Reading Under the Stars!

Reading Under the Stars!

November 11, 4:30-6:00 pm 

Campus Planetarium (Bowers)

Please join us for this exciting Common Read event! In the beautiful setting of the campus Planetarium, we will come together to discuss how literature might help us to approach scientific questions, framed by one of this year's Common Read texts, the novel Bewilderment by Richard Powers. How might we look for life on other planets, and what should we do if we find it? And how should we respond to environmental degradation on our own planet, even as we look to the stars? The event will feature a presentation from Planetarium Director Sean Nolan and selected readings from the novel by student speakers, as well as a panel of students from different majors who will discuss how we might encourage interdisciplinary connections on campus.   

All are welcome. We hope to see you there! 

This event is part of the 2024-25 Common Read programming around the theme of AIR. For more information, please see the Cultural and Intellectual Climate Commitee website: https://www2.cortland.edu/committees/cultural-and-intellectual-climate-committee/ 

More about the book: 

Bewilderment: A Novel, by Richard Powers: A heartrending novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winning and #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Overstory. The astrobiologist Theo Byrne searches for life throughout the cosmos while single-handedly raising his unusual nine-year-old, Robin, following the death of his wife. Robin is a warm, kind boy who spends hours painting elaborate pictures of endangered animals. He’s also about to be expelled from third grade for smashing his friend in the face. As his son grows more troubled, Theo hopes to keep him off psychoactive drugs. He learns of an experimental neurofeedback treatment to bolster Robin’s emotional control, one that involves training the boy on the recorded patterns of his mother’s brain…With its soaring descriptions of the natural world, its tantalizing vision of life beyond, and its account of a father and son’s ferocious love, Bewilderment marks Richard Powers’s most intimate and moving novel. At its heart lies the question: How can we tell our children the truth about this beautiful, imperiled planet?