24) and Feminist Abolition: Gender and the Carceral State. She also teaches the Intro to WGS class and Intersections of Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality. Dr. Kennedy also brought with her the feminist zine, Ripple, which was published in the spring of 2023 and will be published again in the spring of 2024. With the generosity of donors, Dr. Kennedy also established a gift fund at UMA, which helps support the production of Ripple and provides an honorarium for the student editor.

ABOUT US

WE ARE WICCD!: Women Invigorating Curriculum and Cultivating Diversity

WICCD honors the diversity that exists in Maine by educating our campus and larger community about local, national, and international issues, initiatives, and ideas related to diversity. Because women have been historically underrepresented in social, cultural, political, institutional, and economic spheres, WICCD centers women, gender, and sexuality while working to challenge injustices and inequalities of all kinds. Led by faculty and staff who work toward gender equality and social justice, WICCD provides opportunities for education and engagement to raise awareness around these important intersectional social challenges.

Danforth Art Gallery, UMA Augusta Campus

Opening Monday, December 11 at 2 p.m. in the Charles Danforth Gallery at UMA, the Â鶹APP is proud to present “Wham! Bang! Pow!: Work from Â鶹APP Graphic Storytellers.” The exhibition features two sets of student projects from the Fall 2023 ART/ENG/INT 330 Â鶹APP Wham! Bang! Pow! Graphic Storytelling in Form and Practice class. Co-taught by Professor of Art Peter Precourt and Professor of English Lisa Botshon, this 6-credit interdisciplinary course involves reading, discussion, research, making, critique, and collaboration. The exhibit is free and open to the public.

“Graphic storytelling” is a capacious concept that involves words and images to tell a story. Over the course of this fall, Wham! students experimented with different mediums and strategies in order to tell their own stories, some of which are featured in this show.

Using their skills developed over the semester, the class also created a collaborative sequential art project based on Karen Russell’s short story “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” (2006), which is featured in the other half of the gallery. Each student took on two or more roles in order to render this story into a wall-sized multi-panel graphic narrative. They adapted the text, scripted, storyboarded, edited, illustrated, colored, lettered, and installed the project.

Wham! Bang! Pow! helps students become better critical thinkers, researchers, problem solvers, and creators who are prepared to work with others, challenge themselves to learn new skills, and make germane connections. This show is a testament to our students’ incredible abilities.

Students contributing to the exhibition are: Emily Allen, Fatima Babar, Morgan Cafferata, Barbara Drennen, Julia Dry, Des Dumais, Camryn Elliott-Proctor, Jada Gastia, Marguerite Jacques, Jeff McKay, Sullivan O’Keeffe, Sophia Reyes, Natalie Rohman, Jared Winslow, and Jen Worthing.

Event Information
Opening reception for “Wham! Bang! Pow!: Work from Â鶹APP Graphic Storytellers”
Monday, December 11 at 2 p.m. ET
Charles Danforth Gallery, Â鶹APP, 46 University Drive, Augusta, ME 04330, The Danforth Gallery is located inside Jewett Hall on the Augusta Campus
Free and open to the public.

The Charles Danforth Gallery at the Â鶹APP

Named after a renowned artist and former faculty member at the Â鶹APP, the serves the UMA campus and the wider community of central Maine with rotating contemporary art exhibitions. Conceived as a living classroom, and used for lectures and other events, the gallery is a site for faculty, students, alumni and community members to engage with ideas, forms, and conversations in art. The gallery is open during regular business hours from September through May.

UMA transforms the lives of students of every age and background across the State of Maine and beyond through access to high-quality distance and on-site education, excellence in student support, civic engagement, and professional and liberal arts programs.

Topics will include navigating the job search process, perfecting your resume, communicating transferable skills, and the stories of successful INT/LIB program graduates. This workshop is free to all attendees.

Organized by Sarah Hentges, Professor of Transdisciplinary Cultural Studies
Sponsored by the DEI Council (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) and WICCD (Women Invigorating Curriculum and Cultivating Diversity)

Each year our academic theme provides opportunities for students to more deeply engage in a topic and its related issues. This year’s theme of Disability Visibility inspires student engagement through the promise of an inclusive experience in a variety of ways. Students with both visible and invisible disabilities are often frustrated by their experiences at UMA—from their selection of “other” on disability accommodation forms to language that, for instance, asks everyone to rise for a specific ceremonial occasion. At graduation, students in wheelchairs are unable to cross the stage with their peers and neurodivergent students are often expected to conform to the learning experiences of inflexible professors. These experiences might not be much different than it is at other institutions, but at UMA we can do better.

