Friday
October 10
Virtual Events
Nobel Peace Prize-winning climate scientist Dr. Jagadish Shukla explores his roots in rural India and his rise through the field of climate dynamics, including his groundbreaking studies of monsoons and his pivotal role in the creation of modern weather forecasting. In his memoir, A Billion Butterflies: A Life in Climate and Chaos Theory, Shukla pairs a stark climate reality with the optimism and power of predictability in the face of chaos.
Watch on YouTube starting Friday, October 10.
James Geary’s witty and wondrous book, The World in a Phrase: A Brief History of the Aphorism, chronicles the pithy and powerful sayings through brief biographies of some of the greatest practitioners. From famous philosophers to modern meme-makers, the second edition is what Publishers Weekly calls “ a love letter-cum-memoir disguised as a reference book.” In this quick talk, he tackles tall mountains while exploring their thematic and aphoristic roots.
Lisa Marie Gring-Pemble explores how 19th century women used the Bible to claim moral and rhetorical agency in American Society – countering gendered restrictions and catalyzing the women’s movement. Gring-Pemble co-authored Your Daughters Will Prophesy: Religion and Rhetoric in the Nineteenth-Century Woman’s Movement with Martha Watson.
Watch on YouTube starting Friday, October 10.
In-Person Events
5 PM
Raise a glass and celebrate George Mason faculty, alumni, and MFA students at this Happy Hour celebration. Jennifer Atkinson is the author of A Gray Realm the Ocean. Eric Pankey’s eighteenth collection Vanishments, traverses a variety of landscapes, from the retreating glaciers to the high deserts of teh American Southwest. Poet John Taylor, says of Pankey’s poetry, “Marked by an intriguing dialectic of owning and debt, of fullness and absence, of receptiveness and inability, these intense, thoughtful poems trace an arduous spiritual ‘pilgrimage’ of the highest metaphysical order.” Darby Price’s All the Lands We Inherit a lyric memoir about family, identity, and her mother’s faith. Poet Sally Keith says, “Sharp, tender, insightful, and also very funny… All the Lands We Inherit draws from loss and mourning the bounty of life.” Katie Richards’s Apple Mind explores what happens when communication collapses – focusing on her relationship with her spouse and her autistic son and younger daughter, and the garden that mirrors the family’s struggles. Taylor Franson Thiel’s Bone Valley Hymnal connect science, gender, faith, and myth-making. Regie Cabico says, “These poems escort the reader into a world of devastating yet stunning perseverance where the physical body and lineage become a constitution of fierce hymns during these unprecedented times.”
Location: Chubby Squirrel Brewing, 10382 Willard Way, Fairfax, VA
7:30 PM
Best-selling nonfiction author Erik Larson presents his latest blockbuster, The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War. In this masterfully written nonfiction, Larson zooms in on the five months between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the war–a time period full of betrayals, errors, and unchecked ambition. The Wall Street Journal calls the book “A feast of historical insight and narrative verve…This is Erik Larson at his best, enlivening even a thrice-told tale into an irresistible thriller.” Larson is also the author of wildly popular titles such as The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America and The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz, and Isaac’s Story: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History. Ken Budd, award-winning author and editor, will moderate this conversation. Sponsored by the George Mason Friends.
Tickets are required for this event. Reserve your free ticket starting September 10 on Eventbrite here.
Location: Harris Theatre, 4471 Aquia Creek Lane, Fairfax, VA
Finding Events
Finding Events
From the Mason Pond Parking Deck, walk up the plaza, past the statue of George Mason towards the big clock. You’ll see the Wilkins Plaza Tent in the middle of the plaza.
To get the to Fenwick Reading Room, enter Fenwick Library, go up the stairs, and take a right. You’ll see the banner at the end of the hallway for room 2001.
George’s is located in the Johnson Center, which will be on your right shortly after exiting the top of the Mason Pond Parking Deck. Take the elevators to the third floor, then walk to the back of the building — the big glass windows say George’s.
Parking
For Mason’s Fairfax Campus, located at 4400 University Drive, Fairfax, VA: Rappahannock River and Mason Pond parking decks provide most of the campus’ visitor parking using an entry/exit ticket payment system. Rates can be found here. Mason Pond is the closest parking to most campus events. Access it via Mason Pond Drive or Aquia Creek Lane.
To park in Lot K, use the Roanoke River Road entrance off of Braddock Road, across from University Mall. Lot K is the first left from that entrance. You need to pre-purchase a parking pass online to use this lot.