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Book Group: Consulting the Genius of the Place, Losses, by Wes Jackson

November 5, 2015 @ 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm

Free
Wess Jackson on Losses and on Away from the Extractive Economy

The Slow Food Russian River Book Group will be reading the book Consulting the Genius of the Place: An Ecological Approach to a New Agriculture by Wes Jackson (CounterPoint, Berkeley, 2010), Section 1 and 2, pp. 1-144, Losses.

To RSVP write the Book Group at Slow Food Russian River Book Group <sfrrbookgroup@gmail.com>. The book group is open to anyone who can read, loves cooking a dish, and likes a good conversation.  You don’t need to be a member, although – of course – we hope that with time you will become one. Location in Sebastopol with RSVP.

The Book Group meets the first Thursday of the month, 7 – 9pm

Reviewer’s Commentaries

Continuing the trajectory of Jackson’s earlier works, Consulting the Genius of the Place is a crucial addition to a conversation in which anyone who wants to keep eating has a stake. Combining memoir, scientific argument, and prophetic diatribe, this book is a bit like the prairie ecosystem it lauds: a sometimes gnarly, sometimes lovely mix of ideas whose roots go deep, and which possesses in its vitality emergent properties of its own. Only by consulting the genius of our own places instead of imposing our wills upon them, Jackson warns, can we carbon-hungry creatures avoid the fate of the petri dish. (Fred Bahnson, in Orion Magazine).

The themes of place, biodiversity and the virtues of perennial plants that have abounded in Jackson’s previous books converge in Jackson’s thorough argument for a new approach to agriculture that is dictated not by market economies or agribusiness but rather by the land and ecology of a given place. (Chris Smith, in Englewoods Review of Books).

Bio from the Schumacher Institute:

Wes Jackson is one of the foremost figures in the international sustainable agriculture movement. Founder and president of The Land Institute in Salina, Kansas, he has pioneered reserach in Natural Systems Agriculture — including perennial grains, perennial polycultures, and intercropping — for over 30 years. He was a professor of biology at Kansas Wesleyan and later established the Environmental Studies program at California State University, Sacramento, where he became a tenured full professor. He is the author of several books including Becoming Native to This Place (1994), Altars of Unhewn Stone(1987), and New Roots for Agriculture (1980).

The work of the Land Institute has been featured extensively in the popular media, including The Atlantic Monthly, Audubon, The MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour, and All Things Considered. Life magazine predicted Wes Jackson will be among the 100 “most important Americans of the 20th century.” He is a recipient of the Pew Conservation Scholars award and a MacArthur Fellowship, and has been listed as one of Smithsonian’s “35 Who Made a Difference”. Wes has an M.A. in botany from University of Kansas, and a Ph.D. in genetics from North Carolina State University.

See also this interview with Wes Jackson, by Kathryn True, The Genius of Place. The Land Institute founder on tapping the genius of the prairie in the design of agriculture.

Details

Date:
November 5, 2015
Time:
7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Cost:
Free
Event Category:

Organizer

Slow Food Russian River Book Group
Email
sfrrbookgroup@gmail.com

Venue

Private Home in Sebastopol
Address with RSVP
Sebastopol, CA 95472 United States
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