Join the Seminary Co-op and University of Chicago Press on July 22 at 2pm as coeditors John Hausdoerffer and Melissa K. Nelson discuss What Kind of Ancestor Do You Want to Be? with contributors Shannon Gibney and Enrique Salmón.
About the book: As we face an ever-more-fragmented world, What Kind of Ancestor Do You Want to Be? demands a return to the force of lineage—to spiritual, social, and ecological connections across time. It sparks a myriad of ageless-yet-urgent questions: How will I be remembered? What traditions do I want to continue? What cycles do I want to break? What new systems do I want to initiate for those yet-to-be-born? How do we endure? Published in association with the Center for Humans and Nature and interweaving essays, interviews, and poetry, this book brings together a thoughtful community of Indigenous and other voices—including Linda Hogan, Wendell Berry, Winona LaDuke, Vandana Shiva, Robin Kimmerer, and Wes Jackson—to explore what we want to give to our descendants. It is an offering to teachers who have come before and to those who will follow, a tool for healing our relationships with ourselves, with each other, and with our most powerful ancestors—the lands and waters that give and sustain all life.
About John Hausdoerffer: John Hausdoerffer is dean of the School of Environment & Sustainability at Western Colorado University. Most recently, he is coeditor of Wildness. For more information, visit www.jhausdoerffer.com.
About Melissa K. Nelson: Melissa K. Nelson (Anishinaabe/Métis [Turtle Mountain Chippewa]) is professor of Indigenous sustainability at Arizona State University and president of the Cultural Conservancy, a Native-led Indigenous rights organization. Most recently, she is coeditor of Traditional Ecological Knowledge.
About Shannon Gibney: Shannon Gibney is a writer, educator, and activist. She is the author of the novels Dream Country and See No Color, which both won Minnesota Book Awards. Most recently, she edited the anthology What God is Honored Here? with writer Kao Kalia Yang. Gibney is faculty in English at Minneapolis College.
About Enrique Salmón: Enrique Salmón is a Rarámuri (Tarahumara) Indian. He has a PhD in anthropology from Arizona State University. He is head of the American Indian Studies program at Cal State University East Bay. Enrique has published several articles and chapters on Indigenous ethnoecology, agriculture and ancestral food ways, nutrition, sustainability education, and traditional ecological knowledge. He is the author of Eating the Landscape and Iwígara.