Pulitzer nominee to speak at Pitt-Bradford

BRADFORD, Pa. – Award-winning author Scott Russell Sanders will speak on the relationship between people and places Tuesday, Oct. 19, at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford.

His free talk will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Mukaiyama University Room of the Frame-Westerberg Commons. The program is sponsored by the English program, the Environmental Studies program, the Division of Communication and the Arts, and the Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences.

“Most of Sanders’ work has dealt with the relationship between places and the lives of the people who inhabit those places,” said Dr. Don Ulin, associate professor of English at Pitt-Bradford. “In an age that celebrates globalization, mobility, and life on the Internet, we find ourselves everywhere at once and nowhere in particular.”

Sanders has written more than 20 books, including his most recent, “A Conservationist Manifesto,” which envisions a shift from a culture based on consumption to one based on caretaking.

“While the media tend to focus on global environmental issues, many of our problems are more local in nature,” Ulin said. “Right here in Bradford, for example, a lot of people have found their drinking water contaminated with oil. Oil is part of our history, our sense of place, and who we are. It’s something to be proud of, but we have to consider how we as a community can protect our future while celebrating our past.”

Sanders’ recent coming-of-age memoir “A Private History of Awe,” which he describes as both a “love story” and “spiritual testament,” was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. His other work has included novels, science fiction, children’s books, short stories and literary nonfiction.

Copies of Sanders’ books will be available for purchase at the reading and in advance at the Panther Shop in the Commons.

Sanders retired last year after teaching at Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind., for almost 40 years. He holds degrees in physics and English from Brown University and earned his doctorate in English from Cambridge University.

He and his wife, Ruth, live in Bloomington.