MISSOULA – Dr. David Abram, an author and philosopher who coined the term “a more-than-human world,” will provide the next installment of the 2019-20 President’s Lecture Series at the University of Montana.
Abram will present “The Commonwealth of Breath: Climate and Consciousness in Animistic Perspective” at 7:30 p.m. Monday, March 2, in the Dennison Theatre. Free and open to the public, the lecture also is the Brennan Guth Memorial Lecture in Environmental Philosophy.
Earlier that day, Abram will speak in an afternoon seminar titled “Magic and the Machine: Technology and Wonder in an Age of Ecological Wipeout” at 3 p.m. in Gallagher Business Building Room 123. That event also is open to all.
Described as a revolutionary thinker by the Los Angeles Times and as “daring” by the journal Science, Abram has been called a cultural ecologist and geophilosopher. His work has sparked the emergence of several new academic disciplines, including the broad field of ecopsychology – the study of the relationship between humans and the natural world using ecological and psychological principles.
A close student of the traditional ecological knowledge systems of indigenous cultures around the world, Abram was the first contemporary philosopher to advocate for a reappraisal of animism as a complexly nuanced and ecologically viable worldview.
Abram is the author of “Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology” and “The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-Human World.” His books have been translated into many languages, while his essays on the cultural causes and consequences of environmental disarray have been published in a diverse range of magazines, scholarly journals and anthologies.
A recipient of the international Lannan Literary Award for nonfiction, Abram lectures and teaches widely around the world. He recently held the Arne Naess Chair in Global Justice and the Environment at the University of Oslo. He also is the creative director of the Alliance for Wild Ethics. Abram lives with his family in the foothills of the southern Rockies.
The President’s Lecture Series at UM consists of several talks throughout the academic year on vital topics by distinguished guest speakers. For more information call 406-243-2311 or email thepresident@umontana.edu.
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