“Everyone has a bird story. EVERYONE,” says Dr. J. Drew Lanham in his book Sparrow Envy. Join him as he shares about his experiences across the arts and sciences as an ecologist, poet, and essayist. He’ll also explore racial and social themes connected with access to natural spaces.

The lecture starts at 7:00 p.m. with refreshments beginning at 6:30 p.m.

This event is open to the MSU community and public. Admission is free, but tickets are required to reserve your seat at this event.

SIGNATURE LECTURE PARTNERS
College of Arts & Letters, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Lyman Briggs College, Department of African American and African Studies, Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Cultures, Center for Integrative Studies in the Arts and Humanities, Beal Botanical Garden, Michigan Audubon Society, Capital Area Audubon Society

About Dr. J. Drew Lanham

A native of Edgefield, South Carolina, J. Drew Lanham is the author of The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature, which received the Reed Award from the Southern Environmental Law Center and the Southern Book Prize, and was a finalist for the John Burroughs Medal. Most recently, he is the author of Sparrow Envy: Field Guide to Birds and Lesser Beasts. He is a birder, naturalist, and hunter-conservationist who has published essays and poetry in publications including Orion, Audubon, Flycatcher, and Wilderness, and in several anthologies, including The Colors of Nature, State of the Heart, Bartram’s Living Legacy, and Carolina Writers at Home. Lanham is a 2022 MacArthur Fellow. An Alumni Distinguished Professor of Wildlife Ecology and Master Teacher at Clemson University, he and his family live in the Upstate of South Carolina, a soaring hawk’s downhill glide from the southern Appalachian escarpment that the Cherokee once called the Blue Wall.