ASU Common Read: A Virtual Visit with Jonathan Safran Foer
ASU hosts Jonathan Safran Foer, author of We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast for a virtual visit on October 1, 2020 from 6:00-7:30 p.m., where he will discuss his work and answer questions from faculty and students. The event is open and free to the public..
ASU's Writing Programs has selected Foer's nonfiction book as its 2020-2021 common read.
Watch a recording of the event
About the common read
The goal of a common read program is to encourage first-year students to write about pressing social problems that are relevant to ASU’s mission as a public enterprise. By learning to write about such problems as a community, we increase the probability of finding a solution to them. This year, we will write about the future of the environment as it relates to food production and consumption.
ASU routinely launches innovative programs that address the dangers of climate change. The Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute for Sustainability outlines the stakes of the problem clearly: “Climate instability affects all living things, particularly in an extreme environment such as the desert Southwest.” In other words, because ASU is located in the Sonoran desert, its students, faculty and staff feel the effects of climate change more acutely and are thus well positioned to solve the problem as a community.
About the author
Jonathan Safran Foer is a best-selling author whose books have been read across the world. He first rose to fame with the novel Everything Is Illuminated, which has since been adapted into film. Since then, he has written a number of books including Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (also adapted for film), Tree of Codes, and Here I Am. Most recently, Foer has received international acclaim for his non-fiction work Eating Animals, which outlines the ecological dangers of a diet comprised primarily of animal products. As students will soon discover, We Are the Weather is a follow-up to Eating Animals.
This event is hosted by Writing Programs in the Department of English, with support from the humanities division of The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at ASU.
Information about how to access the event is provided upon registration.