HI Faculty Fellow Spotlight: John Fiege

March 29, 2021

Our spotlight for the month of April, features John Fiege whose [Virtual] Scholars@Hallwalls talk, “Speaking of the Environment: The Ecosphere Podcast” takes place on April 9th at 4pm. Click here to register to attend John’s talk.

What material(s) sparked your current project that you are now working on as a faculty fellow?

• A plethora of podcasts, which I’ll discuss in the talk.

What has been a source of entertainment these past months as we deal with coronavirus? Any specific recommendations (books, podcasts, film/tv, etc.)?

• With two young kids, free time is sparse and, with the pandemic, even sparser still. During the pandemic, I’ve found my “entertainment” migrating even further away from screens. Entertainments in my life include listening to birds, wrestling with my children, and reading poetry (Mary Oliver, Tracy K. Smith, Jericho Brown, Camille Dungy, Ocean Vuong, Gary Snyder, Wendell Berry, Allen Ginsberg, Lao Tzu, Amanda Gorman, and others).

What is your favorite place outdoors in WNY?

• Since the pandemic began, we’ve done three trips to Allegany State Park, which has been magical each time.

Is there a UB colleague whose research or work you think others should know more about?

• Adam Rome, who was my advisor in graduate school many years ago and is now in the Department of Environment and Sustainability. He was also kind enough to be my first interview for my new podcast.

Originating as a 19th century parlor game, popularized by Marcel Proust’s responses, pick a question from the so-called “Proust Questionnaire” to answer.

• What is your greatest extravagance?
  • Lately, my greatest extravagance or indulgence is frequent dessert after dinner. Occasionally, that’s homemade vegan cashew-based cheesecake with strawberry sauce, which is my favorite, or sugarless chocolate cake with avocado-chocolate frosting, or any number of pies. But more frequently, it’s an ice cream bowl, such as: organic blackberries, chocolate Coconut Bliss vegan ice cream, Lily’s stevia-sweetened chocolate chips, dried goji berries, and pecans.

• There’s a wine I’ve gotten from On the Rox Liquors that I like a lot: Vegan on the Vine I think it’s called. But generally, a good organic red, preferably vegan.

Our thanks to John for sharing with us! For more information about John and the rest of the 2020-21 HI Faculty Fellow cohort, please visit our Faculty Fellows page.