Sewanee: The University of the South is pleased to welcome award-winning educator, intellectual historian, and author Wilfred M. McClay to campus for a public talk addressing the question “Does Place Matter?” on Wednesday, September 16th, 2015 at 7:30 pm in Guerry Auditorium.
In our increasingly global and digital lives, it can sometimes seem that the world is becoming placeless. Wilfred McClay describes why a sense of place still matters, and the consequences of ignoring placerootedness.
McClay is the Blankenship Chair in the History of Liberty at the University of Oklahoma and the editor of Why Place Matters, one of Planetizen’s Top 10 Books of 2015. His many publications focus on the intellectual and cultural history of the United States, with particular attention to the social and political thought of the 19th and 20th centuries; the history of American religious thought and institutions; and the theory and practice of biographical writing.
This event is co-sponsored by the Collaborative for Southern Appalachian & Place-Based Studies and the Finding Your Place program. McClay’s writing has been among the assigned readings in Sewanee’s FYP course and complements this year’s featured presentation in that course by Wendell Berry and other visitors from the Berry Center in New Castle, Kentucky.