Wendell Berry Reading on Thursday :: Participates in First Year Program for New Students

Distinguished author Wendell Berry will offer a public reading at 4:30 p.m., Thursday, Aug. 20, in Guerry Auditorium on the Sewanee campus. Berry’s award-winning publications include more than 40 books of fiction, poetry and essays.

Berry’s visit to Sewanee takes place in conjunction with the College’s Finding Your Place (FYP) program and the associated freshman course to which he is contributing. FYP students, faculty and visiting contributors will be reflecting together on the theme  “Imaginative Education: Learning to Know a Place, Care for a Place.” Other participants in these FYP sessions include Mary Berry, executive director of the Berry Center in New Castle, Ky.; Leah Bayens, director of the Berry Farming Program at St. Catharine College; and Norman Wirzba, professor of theology, ecology and rural life at Duke University.

The seed of this visit was planted two years ago on Berry’s front porch during a visit there by Michael Thompson, a fellow at the Center for Religion and Environment at Sewanee. During this first conversation, Berry and his wife, Tanya, introduced Thompson to the Berry Center’s efforts, which is directed by their daughter, Mary. 

Mary Berry and Bayens came to Sewanee more than a year ago, when discussions of the potential of a deeper relationship between Sewanee and the Berry Center began. Robin Gottfried, Director of the Center for Religion and Environment at Sewanee, English professor John Gatta and Thompson visited St. Catharine College to learn how they integrated the work of the Berry Center into their program.

The Berry Center is working to transform America’s food and farm system into one that is healthy and sustainable for all people and the planet. The center is  putting Berry’s writings to work by advocating for farmers, land-conserving communities and healthy regional economies. It focuses on issues confronting small farming families in Kentucky and around the country. By collecting and archiving the papers of the Berry family, the center gives people the opportunity to study and work to learn from the past in order to shape the future. Issues of land use, farm policy and local food infrastructure are central to the center’s mission.

“We are hopeful that this symposium is the beginning of a consortium of sorts, linking us with the Berry’s work and other institutions who share in this ethos and contemplation of place by learning to listen to the land,” Thompson said. “Sewanee’s natural beauty and surroundings, along with the long and rich literary history on the mountain, provides a meaningful place to cultivate this effort and way of life which Wendell, Tanya, and now Mary and the Berry Center puts forth.”

Campus sponsors of these events include the Center for Religion and Environment, which has also played the leading role in planning and arrangements; the Collaborative for Southern Appalachian and Place-Based Studies; the University Lectures Committee; Rivendell Writers Colony; and Vice-Chancellor John McCardell and Bonnie McCardell.