Avenali Chair in the Humanities Wendell Berry in discussion with UC Berkeley faculty panelists Michael Pollan (Graduate School of Journalism), Robert Hass (English), Miguel Altieri (Environmental Science, Policy and Management), and Anne-Lise Francois (English and Comparative Literature). 

Wendell Berry is a conservationist, farmer, essayist, novelist and poet. He is the author of over forty books including The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture, and the well-known “Port William" series. The master of many genres, Berry’s focus on farming, community, and agricultural and ecological thinking has remained a constant throughout his work. He has farmed a hillside in his native Henry County, KY, for more than forty years. Berry earned a B.A. and M.A. in English at the University of Kentucky, and in 1958 he attended Stanford University’s creative writing program as a Wallace Stegner Fellow, studying under Stegner in a seminar that included Edward Abbey, Larry McMurtry, Robert Stone, Ernest Gaines, Tillie Olsen, and Ken Kesey.

Wendell Berry will also participate in a Reading & Discussion on Thursday, November 1 at 6:00 pm in the Berkeley Art Museum Theater. 

The Avenali events are free and open to the public but tickets are required. Free tickets will be available at event venues one hour before each event.