Earth Day Conference Explores ‘Constructing Space(s)’

Cour­tesy of NASA

Writ­ing Across Com­mu­ni­ties presents the sec­ond annual Earth Day con­fer­ence, “Con­struct­ing Space(s)’: Mak­ing our Home(s) in the Twenty-First Cen­tury,” on Fri­day, April 22, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. in the Stu­dent Union Build­ing, ball­room A and fiesta room. The keynote speaker is M. Jim­mie Killingsworth of Texas A&M.

The con­fer­ence brings together stu­dents, fac­ulty and com­mu­nity mem­bers in con­ver­sa­tions about a broad range of prac­ti­cal and the­o­ret­i­cal issues in envi­ron­men­tal­ism and envi­ron­men­tal sci­ences. Panel dis­cus­sions draw on per­spec­tives and exper­tise from human­i­ties, social sci­ences and hard sciences.

The keynote speech is at noon in SUB ball­room A. Killingsworth is pro­fes­sor and head of the Eng­lish depart­ment at Texas A&M. His books include “Ecos­peak: Rhetoric and Envi­ron­men­tal Pol­i­tics in Amer­ica” and “Whitman’s Poetry of the Body: Sex­u­al­ity, Pol­i­tics, and the Text.” Killingsworth also par­tic­i­pates in local nature edu­ca­tion pro­grams and is a mem­ber of the Bra­zos Val­ley Chap­ter of Texas Mas­ter Naturalists.

Event coor­di­na­tor Erin Pen­ner Gal­le­gos said of the con­fer­ence theme, “the idea of con­struct­ing space is both the­o­ret­i­cal and prac­ti­cal.” She said the con­fer­ence “invites dis­cus­sion about how phys­i­cal, rhetor­i­cal and spir­i­tual con­struc­tions of space can best be under­taken sus­tain­ably, eth­i­cally and in con­cert with one another.”

Visit Earth Day con­fer­ence or e-mail earthdayconference@gmail.com.

Media con­tact: Sari Krosin­sky (505) 277‑1593; e-mail: michal@unm.edu