The Gallier Gatherings Lecture Series hosts Witness to Change: Community Conversations on Coastal Impacts.
Wednesday, March 22nd, 2023 at 6pm: Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Water Knife (2015) with Dr. Christopher Schaberg, environmental humanities scholar.
The Hermann-Grima + Gallier Historic Houses and the Gallier Gatherings Lecture Series is pleased to host the LEH Currents reading and discussion series, Witness to Change: Community Conversations of Coastal Impacts in the Winter and Spring of 2023! The book to be discussed on March 22nd is Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Water Knife. The conversation will take place at the Gallier House (1132 Royal Street, New Orleans) and be led by environmental humanities scholar Dr. Christopher Schaberg, Dorothy Harrell Brown Distinguished Professor of English at Loyola University New Orleans.
Registration is free and includes a copy of The Water Knife. Participants may register for multiple LEH Currents events: please use the following link to find out more about the other nights: https://fb.me/e/3Opwl7O3K.
Space and available books are capped at 20 for each discussion, so please be sure to register ASAP.
After you complete your registration here on Eventbrite, follow the emailed instructions to activate your registration and receive your free book.
About the book and the author:
Paolo Bacigalupi, The Water Knife. Penguin Random House, 2015.
Water is scarce in the American Southwest. With natural resources dwindling, Arizona, Nevada, and California are locked in a fierce battle for what little relief the shriveling Colorado River can provide. Catherine Case, the Queen of the Colorado— murderous and hard as steel—seems to be coming out on top with enough control to manage luxury arcology developments in Las Vegas while the rest of civilization descends into a scene of anarchic violence and poverty. When word gets out that there may be an untapped water source with rights up for grabs, she sends one of her best employees—the water knife, Angel Velasquez—to Phoenix to find out more.
In this fast-paced sci-fi thriller set in the not-too-distant future, Bacigalupi offers a supercharged and haunting tour de force that speaks to our most pressing contemporary issues, pushing us to consider how we engage with—and how we can and should protect—the world we inhabit and the resources that ensure our survival.
Paolo Bacigalupi is the best-selling author of The Windup Girl, Ship Breaker (a National Book Award finalist), The Drowned Cities, and The Water Knife.
About Dr. Christopher Schaberg:
Christopher Schaberg—Dorothy Harrell Brown Distinguished Professor of English at Loyola University New Orleans—is the author of eight books on contemporary American literature, the culture of air travel, and environmental awareness. His new book, out in March 2023, is Fly-Fishing.
About Witness to Change: Community Conversations on Coastal Impacts
Every human being has a relationship with water. It forms our bodies, drives our commerce, and defines many of the places we live. Since civilization began, people have attempted to control water—keeping it close, but in its place. But what happens when the relationship with water changes? How do we react when the sea rises, when land is lost, and when flooding affects our homes?
Witness to Change: Community Conversations on Coastal Impacts offers a place to have these conversations. This adult reading and discussion program, led by scholars, offers participants the opportunity to learn more about issues arising from the complex and changing human relationship with water. See how these issues are both local and global and join your neighbors in an exploration of how others are adapting to our changing world.
Currents is a program of the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities and is made possible by the State of Louisiana.
Event photo by USGS.