Oral Histories

Interview of Adam Dickinson

Interviewed for the UCLA Center for the Study of Women’s Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness series. Poet and professor of poetry at Brock University, whose writing has a focus on poetry and science. Author of four books, including "Anatomic" and "The Polymers," which explore chemical pollution in the body.
Series:
Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness
Topic:
Social Movements
Environmental Illness
Biographical Note:
Interviewed for the UCLA Center for the Study of Women’s Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness series. Poet and professor of poetry at Brock University, whose writing has a focus on poetry and science. Author of four books, including "Anatomic" and "The Polymers," which explore chemical pollution in the body.
Interviewer:
Yiu, Wei Si Nic
Interviewee:
Dickinson, Adam
Persons Present:
Dickinson and Yiu
Place Conducted:
The interview was conducted using the Zoom video conferencing platform.
Supporting Documents:
Records relating to the interview are located in the office of the UCLA Library’s Center for Oral History Research.
Interviewer Background and Preparation:
This interview was conducted by Wei Si Nic Yiu, a graduate student researcher, for the Center for the Study of Women; PhD student in Gender Studies, UCLA. Yiu’s dissertation focuses on queerness and archives of Asia.
Processing of Interview:
The interviewer prepared for the interview by reading a pre-interview questionnaire completed by the narrator
Length:
1.25 hrs
Language:
English
Copyright:
Regents of the University of California, UCLA Library.
Audio:
Series Statement:
Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness is a collection of interviews with over seventy individuals living in the U.S. and Canada whose family history, occupation, art practice, or activism have brought them into direct contact with illness experience and disability related to chronic, low-dose exposure to toxicant chemicals. The procurement of this collection (from March 2019 through September 2020) was sponsored by the UCLA Center for the Study of Women under the directorship of Rachel C. Lee, with interviews conducted by six undergraduates, five graduate students, two career staff, and two faculty members at CSW.
Note:
Please delete file size under 381741 Legal Agreement.
Identity Locators and Early Life--Smells and tastes associated with childhood home--Cleaning habits of familial household--Environment and community in Bracebridge, Ontario, Canada--Developing an interest in chemical and microbial testing--Activist communities surrounding chemical and microbial testing--Process of accessing testing--Experience of having tests performed--Influence of capitalism and class on testing access--Similarities of environmental racism in Canada and the USA--“The People of the Grassy Don’t Have a Mercury Problem, They Have a Drinking Problem”--Thought process behind “Anatomic”--Psychological toll of undergoing testing--Coming to terms with the omnipresence of harmful chemical exposure--Writing as a form of activism--Navigating using one’s own body as an object of research--Expanding research efforts to cockroaches, as animals that live closely with humans--Experiments in gut biology and microplastics--“Office Waiting Room Aquarium”-- Phthalates as endocrine disruptors--“Disruptors”--The inescapability of chemical exposure and intersections of race and class--Rethinking our uses of anthropogenic scents