Common Reading Program

Rising by Elizabeth Rush

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Selection
Academic Year: 
2020
Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore

The book was a 2019 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in General Nonfiction. According to the Pulitzer Prize website, Rising is a "rigorously reported story about American vulnerability to rising seas, particularly disenfranchised people with limited access to the tools of rebuilding."

Rush's creative nonfiction approach makes real and palpable the numerous implications of sea- level rise. In place of statistical charts and tables, the author crafts a series of short narratives that illustrate how rising waters are "not discerning" in how they indelibly and inevitably affect people and places, history and time.

We will feature author Elizabeth Rush for a series of online events throught the academic year; the first event will be during the last week of September 2020. The year-long Common Reading experience will also include a variety of related activities, lectures, and events. Details will be made available as they become finalized.

About the Author
Elizabeth Rush
Website

Elizabeth Rush is the author of Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore and Still Lifes from a Vanishing City: Essays and Photographs from Yangon, Myanmar. Her work explores how humans adapt to changes enacted upon them by forces seemingly beyond their control, from ecological transformation to political revolution. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Gaurdian, Harper's, The Atlantic, Pacific Standard and the New Republic, among others.

In 2019, she will serve as the Antarctic Artist and Writer in Residence for the National Science Foundation. As such, she has been extended a singular invitation to join scientists from the United States and Great Britain aboard the R/V Nathaniel B. Palmer for a 50+ day scientific "cruise" to the Thwaites Glacier, one of the most remote regions in the world. The remote location makes conducting research on the glacier both difficult and of vital importance. To date, only 28 people have ever stood atop Thwaites. As a member of the International Thwaites Collaboration, Rush will accompany three research teams as they investigate how quickly Thwaites has retreated in the past and how quickly it is retreating now. Nicknamed the "Doomsday Glacier" by the news media, Thwaites' deterioration destabilizes the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which is one of the largest potential contributors to sea level rise. The very rate at which Thwaites is melting will play a large role in determine the future of our coastal communities.

Rush is the recipient of numerous fellowships and grants including the Howard Foundation Fellowship awarded by Brown University, the Society for Environmental Journalism Grant, the Metcalf Institute Climate Change Adaptation Fellowship, and the Science in Society Award from the National Association of Science Writers. From 2015-2017 she served as the Andrew Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Humanities at Bates College (2015-2017). Today she teaches creative nonfiction courses at Brown University that carry the environmental sciences and digital technologies into the humanities classroom. Recently her students interviewed fishermen in the Narragansett Bay whose lives and livelihoods are being transformed by changes in the environment.

Rush has taught at the City University of New York and Southern New Hampshire University. She received her BA in English from Reed College and her MFA in Nonfiction from Southern New Hampshire University.

Events

march rising eventStudent & Community Conversation with Elizabeth Rush

Our fourth and final YouTube livestream event with Rising author Elizabeth Rush will be on March 24, 2021, at 3:30 p.m.

Join Common Reading Program Director Dr. Don Presnell; Senior Lecturer (Sustainable Development) Laura England & her student colleagues; and special guest Ann Ehringhaus, longtime resident, author, and photographer of Ocracoke, North Carolina.

(Past Event: View the YouTube Livestream)

For a disability accommodation, visit Office of Disability Resources.

february rising eventFirst-Year Students in Conversation with Author Elizabeth Rush

Please join us at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, February 24, for "First-Year Students in Conversation with Author Elizabeth Rush."

A panel of first-year App State students and Common Reading Program Director Dr. Don Presnell will continue our conversation with Elizabeth Rush about Rising and her work telling the stories of climate change.

(Past Event: View the YouTube livestream)

For a disability accommodation, visit Office of Disability Resources.

october rising eventAnother Conversation with author, Elizabeth Rush: A YouTube Livestream Event

Please join us from 2:00-3:15 p.m. on Tuesday, October 27, 2020 for "A Continuing Conversation with Author Elizabeth Rush."

Common Reading Program Director Dr. Don Presnell and co-hosts Dr. Lee Ball (Chief Sustainability Officer for App State); Marta Toran (Lecturer and Outreach Coordinator for the Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences); Cary Curlee (instructor in Appalachian Studies and First Year Seminar); and Laura England (Senior Lecturer in Sustainable Development) will continue our conversation with Elizabeth Rush about Rising and her work telling the stories of climate change.

(Past Event: View the YouTube livestream)

september rising eventA Conversation with author, Elizabeth Rush: A YouTube Livestream Event

Tuesday, September 29, 2020

7 p.m.

Watch A Conversation with author, Elizabeth Rush: A YouTube Livestream Event

 

 

Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences Seminar: Fall 2020 Colloquium Series

"Seal-level change and global warming: lessons from the past to inform the future," Dr. Roland Gehrels, University of York
Monday, September 14, 2020 1:00 p.m.

Zoom meeting link available here: https://earth.appstate.edu/

 

Department of Theatre & Dance Rising reading event

Appalachian State University’s 2020-21 Common Reading Program selection this year is the 2019 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in General Nonfiction, hailed by the selection committee as, “a "rigorously reported story about American vulnerability to rising seas, particularly disenfranchised people with limited access to the tools of rebuilding." The Department of Theatre and Dance -- in collaboration with The Climate Stories Collaborative, a transdisciplinary learning community in the College of Fine and Applied Arts -- will host selected readings from this affecting work with moving stories that lend themselves to powerful and timely theatre. Our students will interpret the stories Rush recorded of people from every corner of the country, all of whom are experiencing the dire consequences of rising sea levels and rising temperatures due to climate change.

Saturday, October 3, 2020, 7:00 p.m.

 

Department of Theatre & Dance Rising reading event

Appalachian State University’s 2020-21 Common Reading Program selection this year is the 2019 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in General Nonfiction, hailed by the selection committee as, “a "rigorously reported story about American vulnerability to rising seas, particularly disenfranchised people with limited access to the tools of rebuilding." The Department of Theatre and Dance -- in collaboration with The Climate Stories Collaborative, a transdisciplinary learning community in the College of Fine and Applied Arts -- will host selected readings from this affecting work with moving stories that lend themselves to powerful and timely theatre. Our students will interpret the stories Rush recorded of people from every corner of the country, all of whom are experiencing the dire consequences of rising sea levels and rising temperatures due to climate change.

Sunday, October 4, 2020, 2:00 p.m.