Wade Davis talk: The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World

December 7, 6:30pm - 8:00pm
Mānoa Campus, Art Auditorium

Wade Davis is Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society and was named by the Society as one of the Explorers for the Millennium. He has been described as “a rare combination of scientist, scholar, poet and passionate defender of all of life’s diversity.” In recent years his work has taken him to East Africa, Borneo, Nepal, Peru, Polynesia, Tibet, Mali, Benin, Togo, New Guinea, Australia, Colombia, Vanuatu, Mongolia, and the high Arctic of Nunuvut and Greenland.

Davis has done extensive research in the preservation of indigenous languages and cultures, particularly in Polynesia. Davis argues that we should be concerned not only for preserving the biosphere, but also the “ethnosphere,” which he describes as “the sum total of all thoughts and dreams, myths, ideas, inspirations, intuitions brought into being by the human imagination since the dawn of consciousness.”

His many books include Light at the Edge of the World (2001), The Lost Amazon (2001), Grand Canyon (2008), Book of Peoples of the World (ed. 2003), and The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World (the 2009 Massey lectures).

An extraordinary and inspiring storyteller, Davis has been filmed speaking by TED.com and as host in documentaries on the Smithsonian Network, The National Geographic Channel, and in the 3D-IMAX film Grand Canyon Adventure.

He is the recipient of such awards as the The Explorers Medal (2011); the Gold Medal of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society (2009); the Lowell Thomas Medal (2002); and the Lannan Foundation Prize for Literature (2002).

This free public reading made possible by the late Dr. Dai Ho Chun through his estate gift that established the Dai Ho Chun Endowment for Distinguished Lecturers at the UH Manoa Colleges of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Chun was a distinguished and visionary educator. The lecture is also sponsored by the UH Manoa College of Languages, Linguistics, and Literature, and Manoa: A Pacific Journal of International Writing.


Ticket Information
Free public talk

Event Sponsor
College of Arts And Sciences, Mānoa Campus

More Information
College of Arts And Sciences, 956-5790, artsci@hawaii.edi, http://www.lll.hawaii.edu/index.php/127-lecture-wade-davis-the-wayfinders/

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