A very special evening of words and images by the region's most preeminent Sonoran Desert visionaries to launch the new book edited by Gary Paul Nabhan, The Nature of Desert Nature.
This Southwest Center Series publication with UA Press demonstrates many fresh ways of envisioning and being in the desert. It recasts what a desert is and how its very presence shapes our own identities.
As much of the planet becomes hotter and drier, we need to embrace the positive ways that true deserts offer us inspiration and insights about how to live well, joyously and consciously in the most diverse desert in the Americas.
Featuring essays, poems, street murals, and songs, The Nature of Desert Nature rejects the dualism that science and art are divided in their views regarding the nature of desert nature; instead it offers us a feast prepared by some of the greatest desert ecologists, geographers, writers, photographers, contemplatives, and philosophers the arid world has ever known. Their surprising and sometimes disruptive commentaries on the relations between arid landscapes and human cultures will force you to reevaluate your assumptions about what a desert is and can be.
In the online book debut celebration, Gary Nabhan, who edited the collection, and Desert Laboratory Director Ben Wilder, who is a contributor to and helped support the publication, hosted a number of the many authors for readings, discussions, and visual presentations.
Readings by:
Homero Aridjis, poet and environmental leader
Exequiel Ezcurra, ecologist and science diplomat
Alison Hawthorne Deming, poet and Regents Professor
When: Wednesday, December 9, 2020
Time: 6 pm to 7:30 pm AZ time
GIVEAWAY! All registered viewers were automatically entered into our online drawing for one of four signed copies of the book; must have been present online at the event to win.
An additional partner event on Thursday, December 3, 2:00 pm when the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum hosts an online conversation with Gary.
Contributors to the book include:
Thomas M. Antonio
Homero Aridjis
James Aronson
Tessa Bielecki
Alberto Búrquez Montijo
Francisco Cantú
Douglas Christie
Paul Dayton
Alison Hawthorne Deming
Father David Denny
Exequiel Ezcurra
Thomas Lowe Fleischner
Jack Loeffler
Ellen MacMahon
Rubén Martínez
Curt Meine
Alberto Mellado Moreno
Paul Mirocha
Gary Paul Nabhan
Ray Perotti
Larry Stevens
Stephen Trimble
Octaviana V. Trujillo
Benjamin T. Wilder
Andy Wilkinson
Ofelia Zepeda