Critical Disability Visibility: Interdisciplinary Praxis Toward Disability Justice provides an opportunity for students, faculty, staff, and administrators to learn from experts and engage in dialog toward a better understanding of the depth, complexity, and intersectionality of disability/ability and the work that has been done, and continues to be done, by disabled, queer, femme, and BIPOC leaders in the Disability Justice and Healing Justice movements.

“Minor Matters: Disabled Youth, Care, and Technologies of Shame”

Sarah Cavar, UC Davis

Tuesday, January 31
Noon to 12:50

This presentation will consider ageism/youth rights and disability and the politics of “dependence,” ownership, and subordination under an increasingly digitized neoliberalism. Cavar draws from a variety of examples that point to the effects of globalized, instantaneous social media and the scope of this exploitation, querying the “autism parent” social media account, the figure of the “mommy blogger/vlogger,” and the January 2021 Twitter “Bean Dad” phenomenon. Lastly, drawing on their ongoing work in the areas of transMad liberation, they will point toward possibilities for reclamation, reinvention, and resistance for Bean Kids.

Cavar is a writer, editor, and PhD student in the Cultural Studies graduate group. Their current scholarship explores trans(/)Madness, digital cripistemologies, and gender/diagnostic anarchism, among other ways of knowing beyond the psychiatric gaze. Informed by these interests, Cavar writes original poetry, prose, and hybrid writing. Their critical/creative writing can be found in Electric Lit, Bitch Magazine, Santa Fe Writer’s Project, and others, and published their most recent chapbook, BUGBUTTER, with Gap Riot Press in 2022. They are editor-in-chief at Stone of Madness literary magazine, and Founding Editor of swallow::tale, a Mad literary press.

“Care as Defiance: Re-Framing the Classroom as Mad, Queer Love Space”

Shayda Kafai, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona

Tuesday, February 14
Noon to 12:50

Care as praxis severs the oppressions that regulate us in the classroom; as seedling, as growth, care in the classroom creates generative, transformative openings. Framed as what the Queer Futures Collective calls “thoughtfeelings,” I explore how bell hooks’ lessons of care and love provided me with the frameworks to re-imagine the classroom Madly, queerly. I weave hooks’ rendering of the classroom as a place of freedom with Disability Justice principles, particularly sustainability, interdependence, and wholeness to ask, how might care as defiance reinscribe the classroom as accessible for all our bodyminds?

Dr. Shayda Kafai is a queer disabled femme of color educator-scholar-speaker committed to exploring the many ways we can reclaim our bodyminds from intersecting systems of oppression. Dr. Kafai focuses on disability studies, disability justice, queer studies, art-making, and body politics. She is also an art-maker with her partner, Amy Campos. Together they are the founders of CripFemmeCrafts, a body-positive, feminist/queer/POC/disability empowerment store.

“Raging From Inside: How Academics Can Dream Toward the Abolition of the Academy”

Helen Rottier, University of Illinois at Chicago

Thursday, March 2
Noon to 12:50

This presentation will examine what we know about academic ableism and explore the presence of “another university” as well as the prefigurative potential of dreaming strategies for learning, knowing, and sharing knowledge outside of academia. Attendees will gain short-term and long-term action steps towards dismantling academic ableism and connecting to the vital knowledges that have been shut out of our institutions.

Helen Rottier is a PhD candidate in Disability Studies at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). Her work focuses on academic access, ableism, and the experiences of disabled students and scholars in post-secondary education, with special attention to disabled knowledge production and dis-epistemologies. Helen is a research assistant and instructor in the Department of Disability and Human Development at UIC. She has a BS in Psychology and Gender and Women’s Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an MS in Disability and Human Development from UIC.

“I Am Going Home!”: Abolitionist and Freedom-Making Practices in Dementia Units of Nursing Homes”

Hailee Yoshizaki-Gibbons, Hiram College

Thursday, March 23
Noon to 12:50

This presentation analyzes how temporality influences the care relationships between old women with dementia and the immigrant women of color employed to care for them in dementia units of nursing homes. Yoshizaki-Gibbons argues that old women with dementia and immigrant women of color care workers are engaged in freedom-making and abolitionist practices that “rage against the machine” by resisting and unsettling the dominant temporalities that constrain or restrict care. Specifically, the care dyad rejects a politics of isolation and disposability, which are key to carceral systems, by giving time to and making time for one another. These gifts of time represent a divestment from institutional and state power and control, and an investment in relationships, care, and community.

Dr. Hailee Yoshizaki-Gibbons is an assistant professor in biomedical humanities. She received her Ph.D. in disability studies with a concentration in gender and women’s studies from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Yoshizaki-Gibbons’s research employs an intersectional lens to examine the ways gender, race, class and immigration status mediate the lives of old and disabled people and those who care for them. As a scholar activist, Yoshizaki-Gibbons advocates for greater inclusion of old and disabled people, particularly those with dementia, in society.