Ohio Wesleyan University to Explore ‘H2OWU: Water in Our World’
Donovan Hohn will kick off Ohio Wesleyan’s Sagan National Colloquium on Sept. 4.
DELAWARE, Ohio – In his best-selling book, “Moby-Duck,” author Donovan Hohn compares questions to ocean currents. “Wade in a little too far and they can carry you away,” he states.
Hohn knows this first-hand, having traveled to a Chinese plastics factory, the shores of Alaska, and the frigid Arctic in search of thousands of plastic toys that fell from a freightliner into the Pacific Ocean in 1992. The result of his investigation is 2011’s “Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea and of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists and Fools, Including the Author, Who Went in Search of Them.”
Hohn will help Ohio Wesleyan University to conduct its own aquatic exploration when he kicks off the university’s 30th annual Sagan National Colloquium, “H2OWU: Water in Our World.” Each year, the Colloquium explores a topic of national or international importance through a series of lectures, panel discussions, films, art exhibits, and other events.
Hohn’s presentation and all 2014 Sagan National Colloquium lectures will begin at 7 p.m. and, unless otherwise noted, will be held in the Benes Rooms of Ohio Wesleyan’s Hamilton-Williams Campus Center, 40 Rowland Ave., Delaware.
Ellen Arnold, Ph.D., assistant professor of history, is the director of the 2014 Sagan National Colloquium. She encourages everyone to read Hohn’s book over the summer and then come meet him and other water experts in the fall.
“We will welcome to campus a broad, multi-disciplinary set of visitors and speakers to illustrate the many different ways that water affects the world and that water can be studied, discussed, and transformed,” said Arnold, whose research interests include how medieval people incorporated nature and the environment into their everyday lives and cultural imagination. “By bringing in scholars and activists from many fields, the colloquium will link human, geological, and environmental pasts, presents, and futures in compelling and interesting ways.”
Hohn’s Sept. 4 presentation will be followed Sept. 9 by an Ohio Wesleyan faculty roundtable about the book and the many academic perspectives involved in water studies. Participants will include Amy Butcher, M.F.A., assistant professor of English; David Lever, Ph.D., associate professor of chemistry; and Tom Wolber, Ph.D., associate professor of modern foreign languages.
In its review of “Moby-Duck,” the Chicago Sun-Times states that Hohn “cleverly uses the deceptively whimsical premise of chasing a little plastic duck to provoke a massively complicated and thought-provoking conversation. Who knew spilled bath toys could be so important?”
Additional “H2OWU” presentations currently set for the 2014 Sagan National Colloquium are as follows. For the most up-to-date schedule, visit https://www.owu.edu/about/offices-services/academic-affairs/programs/sagan-national-colloquium/.
Sept. 23 – Sandra Postel, M.E.M., globally recognized freshwater activist, founder of the Global Water Policy Project, and Freshwater Fellow of the National Geographic Society. Postel has written several books, including the award-winning “Last Oasis: Facing Water Scarcity,” and more than 100 articles on freshwater issues. She writes a blog at newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/author/spostel. Sept. 30 – John Sabraw, M.F.A., Ohio University associate professor of painting and drawing, discussing the pollution-based pigments he uses to create richly colored paints. His presentation will be held in Phillips Auditorium, 50 S. Henry St., Delaware. In addition, Sabraw’s art will be on display between Aug. 25 and Oct. 6 in Ohio Wesleyan’s Gallery 2001, located inside Beeghly Library, 43 Rowland Ave., Delaware. Oct. 7 – Ellen Wohl, Ph.D., Colorado State University river geomorphologist and former Ohio resident, discussing Ohio’s rivers. Oct. 21 – Sharon Day, executive director of the Indigenous Peoples Task Force, discussing her experience walking the Ohio River in May and her earlier project, “Walk the Water.” Oct. 30 – Giacomo Parrinello, Ph.D., a Marie Curie Fellow at Louisiana State University, discussing his work on an interdisciplinary geographic information systems (GIS)/history project involving industrialization and water in Italy’s Po River valley. His presentation will be held in Phillips Auditorium, 50 S. Henry St., Delaware. Nov. 4 – Dolly Jørgensen, Ph.D., president of the European Society for Environmental History, discussing the history and reception of rigs-to-reefs projects to convert decommissioned offshore oil and petroleum rigs into artificial reefs. Nov. 11 – David Sedlak, Ph.D., professor of engineering and co-director of the Berkeley Water Center, discussing his new book on water infrastructure, “Water 4.0,” which grew out of his work on water recycling and urban water systems. Nov. 19 – Robert Jackson, Ph.D., professor of environment and energy at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, discussing the connections between water systems and hydraulic fracturing or “fracking.” Dec. 5 – John McNeill, Ph.D., award-winning global and environmental historian and author of “Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World,” discussing a “History of the Hydrosphere.” Dec. 10 – Rita Colwell, Ph.D., former director of the National Science Foundation, 2010 Stockholm Water Prize winner, and expert on global infectious diseases, water, and health, discussing her work with cholera, water diseases, and a technique called “sari filtration.”
About the Sagan National Colloquium
Founded in 1984, the Sagan National Colloquium is funded by an endowment from 1948 OWU alumni Margaret (Pickett) Sagan and John Sagan, both deceased. Past Colloquium speakers have included social activist Gloria Steinem, authors Barbara Ehrenreich and Kurt Vonnegut, Nobel Peace Prize winner Jody Williams, and former President Gerald Ford. Learn more at https://www.owu.edu/about/offices-services/academic-affairs/programs/sagan-national-colloquium/.
About Ohio Wesleyan University
Founded in 1842, Ohio Wesleyan University is one of the nation’s premier liberal arts universities. Located in Delaware, Ohio, the private, coed university offers more than 90 undergraduate majors, minors, and concentrations, and competes in 23 NCAA Division III varsity sports. Ohio Wesleyan combines a challenging, internationally focused curriculum with off-campus learning and leadership opportunities to connect classroom theory with real-world practice. OWU’s 1,850 students represent 42 states and 37 countries. Ohio Wesleyan is featured in the book “Colleges That Change Lives,” listed on the 2013 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll with Distinction, and included in the U.S. News & World Report and Princeton Review “best colleges” lists. Learn more at www.owu.edu.