The Office of SustainabilityInitiatives will sponsor a Sustainability Book Discussion Series this semester, offering membersof theUniversity community opportunities to learn about and discuss important new books withsustainabilitythemes.
All events will take placein Bird Library, Room 123, on Fridays at 1 p.m. Space is limited; those planning to attend are asked to R.S.V.P. toRachel May at sumay@syr.edu.
Each bookis available in Bird Library, and attendees are encouraged to look atthem inadvance of the sessions. The sessions and the books are:
Feb. 7: “Lifeblood: Oil, Freedom, and the Forcesof Capital”by Matt Huber(University of Minnesota Press, 2013)
Huber is an assistant professor of geography in SU’s . He will be on hand to lead adiscussion of the role of oil consumption in American popular culture andpoliticalhistory.
March21: “Evolutionary History: Uniting History and Biology to Understand Life onEarth,”by Edmund Russell (Cambridge University Press, 2011)
This discussion will be led by Robert Wilson, associate professor of geography in the Maxwell School and an environmental historian, and David Althoff, assistant professor of biology in . The book investigates the ways humanbehavior overtime has led to changes in other species and whole ecosystems. It is apioneering foray into scholarship that bridges the humanities and naturalsciences.
April 11: “Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,Scientific Knowledge and theTeachings of Plants,”by Robin Kimmerer (Milkweed Editions, 2013)
Author Kimmererwill lead the discussion. She is a professor of biology at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry and director of the Center for NativePeoples andthe Environment. An expert on the interactions between“traditional” and “scientific”ecological knowledge, Kimmerer is also anaward-winning writer and a storyteller.
