Author Rebecca Solnit Visits USU
Author Rebecca Solnit speaks at Utah State University April 16. Her presentation is free and open to the public.
Writer, historian and activist Rebecca Solnit will visit Utah State University April 16.
Solnit comes to USU to work with Caine College of the Arts associate professor of art Alexa Sand’s seminar class and as part of the ARTsySTEM Symposium developed by Mark Lee Koven, assistant professor of art in the Caine College of the Arts, in collaboration with Nancy Huntly, director of the Ecology Center and professor of biology at USU.
Solnit provides a public lecture April 16 related to her recent work on mapping the connections between culture and nature in urban environments. She also participates in events associated with the symposium April 17.
“Mark Lee Koven and I were eager to bring Solnit to campus because of the way her work bridges between the humanist and philosophical strands of my research and teaching and the behavioral and scientific focus of his work, using art as a connective theme,” Sand said. “Her award-winning book on the pioneering photographer Eadword Muybridge, ‘River of Shadows,’ combines the best of historical journalism, art criticism and environmental history, while her recent book of collected essays ‘Men Explain Things to Me’ is full of wry humor and sharp social critique.”
Solnit’s literary work has an impressive scope — she has written about everything from gender equality to Icelandic democracy — but she is not “just” a writer, Sand said.
“Her passion and commitment as an activist working for human rights, peace and environmental justice provides a fantastic example for anyone wanting to make a difference in the world today,” Sand said.
ARTsySTEM is a new biennial program that looks at the intersections and integration of the arts with the sciences. The symposium provides a forum for interdisciplinary sharing and exchanging of ideas on a wide range of topics where the arts and sciences intersect in their ongoing quest for beauty, truth and understanding.
“The arts and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields share a necessity for undertaking imaginative inquiry of what we perceive as truth and beauty,” Lee Koven said. “So many attempts to integrate art and science simply involve creating art at the end of a scientific breakthrough. With ARTsySTEM, we’re merging the disciplines at the very inception of the process.”
As a part of ARTsySTEM, the symposium and its associated programming are made possible through the support of the Tanner Trust for Utah Universities, Marie Eccles Caine Foundation — Russell Family, the National Endowment for the Arts ART WORK Grant and USU’s Quinney College of Natural Resources, USU College of Science, Caine College of the Arts, USU Ecology Center, USU Department of Art and Design and the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art.
Solnit’s lecture in the Caine performance Hall is Thursday, April 16, at 7 p.m. and is free and open to the public.
The ARTsySTEM Symposium runs 8 a.m.-5:30 p.m. in the Caine Performance Hall Friday, April 17. For more information contact the CCA Box Office located in room L101 of the Chase Fine Arts Center on USU’s Logan campus, call 435-797-8022 or see the college’s Production Services website.
Writer and contact: Whitney Schulte, 435-797-9203, whitney.schulte@usu.edu
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