Friday, July 18, 2008

Derrick Jensen

Do you believe this culture is going to undergo a voluntary transformation to a sane and sustainable way of living? If you don't, and you care -- what do you do? asks Derrick Jensen.
Writers On The Edge presents an illuminating evening with writer, lecturer, social scientist, and grassroots environmentalist Derrick Jensen at the next Nye Beach Writers' Series event, Saturday July 19. The event begins at 7 p.m. at the OSU Hatfield Marine Science Center, Visitor's Center Auditorium, located at 2020 SE Marine Science Drive in the South Beach area of Newport. Admission is $10 at the door; no advance sales. Students admitted free.

Jensen's writings explore the nature of balanced ecological sustainability -- beyond which type of light bulb people buy or whether they recycle their plastic water bottles. True sustainability, he says, resides in creating a social and economic system that exists in balance with the surrounding ecosystem. "The needs of the natural world are more important than the needs of the economic system."

Jensen's two-volume non-fiction work Endgame, earned him the title of 2006 Person of the Year, an honor presented by Press Action, an online publication of news analysis and commentary. Press Action declared the work "the best nonfiction in 2006."

Jensen's diverse writings also include:
  • A Language Older than Words
  • The Culture of Make Believe
  • Listening to the Land: Conversations about Nature, Culture, and Eros, Railroads and Clearcuts
  • Strangely Like War: The Global Assault on Forests
Other collaborative works include:
  • Welcome to the Machine: Science, Surveillance, and the Culture of Control
  • Walking on Water: Reading, Writing and Revolution (which highlights the natural desire to learn juxtaposed against social structures that eradicate the individual creative process)
  • Thought to Exist in the Wild: Awakening from the Nightmare of Zoos

Jensen holds a bachelor of science degree in mineral engineering physics from the Colorado School of Mines, and a master of fine arts degree in creative writing from Eastern Washington University. He lives on the coast of northern California.

A great deal more information about Derrick Jensen is posted online at www.derrickjensen.org.