Date/Time:

Monday, 14 Jan 2008 at 8:00 pm

Location:

Pioneer Room, Memorial Union

Contact:

lectures@...

Phone:

515-294-9934

Ecologist, author, and cancer survivor Sandra Steingraber is a recognized expert on the environmental links to cancer and reproductive health. She received her doctorate in biology from the University of Michigan and master's degree in English from Illinois State University. Her writing expresses scientific reportage about the natural world in lyrical, poetic prose and earned her the Will Solimene Award from the American Medical Writers Association and recognition from the Sierra Club as "the New Rachel Carson." Steingraber's book Living Downstream presents cancer as a human rights issue. Her 2001 book Having Faith: An Ecologist's Journey to Motherhood was featured on "Kids and Chemicals," a PBS documentary by Bill Moyers. Parents are welcome to bring children and babies to this event.

Biologist and author Rachel Carson is popularly understood as the Rosa Parks of environmentalism. The 1962 publication of her bestselling book, Silent Spring, alerted the nation to the dangers of chemical pesticides and, in so doing, launched an environmental human rights movement. It also launched a new genre of writing: scientific reportage about the natural world expressed in lyrical, poetic prose.

Biologist and environmental writer Sandra Steingraber consciously works in the tradition of Rachel Carson. In this talk, Steingraber will explore the ways in which Carson has served as a model and counter-model for her own work. Along the way, she will revisit the reputed influence of Carson's writing on citizen activism and argue that this relationship was, in fact, far more reciprocal than is commonly appreciated. Indeed, environmental grassroots activists working in the mid-1950s, at the height of the McCarthy era, inspired Carson to write about pesticides, provided her with important sources of data, and helped open up a critical space in the publishing industry that made Silent Spring possible.

Steingraber will go on to describe current examples of the ongoing reciprocity between environmental science and citizen activism that provide opportunities for environmental writers. Pesticide registries, right-to-know laws, and biomonitoring programs, for example, have all been made possible by citizen activism. These databases open up new lines of inquiry for scientists to pursue, the results of which become available to environmental writers, who then can further inspire public awareness and activism.

Short readings from Carson's Silent Spring, Steingraber's Living Downstream, and new work by Steingraber will be woven throughout.