Skip to content
Account Login Winnipeg Toll-Free: 1-800-561-1833 SK Toll-Free: 1-877-506-7456 Contact & Locations

parsed(2018-10-06) - pubdate: 2018-10-06
turn:
pub date: 1538802000
today: 1711602000, pubdate > today = false

nyp: 0;

Learning to Die

Wisdom in the Age of Climate Crisis

October 6, 2018 | Trade paperback
ISBN: 9780889775633
$19.95
Reader Reward Price: $17.96 info
Out of stock. Available to order from publisher. We will confirm shipping time when order has been placed.
Checking Availibility...

Description

"Truth-filled meditations about grace in the face of mortality." --Margaret Atwood

In this powerful little book, two leading intellectuals illuminate the truth about where our environmental crisis is taking us. Writing from an island on Canada's Northwest coast, Robert Bringhurst and Jan Zwicky weigh in on the death of the planet versus the death of the individual. For Zwicky, awareness and humility are the foundation of the equanimity with which Socrates faced his death: he makes a good model when facing the death of the planet, as well as facing our own mortality. Bringhurst urges readers to tune their minds to the wild. The wild has healed the world before, and it is the only thing that stands any chance of healing the world now - though it is unlikely to save Homo sapiens in the process.

About this Author

Robert Bringhurst trained initially in the sciences at MIT but has made his career in the humanities. He is revered for his translations from Haida and other Native American languages and his studies of cultural history. He is also an Officer of the Order of Canada and a former Guggenheim Fellow in poetry. Two Canadian universities have awarded him honorary doctorates. He lives on Quadra Island, B.C.

Jan Zwicky is a Governor General Award winning poet and a philosopher. She earned her Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Toronto and has taught at a number of North American institutions, including Princeton and the University of Alberta. In the 1980s and '90s, she developed the first courses in environmental philosophy offered in Canadian universities. He lives on Quadra Island, B.C.

 

ISBN: 9780889775633
Format: Trade paperback
Pages: 104
Publisher: University of Regina Press
Published: 2018-10-06

Reviews

"Guides us towards ways to live and know the situation of climate change." --Annie Proulx, The Guardian 

"The project of Learning to Die is simple, but harrowing. Bringhurst and Zwicky ponder an all-but-unthinkable question: how should we live in the end times? They don't discount our attempts to stave off environmental catastrophe. But they believe, on the evidence, that it's too little too late. And they go on to ask, How should we face our coming fate? Can we learn, as members of a species run amok, how to perish with a modicum of responsibility and grace? These are artist-thinkers of commanding stature, and the specific answers they give deserve our attention. But what makes Learning to Die indispensable goes even deeper: the example it sets of unblinking courage. It opens a space for human beings to reckon with ultimate things." --Dennis Lee, poet and editor

"Robert Bringhurst and Jan Zwicky are two of the wisest and most learned animals living among us, poet-creatures who regularly calibrate their awareness by immersing themselves in wild nature and listening quietly for what it has to teach. As feelingful animals, they care deeply for other species, and for their fellow humans as a part of--not apart from--the many-voiced earth. In Learning to Die, they offer a kind of piercing wisdom-literature for our time, generous insight for an age of ecological calamity. An essay at the heart of this humble book, entitled 'A Ship from Delos,' has cut me to the core; I can feel it altering my own way in the world." --David Abram, author of The Spell of the Sensuous and Becoming Animal

If the product is in stock at the store nearest you, we suggest you call ahead to have it set aside for you, or you may place an order online and choose in-store pickup.