Activist, Author Joel Kovel to Speak On Earth Week April 21

Activist, Author Joel Kovel to Speak On Earth Week April 21

04/19/2009 

Joel Kovel, a controversial author, activist and faculty member at Bard College, will deliver one of three planned lectures at SUNY Cortland during "Earth Week: What on Earth is a Green Economy?" from April 21-24.

Organized by the campus organization Cortland Students Advocating a Valuable Environment (CSAVE), the presentations all begin at 7:30 p.m. and are free and open to the public.

Kovel will present "Ecosocialism or Barbarism: The Choice for Our Time" on Tuesday, April 21, in Sperry Center, Room 105. Kovel, a social studies professor at Bard College since 1988, has condemned capitalism for causing global warming and other ecological disasters that cannot be solved solely by new technology, better science and American inventiveness.

Colleen Kattau, assistant professor of Spanish, will open Kovel's talk with her original alternative acoustic music and lyrics, which is described as a mix of poetry and rhythm.

Jeffrey Jacquet, a natural gas impact consultant with Cornell Cooperative Extension, will present "The Marcellus Shale and the Social and Economic Impacts from Natural Gas Development" on Wednesday, April 22, in Sperry Center, Room 104.

Brice Smith, assistant professor and chair of the Physics Department, and a solar power industry representative will speak on Thursday, April 23, in Sperry Center, Room 105.

Smith and Melissa Kemp, project designer and installer for solar electric (PV) and solar thermal systems with Renovus Energy in Ithaca, N.Y., will present "No One is Climate Proof: The Urgency of Sustainability and the Role of Renewable Energy in New York and Beyond."

Joel Kovel

Kovel is currently editor-in-chief of the journal Capitalism Nature Socialism. His books include White Racism, which was nominated for a National Book Award in 1972; A Complete Guide to Therapy; The Age of Desire; Against the State of Nuclear Terror; In Nicaragua; The Radical Spirit; History and Spirit; Red Hunting in the Promised Land; The Enemy of Nature: The End of Capitalism or The End of the World and Overcoming Zionism.

As an activist, Kovel has been engaged in struggles for peace and justice since the Vietnam War era. He has worked within the antiwar and antinuclear movements, the solidarity movements in Central America and the Caribbean, the movements for democratic media and for ecological transformation. He was the 1998 Green Party candidate for U.S. senator from New York and in 2000 he sought the party's U.S. presidential nomination.

He has a medical degree from Columbia University and a degree in psychiatry from Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He holds a diploma in psychoanalysis from the Downstate Medical Center Institute. A professor of psychiatry and director of residency training at Albert Einstein, Kovel practiced psychiatry and psychoanalysis for 24 years before changing careers.

Earth Week sponsors include CSAVE; the departments of Philosophy and Economics; the Physics Club; the Center for Ethics, Peace and Social Justice; and the Center for Gender and Intercultural Studies. For more information about Kovel's visit, contact Professor Kathryn Russell at (607) 753-2727. For information about the other events, contact Amanda Mullan at (315) 882-1268 or amanda.mullan@cortland.edu. 

 

 


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