Live via Zoom or attend live watch party in Meeting Room A.
The human fascination with seashells is
primal. Archeological evidence suggests that Neanderthals collected cockle
shells on the coast of what is modern Spain, perhaps giving preference to those
they found beautiful. Native Americans built “great cities of shell” along the
coasts, later carted off for road fill. Another generation burned with “shell
fever” in Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s time. In her program The Sound of the Sea, environmental author Cynthia Barnett will introduce the long, rich and surprisingly
profound relationship between humans and seashells. Traveling from Florida to
the Bahamas to the Maldives, West Africa, and beyond, Barnett explores the
ancient history of shells as global currency, their use as religious and luxury
objects, and the remarkable marine mollusks that make them. For eons, shells
and their makers have reflected humanity’s shifting attitudes toward and
precarious place in the natural world. While shells reveal how humans have
altered the climate and the sea—down to its very chemistry—they are also
sentinels of hope for alternative energy and other solutions that lie beneath
the waves. With her engaging account of an aspect of nature and culture long
hidden in plain sight, Barnett illuminates the beauty and wonder of seashells
as well as the human ingenuity and scientific solutions they represent for our
warming world.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Cynthia Barnett is an award-winning environmental author and
journalist who has reported on water and climate change around the world. Her
latest book, The Sound of the Sea, was named one of
the best science books of 2021 by
NPR’s Science Friday, and one of the best nonfiction books of the
year by Kirkus Reviews and others.
Cynthia is also author of the water books Mirage; Blue
Revolution; and Rain: A Natural and Cultural History,
longlisted for the National Book Award and a finalist for the PEN/E.O. Wilson
Award for Literary Science Writing. She has written for National
Geographic, the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street
Journal, the Atlantic, Salon, Politico and
many other publications. Cynthia is the Environmental Journalist in Residence
at the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications in
Gainesville, Florida, where she lives with her family.