Best-selling author Michael Pollan to speak on campus April 16, 2011
Michael Pollan, author of four New York Times bestsellers – Food Rules (2010), In Defense of Food (2008), The Omnivore’s Dilemma (2006) and The Botany of Desire (2001) – is scheduled to speak at the University of Portland on April 16, 2011. The lecture is set for 7 p.m. in the Chiles Center, located on campus at 5000 N. Willamette Blvd. Tickets for the event are not yet available. The media sponsor for the lecture is Oregon Public Broadcasting.
Pollan was named to the 2010 TIME 100, the magazine’s annual list of the world’s 100 most influential people. In 2009 he was named by Newsweek as one of the top 10 “New Thought Leaders.” A contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine since 1987, his writing has received numerous awards and in 2009, he appeared in a two-hour PBS special based on The Botany of Desire as well as in the documentary Food Inc., which received an Academy Award nomination.
Pollan’s lecture will be the keynote address to a one-day conference on food issues, which will feature both national and local leaders on several issues surrounding food, including culture, nutrition, justice, sustainability and genetic modification. The conference is scheduled for April 16 in Buckley Center Auditorium on campus and will consist of lectures, discussion sessions and audience interaction. It will be free and open to the public.
In March 2010, the University hosted the highly successful
Confluences: Water & Justice
, a three-day conference that brought together some of the nation’s leading experts to examine various perspectives on water. Maude Barlow – author, senior advisor on water to the president of the United Nations General Assembly, board chair of Food & Water Watch and chair of the Council of Canadians – gave the keynote address.
