Photo essays have proven their ability not only to document but actually change the course of human events. If that is the case, shouldn’t we be searching for the essential photo-essays of our time, the pictures that will spark public discourse and instigate the type of real-world reforms that engaged citizens in the past? What Matters, a new book edited by David Elliot Cohen, attempts to answer this question with eighteen important photo-essays by this generation’s preeminent photojournalists. These essays poignantly address the big issues of our time: climate change, oil addiction, the inequitable distribution of global wealth and other current problems. The book ends with “What You Can Do,” an appendix that offers hundreds of ways to be part of the solution to the compelling challenges we now face. Related Themes: environment, photography, social change

The purpose of this evening is to bring poetic and scientific sensibilities to bear on life-sustaining elements that we often take for granted, especially water.  While nearly 2 billion of the world’s population lack adequate supplies of water and proper facilities for the disposal of human waste, we who are affluent treat the planet’s water system irresponsibly by drawing unsustainable amounts from and polluting the environment.  By bringing attention to present and future global water crises and to people and projects that are working toward solutions, we hope to foster a more respectful attitude toward water and the ecosystems that provide it.

The evening will begin with a presentation by David Crossweller introducing Wherever the Need, a charitable organization concerned with the provision and use of eco-sanitation toilets and water.

Related Themes: citizenship, gratitude, poetry, water

In Donald Worster's new biography, John Muir's "special self" is fully explored as is his extraordinary ability, then and now, to get others to see the sacred beauty of the natural world. A Passion for Nature is the most complete account of the great conservationist and founder of the Sierra Club ever written. Rich in detail and personal anecdote, it traces Muir from his boyhood in Scotland and frontier Wisconsin to his adult life in California right after the Civil War up to his death on the eve of World War I. It explores his marriage and family life, his relationship with his abusive father, his many friendships with the humble and famous (including Theodore Roosevelt and Ralph Waldo Emerson), and his role in founding the modern American conservation movement. Inspired by Muir's passion for the wilderness, Americans created a long and stunning list of national parks and wilderness areas, Yosemite most prominent among them. Yet the book also describes a Muir who was a successful fruit-grower, a talented scientist and world-traveler, a doting father and husband, a self-made man of wealth and political influence, and a man for whom mountaineering was "a pathway to revelation and worship." Related Themes: America, conservation, environment, history

Universities eloquently proclaim the advantages of education for creating responsible citizens, but their rhetoric is often better than the outcome. All too often, little attention is paid to what education is for and what it should consist of. What should today's students know in preparation for common citizenship in a pluralistic world? What is the role of the humanities in that preparation? Join us for a conversation with two leading public intellectuals about the role of liberal education in promoting civic virtue, as well as about its uncertain future in a complex and technologically demanding world. Related Themes: citizenship, democracy, education, freedom, vocation

First published in 1998 and reissued in a tenth anniversary edition, Parker Palmer’s The Courage to Teach takes teachers of all levels on an inner journey toward reconnecting with themselves, their students, and their colleagues in ways that reignite vocational passion. The book builds on a simple premise: good teaching cannot be reduced to technique but is rooted in the identity and integrity of the teacher. Effective teaching takes myriad forms but good teachers share one trait: they are authentically present in the classroom and weave a life-giving web between themselves, their subjects, and students who must learn how to weave a world for themselves. Join us for a conversation with a teacher’s teacher who has a lifetime of ideas, insights and stories to share. Related Themes: courage, education, vocation