UCA Honors College’s Fall 2011Challenge Week will feature nature and environment writers David Abram, Mark Spitzer and Ann Fisher-Wirth in a series of talks and events on UCA’s campus and in Little Rock.
Challenge Week runs from Oct. 31- Nov. 4. This year’s theme, “Connect/Disconnect: Knowing Our Place,” will address the divide between “the digital world” and “the real world.”
David Abram, author of The Spell of the Sensuous, which interweaves phenomenology, anthropology and linguistics, will speak Wednesday, Nov. 2 at 7 p.m. in the UCA College of Business auditorium. Abram’s newest book, Becoming Animal, was just released this year. Abram, founding director of the nonprofit organization Alliance for Wild Ethics (www.wildethics.org), will also read from his work at 2 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 3, at the Cox Creative Center in Little Rock’s Rivermarket District. Both of David Abram’s readings will be followed by a book signing.
At 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov 1, poet, novelist, environmental writer and UCA faculty member Mark Spitzer, author of Season of the Gar, will read from his work, and at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 3, award-winning poet Ann Fisher-Wirth, on faculty at Ole Miss, will conclude the public portion of Challenge Week with a poetry reading. Fisher-Wirth’s recent collections include Carta Marina (2009), Slide Shows (2009), and Five Terraces (2005). All events are free and open to the public.
Through these powerful and eloquent writers’ unique voices, Challenge Week will indeed challenge audience members to examine their own understandings of “knowing place.” For further information about Challenge Week, please contact Adam Frank at 450-3486 or at afrank@uca.edu.