Tag: authors

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Author and activist Bill McKibben to deliver 2017 Walter Harding lecture September 30

Author and environmental activist Bill McKibben will deliver The 2017 Walter Harding Lecture on Saturday, September 30 at 4 p.m. in Wadsworth Auditorium on the SUNY Geneseo campus.

[Download the 11 x 17 poster here.]

McKibben is the founder of 350.org, an environmental advocacy group that uses grassroots organizing and mass mobilization to oppose new coal, oil, and gas projects; limit climate-warming emissions; support sustainable energy solutions at the community level; and educate governmental leaders and the general public.

McKibben is the author of more than a dozen books, including The End of Nature, widely regarded as the first book about climate change written for a general audience, and Oil and Honey: The Education of an Unlikely Activist. He writes frequently for such publications as The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, National Geographic, and Rolling Stone.

The Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College in Vermont, McKibben is also a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2013, he was awarded the Gandhi Peace Award and honored by the Thomas Merton Center with its yearly prize recognizing “activists who work on national and international issues that transform our world.”

McKibben’s annotated edition of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden gratefully acknowledges its “comprehensive and illuminating” predecessor, Walden: An Annotated Edition (1995), edited by Geneseo’s late SUNY Distinguished Professor of English Walter Harding. Harding’s annotations are available in an online edition of Walden from Digital Thoreau.

You can learn more about Bill McKibben on his personal website.

Photo © Nancie Battaglia
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Bernardine Evaristo to read from her work April 11

Bernardine Evaristo
Photo credit: Hayley Madden

Bernardine Evaristo returns to SUNY Geneseo on Friday, April 11 at 4 p.m. (Newton 204) to read from her work as part of the English department’s Literary Forum series. Evaristo is the author of seven books including her new novel, Mr Loverman, about a 74 year-old Caribbean London man who finally comes out of the closet (Hamish Hamilton/Penguin, 2013 & Akashic Books, US, 2014). Evaristo’s writing, characterized by daring experimentation and subversion, playfully and humorously challenges the myths of various Afro-diasporic histories and identities. Mr Loverman dares to explore almost forbidden topics, such as the seeming prevalence of homophobia in the black community and slavery as its justification.

Since 1997 Evaristo has accepted invitations to take part in over 80 international tours as a writer. She gives readings and delivers talks, keynotes, workshops, and courses. She has held visiting fellowships and professorships. Her books are translated into several languages, including Mandarin. Her awards include the EMMA Best Book Award, Big Red Read, Orange Youth Panel Award, a NESTA Fellowship Award and an Arts Council Writer’s Award. She has won “Book of the Year” 13 times in British newspapers and magazines; The Emperor’s Babe was a Times “Book of the Decade.” Hello Mum has been chosen as one of 20 titles for World Book Night in 2014. She was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2004, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2006, and she received an MBE in 2009.