(HANCOCK, Mass.)  –  Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Kolbert will discuss the current environmental crisis, including the imminent threat of planetary extinction, in the Food for Thought dinner series at Hancock Shaker Village on Friday, August 11, at 6pm.

A resident of Williamstown and visiting fellow at Williams College, Elizabeth Kolbert is a staff writer at the New Yorker and the author of “The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History,’ for which she was awarded the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Kolbert will offer her  insightful contributions to our understanding of present environmental circumstances, examining the role of man-made climate change in causing what biologists call the sixth mass extinction. The current spasm of plant and animal loss threatens to eliminate 20 to 50 percent of all living species on earth within this century.

Over the past decade, Elizabeth Kolbert has established herself as one of our most eloquent science writers. She has developed a distinctive voice of conscience on issues arising from the extraordinary assault on the ecosphere. A staff writer for the New Yorker since 1999, she reports from the front lines of the violent collision between civilization and our planet’s ecosystem: the Andes, the Amazon rain forest, the Great Barrier Reef – and her backyard.  Previously, she worked at the New York Times, where she wrote the Metro Matters column; from 1988 to 1991, she was the paper’s Albany bureau chief, and, from 1992 to 1997, she was a political and media reporter.

Kolbert is the author of “The Prophet of Love: And Other Tales of Power and Deceit” and “Field Notes from a Catastrophe. “

“[Kolbert] makes a page-turner out of even the most sober and scientifically demanding aspects of extinction,” says New York Magazine.  “Combining a lucid, steady, understated style with some enviable reporting adventures…she produces a book that is both serious-minded and invites exclamation points into its margins.”

Food for Thought is a new dinner series featuring authors discussing issues of the day. Featuring food prepared from the gardens outside the kitchen door at Hancock Shaker Village, the series offers participants an opportunity to hear from leading thinkers in an intimate setting, and to engage in a conversation that lingers long after dessert.

Far ahead of their time, the Shakers addressed issues as far ranging as gender equality, sustainability, land renewal, racial equality, pacifism, and shared economies decades before fashionable, let alone there being a vocabulary to address such subjects.

The evening includes a seasonal dinner sourced from the organic gardens at Hancock Shaker Village, prepared by James Beard Award-winning, farm-to-table chef Brian Alberg, as well as wine and a copy of the author’s book.  Seating is limited.   Tickets are available at Hancock Shaker Village Food for Thought.

 

ABOUT HANCOCK VILLAGE

Home to the Shakers for more than 220 years, Hancock Shaker Village is now an outdoor history museum dedicated to preserving the Shaker legacy and making that story relevant and illuminating for today’s visitors. Situated on 750 acres of picturesque farm, field, and woodland in the bucolic Berkshires of Massachusetts, the Village consists of 20 historic buildings, a working farm and heirloom gardens, and a premier collection of 22,000 authentic Shaker artifacts.

Hancock Shaker Village is located at 1843 W Housatonic Street, Pittsfield, MA 01201

 

Phone:  413.443.0188