KPFA Radio 94.1FM presents:
DIANE ACKERMAN
The Human Age; The World Shaped By Us
Hosted by Vijaya Nagarajan
Thursday, September 18, 2014, 7:30 pm
St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Avenue, Berkeley $12 advance tickets: brownpapertickets.com :: 800-838-3006 or Pegasus (3 sites) Moe’s, Walden Pond, Diesel a Bookstore, Mrs. Dalloway’s Books
SF: Modern Times, $15 door Co-sponsored by St. John’s Presbyterian Church
“Our relationship with nature has changed…radically, irreversibly, but by no means all for the bad. Our new epoch is laced with invention. Our mistakes are legion, but our talent is immeasurable.” – Diane Ackerman
“Diane Ackerman’s vivid writing, inexhaustible stock of insights, and unquenchable optimism have established her as a national treasure and as one of our greatest authors…If you haven’t read her previous books, you’re now about to become addicted to Diane Ackerman.” – Jared Diamond, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel
Our finest literary interpreter of science and nature, Ackerman is justly celebrated for her unique insight into the natural world and our place (for better and worse) in it. In this landmark book, she confronts the unprecedented fact that the human race is now the single dominant force of change on the planet. Humans have “subdued 75% of the land surface, concocted a wizardry of industrial and medical marvels, strung lights all across the darkness. We now collect the DNA of vanishing species in a “frozen ark,” equip orangutans with iPads, create wearable technologies and synthetic species that might one day outsmart us.
Diane Ackerman has been the finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction. She is the author of The Zookeeper’s Wife, A Natural History of the Senses, An Alchemy of Mind, Jaguar of Sweet Laughter, Dawn Light, and One Hundred Names for Love, among many other exceptional books.
Professor Vijaya Nagarajan teaches courses on Hinduism, Religion and Environment, Spiritual Autobiography, and Community Internships. Her scholarship has centered on the Kolam, a women’s ritual art in southern India. She is currently working on a new book, Feeding a Thousand Souls: Women, Ritual and Art in southern India—The Kolam (Oxford University Press). Her other research projects include: On the Languages of the Commons; Tree Temples, Mangroves and Temple Forests. She has been active in the American Academy of Religion and in the environmental movement in India and the United States, and she has been co-director of the Study of Natural and Cultural Resources and the Recovery of the Commons Project.
