submitted Dec 1, 2021 by Jim Embry
These are the times that try men’s and women's souls; the winter scholar and the summer activist will RISE ("and we shall rise”- Maya Angelou) in the midst of this global unraveling of life sustaining systems and become the alchemists for an Earth-centric future and the imagineers of human praxis freed from the need for cultural oppressions and exploitations.
This panel discussion seeks (through the usage of the Sankofa Bird concept of looking back in order to seed the future) to explore the important legacy of
George Washington Carver as a guide to our need for radical thoughts about Ecofuturism.
As we take radical shifts beyond the Newtonian Cartesian view of the world giving rise to the Industrial growth society, there is no better American icon than (affectionately and belittlingly called the Peanut-Wizard) George Washington Carver to serve as the ship’s captain in our voyage to an Earth-centric landscape/humanscape that lies beyond but in reach of the horizon..
During the late 1890s and the mid 1900s, George Washington Carver with various collaborators provided not only a blueprint for a green future but also challenged the structures of white supremacy while educating the Black souls and nourishing the black soils in Alabama and throughout the South. Carver who spent almost 50 years at Tuskegee Institute remains an inspiration and example of how in the midst of extreme racial oppression to forge radical thoughts of ecofuturism. His work of combining science and spirituality, theory and practice, research and thoughtful application can serve as foundational stones for our much needed and yearned for Earth-centric or eco-centric world view that takes us beyond the 500 year old stranglehold of the Newtonian/Cartesian world view and ignites the fire for what Thomas Berry calls the human maturation from the Cenozoic to the Eco-zoic planetary period.
We invite panelists to speak to the role of George Washington Carver in our yet still emancipatory efforts of thinking through archaic world views and designing “new’(?) narratives and praxis for our life sustaining future.
Interested panel members can please submit an abstract of kindred spiritedness in not much more than 200 words to Jim Embry (embryjim@gmail.com)