Rik Scarce joined the Skidmore College faculty in 2003, was promoted to Associate Professor in 2006, and in 2015 he was promoted to full Professor. Rik’s specialty courses at Skidmore include Environmental Sociology, Social Theories of the Environment, Visual Sociology, Video Ethnography, and Contemporary Social Theory. Previously, he taught at Michigan State University and Montana State University.

Rik’s scholarship is varied in both topic and format. In 2020 his film on barefoot running—Impact: Mobility and Modernity Reconsidered—was selected for inclusion at three film festivals, winning the Audience Choice award at Austin Indie Fest. He is also the author of Creating Sustainable Communities: Lessons from the Hudson River Region (State University of New York Press, 2015) and the filmmaker of the parallel documentary, Sustaining This Place: Creating a New Hudson River Region Landscape (Gruppo Zero Productions, 2015). 

Rik has authored three other books: Eco-Warriors: Understanding the Radical Environmental Movement (revised edition—Left Coast Press, 2006; original edition—The Noble Press, 1990), Contempt of Court: One Scholar’s Battle for Free Speech from Behind Bars (Rowman and Littlefield, 2003), and Fishy Business: Salmon, Biology, and the Social Construction of Nature (Temple University Press, 2000). His other scholarly works include articles and book chapters on the social construction of nature, research ethics, and public participation in regulatory proceedings. 

Among the more unusual events in his life, in 1993 Rik was jailed for more than five months on a contempt of court citation after he refused to fully cooperate with a federal grand jury investigating an Animal Liberation Front break-in. At the time Rik was researching the radical environmental movement for his Ph.D. dissertation, and he argued that, as a scholar, the First Amendment shielded him from forced testimony. Rik never answered the grand jury’s questions, and after 159 days imprisoned in the Spokane County (Washington) Jail, a judge released him. No scholar has ever been held longer for protecting the identity of research participants.

In anticipation of his retirement, in 2021 Rik began studying for the Gettysburg National Military Park’s Licensed Battlefield Guide examination. The LBG exam has been called “the toughest test in history,” and Rik devotes roughly four hours a day to studying the Battle of Gettysburg and the Civil War more generally. The exam will be offered on December 7, 2024. Rik shifted to part-time status at Skidmore in June 2023.

Rik’s Ph.D. in sociology is from Washington State University (1995). His M.A. is from the University of Hawaii (1984), and his B.A. is from Stetson University (1981); both are in political science.
 

Synopsis

The SUU Eccles APEX presentation on November 7 featured Author and Professor Dr. Rik Scarce. His presentation was titled “Exploring the Civil War’s Timeless Legacy”.

Dr. Rik Scarce joined Skidmore College faculty in 2003, where he currently works as a Professor for Environmental Sociology, Social Theories of Environment, Visual Sociology, Video Ethnography, and Contemporary Social Theory. He has created multiple films and authored multiple books, from his film on barefoot running titled Impact: Mobility and Modernity Reconsidered, and his most recent book, Creating Sustainable Communities: Lessons from the Hudson River Region.

Although Dr. Scarce’s main focus is sociology, he shared his passion for history, and the journey he has taken to become a licensed guide at Gettysburg National Military Park. He didn’t understate the immense work that goes into becoming a licensed Gettysburg guide, candidly admitting how much time he had spent reading and studying.

Dr. Scarce stated that the American Civil War was “a war for southern independence”, and that memory of the Civil War hasn’t faded from memory in the southern U.S., and that it’s usually ever-present, albeit quietly. 

Dr. Scarce stated that the Civil War left us with 4 important things: reconstruction of social life, economy, free labor market, freedmen’s bureau, and reuniting families, accepting the presence of difference without letting it tear us apart, the absolute necessity of leadership grounded in “the better angels of our nature”, and that we must never take our collective eye off those lofty ideas that made America what it is. He stated that “history has inflection points, moments that are short, but future generations and stories last”.

Dr. Scarce presented the causes and breakdown of the Civil War, sharing that it was the extension of slavery that troubled Lincoln, but fired up secessionists in the South. He shared the timeline of the war, and stated that at the end of the war, slavery had ended, the battles were over, but “the resentment, anger, and lasting effects stayed”. He shared that in the late 1880s, all progress being done in the South had stopped, and that we failed reconstruction because “slavery was written into our constitution without actually being written.”

Dr. Scarce pointed out various effects of the Civil War; denying traditions and cultures of minorities, as well as violence and social conflicts, our embrace of freedom, grounded in democracy, ruled by us the people. 

He turned to discuss Gettysburg National Military Park, and its new motto. Previously it reflected the Civil War as northern rebel causes, and has since shifted from reconciliation rhetoric which pushed slavery into shadow to now recenter around what Lincoln did with the Emancipation Proclamation and Gettysburg Address.

Dr. Scarce concluded saying that freedom isn’t only race based, it’s a matter of gender, race, and more, and that “the danger is that we might not learn from history, but that we might forget our historical legacies and forget to pursue them.”