Earth Month Activities Include Speakers, Films

In honor of Earth Month, Wesleyan will host a series of speakers and films beginning April 14.

At 4:15 p.m. on April 14, the College of the Environment will present a talk, “The Tiger in the Smoke: The Aesthetics of Fog in Post-War Britain c. 1945-55,” by Lynda Nead, the Pevsner Professor of History of Art at Birkbeck, University of London. The talk will be in 41 Wyllys, Room 112. It is cosponsored by the Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life; the Mellon Fund for Lectures in Ethics, Politics and Social Issues; Art History; History; and the Science in Society Program. The event is free and open to the public.

At 7:30 p.m. on April 17, Wesleyan’s Green Team will screen the movie Bag It in PAC 001. Cosponsored by the College of the Environment, Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, and The Green Fund, the event is free and open to the public. View the trailer here.

At noon on April 21, Gregg Mitman will speak on “Forgotten Paths of Empire” in Exley Science Center, Room 058. Mitman will describe a four-month–long biological and medical survey of the interior region of Liberia that was led by Richard Pearson Strong, head of Harvard’s Department of Tropical Medicine, in 1926. The talk embarks on a journey that follows the traces of an expedition and a film never made to make visible the forgotten paths of empire that led to widespread economic, environmental, and cultural change in the West African republic of Liberia. RSVP by April 16 to vmarinelli@wesleyan.edu to reserve your lunch.

At 4:30 p.m. on April 22, there will be a screening and Mitman will lead a discussion of the film In the Shadow of Ebola (2015) in Usdan University Center’s Daniel Family Commons. The film is an intimate story of a family and a nation torn apart by the Ebola outbreak. The event is free and open to the public.

Finally, Brian Stewart, professor of physics, professor of environmental studies, will deliver his Eighth Annual Earth Week Rant: “Sustainability by Number,” at 4:30 p.m. on April 23 in Exley Science Center, Room 058, and “Stop Drilling Down!” at 7 p.m. on April 28 in Exley Science Center, Room 150.

For more information on all the events, contact Valerie Marinelli at 860-685-3733 or vmarinelli@wesleyan.edu.