I think it's a wonderful crowd, an enormous crowd,
to start off this great, and I think very important, series.
When Gail and I were talking about getting this together
and what it would look like, who we would want to bring,
one of the things that became clear at the beginning was,
we wanted to have a diversity of people coming.
Theorists, poets, musicians, philosophers--
the broad range of people who are interested in the way
that language and nature penetrate each other, the way
that they penetrate us, the way that they
make life and meaning possible.
Because those are really the two great spheres that we humans
live and breathe in every day, our language and nature.
And to be able to understand how they come together,
how it is that we inhabit them and they
inhabit us, makes us more human and makes life more possible.
So I was very excited.
And I think it was very fitting to have Alison Hawthorne
Deming be the first speaker to head off this series.
Because she herself, I think, embodies a lot of diversity
that the program as a whole is looking to have.
She's a poet, an essayist, a philosopher, a great ruminate,
I would say, to perhaps to encompass them all.
She's the author of seven books.
Her most recent book is Rope.
It's a book of poetry.
It's hot off the presses.
I think there's some copies back here somewhere.
Folks should definitely look at it.
It's a wonderful book.
Alison, as a recipient of the Walt Whitman prize,
the Pushcart Prize, the Pablo Neruda prize, and two NEA
grants.
For those of you that--
28 fellowships.
For those of you that don't know her,
she teaches right here at the U of A
and is a tremendous member of the community
and does a lot of great work and reading.
Tonight, she's going to be talking
about my favorite topic, which is the end of the world.
I sense it's her favorite topic, too.
Now I have an excuse.
You know, I work trying to protect endangered species.
So in some ways, it's not only my favorite topic,
but maybe it's the only topic.
It's the one that we come back to again and again.
I think it's the issue that we all circle around.
And it's an issue that is not just about species.
It's about the two great realms of diversity in this world,
language and biodiversity.
Because linguistic diversity is actually going extinct faster
in this world today than endangered species.
There isn't an official list of endangered language the way
we have an official list of endangered species,
but approximately 50% to 60% of all existing languages
on the planet today are imperiled with extinction.
Within the next 100 years, it's predicted about 80% to 90%
of all languages on the planet will be endangered or extinct.
So in both of these realms, which I just
think of as the two great poles of all of existence,
are in crisis.
And if we are to get through that
and to come out onto the other side,
it's not going to be by ignoring it.
And although we do a whole lot of measuring, and it's useful,
I don't think it's going to be by measuring it, either.
It's going to be by a certain kind of taking
stock, a certain kind of rumination,
the kind of thinking and exploring that Alison has done.
And then Alison will speak tonight, or talk tonight, as
Baba Yaga, Demeter, the Drunken Mother:
Myth, Metaphor, and Science at the End of the World.
So folks, welcome to the end of the world,
and welcome to Alison.