WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2016
Reception 6:30pm, event begins at 7:00pm
Vizcaya Museum & Gardens | 3251 S Miami Ave | Miami, FL 33129
ABOUT THE EVENT
lex·i·con n. A list of words relevant to a specific situation or shared by a group of people; a special vocabulary
How can words describe the experience of living in a time of environmental crisis? How can we describe our feelings as the seas rise around us and we are uncertain about what the future holds? Does the language we use shape our experience of the natural world?
Reflect with local environmental humanities scholars and ecoartists on how arts and culture can help us understand the feelings we might have as we think about climate change.
Come to this event prepared to hear from to local humanities scholars and horticulturists and also to participate in small group discussions.
Free and open to the public, but registration is required at bit.ly/emotionlexicon
FEATURING
Xavier Cortada
Artist
Xavier Cortada
ArtistXavier Cortada is an artist who often engages scientists in his art-making: At CERN, Cortada and a particle physicist created a permanent digital-art piece to celebrate the Higgs boson discovery. He has collaborated with a population geneticist to explore our ancestral journeys out of Africa 60,000-years ago, with a molecular biologist to synthesize a DNA strand from a sequence 400 museum visitors randomly generated, and with botanists to develop multi-year participatory eco-art efforts to reforest mangroves, native trees and wildflowers across Florida. The Miami artist has created environmental installations (North Pole and South Pole) and eco-art (Taiwan, Hawaii and Holland) projects, and painted community murals addressing peace (Cyprus and Northern Ireland), child welfare (Bolivia and Panama), AIDS (Switzerland and South Africa) and juvenile justice (Miami and Philadelphia) concerns. Cortada serves as Artist-in-Residence at FIU School of Environment, Arts and Society | College of Arts, Sciences & Education and the College of Communication, Architecture + The Arts.
Mark Rowlands
Professor of Philosophy at the University of Miami
Mark Rowlands
Professor of Philosophy at the University of MiamiMark Rowlands is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Miami. He is the author of eighteen books, translated into more than twenty languages, and over a hundred journal articles, book chapters and reviews. His work in the philosophy of mind comprises several books, including The Body in Mind (Cambridge University Press, 1999), The Nature of Consciousness (Cambridge University Press, 1999), Externalism (Acumen, 2003), Body Language (MIT Press, 2006), The New Science of the Mind (MIT Press 2010) and Memory and the Self (Oxford University Press, 2016). His work in ethics and moral psychology includes Animal Rights (Macmillan 1998), The Environmental Crisis (Macmillan, 2000), Animals Like Us (Verso, 2002), Can Animals be Moral? (Oxford University Press, 2012) and A Good Life (Granta 2015). His memoir, The Philosopher and the Wolf (Granta, 2008), became an international bestseller.
Elizabeth Doud
Artist and Director of Climakaze Miami, FUNDarte
Elizabeth Doud
Artist and Director of Climakaze Miami, FUNDarteElizabeth Doud is an artist and Director of Climakaze Miami, FUNDarte. She has a background rooted in creative writing and contemporary performance, and over 18 years experience as an arts organizer and educator, with an emphasis on international cultural exchange. She is an interdisciplinary artist who actively tours performance work, and created Climakaze Miami with FUNDarte, an arts and climate change performance and dialogue platform based in South Florida. Presently, she is producing and performing an ongoing eco-performance lab entitled The Mermaid Tear Factory. She splits her time between Florida and Bahia, Brazil, where she is pursuing a Ph.D. in Performing Arts at the Federal University of Bahia.
Catherine L. Newell
Assistant Professor of Religion and Science in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Miami
Catherine L. Newell
Assistant Professor of Religion and Science in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of MiamiCatherine L. Newell is an Assistant Professor of Religion and Science in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Miami. She is a graduate of the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research focuses on the conjoined histories of religion and science, particularly the way in which scientific paradigms frequently owe their genesis to a religious concept or belief. One important point of interest is the way scientific theories disseminate through culture—at every level from individuals to groups to whole communities—and often re-emerge as the basis for a spiritual idea or movement.
6:30pm
Reception with light refreshments
7:30pm
Lightening Round Lectures and Discussion
- Welcome: Remko Jansonius, Vizcaya Museum & Gardens
- Wonder: Alastair Gordon, Architecture Critic, Miami Herald
- Denial: Xavier Cortada, Artist-in-Residence, FIU SEAS and CARTA
- Disappointment: Mark Rowlands, Department of Philosophy, University of Miami
- Grief: Elizabeth Doud, Artist & Director of Climakaze Miami, FUNDarte
- Hope: Catherine Newell, Religious Studies, University of Miami
Co-Sponsored by the Vizcaya Museum & Gardens and the FIU Ecohumanities for Cities in Crisis Project
Funded in part through the Humanities in the Public Square Initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities