Cultural ecologist and philosopher David Abram will be the keynote presenter at the international “Wonder and the Natural World” conference this June.
Abram is a notable storyteller and a sleight-of-hand magician, according to an IU press release.
He has traded magic with indigenous sorcerers in Indonesia, Nepal and the Americas.
Abram is also the author of “Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology” and “The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World.” He has been published in several journals including Orion, Parabola, Environmental Ethics and Tikkun, according to the release.
The conference will be put on by the Consortium for the Study of Religion, Ethics and Society at IU and has been examining the theme and also title of the conference for two years.
“The conference is a fitting culmination of the consortium’s two-year theme and its mission to foster interdisciplinary work on timely issues at the intersection of religion, ethics and society,” said Lisa Sideris, director of the consortium and associate professor of religious studies at IU, in the release.
The consortium launched in 2013 and has received two rounds of research grants, according to the release.
Last May, faculty presented their works-in- progress.
The conference includes many other speakers as well. These include Whitney Bauman, professor from Florida International University; Brendon Larson, scholar who studies how people adapt to ecological changes; Mary-Jane Rubenstein, professor and chair of religion at Wesleyan University; Scott Russell Sanders, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English at IU and famous Hoosier author; and Bronislaw Szerszynski, who researches how people interact with the environment, among others.
The conference will take place from June 20-23 in the Indiana Memorial Union.
The event is open to the public and tickets are available on the IU conferences website. Until May 14, tickets are $120 and will increase to $150 after.
Student rates are available for a limited time at $25. Cancellations can be made up to June 1 with a $25 cancellation fee. No refunds will be given after June 1 passes.
“At a time when nature is headline news — often in ways that seem unprecedented or alarming — wonder remains vital because it is a uniquely complex response, drawing on cognitive, sensory, emotional, spiritual, ethical and aesthetic dimensions of our relationship to nature,” Sideris said in the release. “All these dimensions are critically important for reflecting on what it means to be human and how we ought to live on this planet.”
Suzanne Grossman
