Professor Mairéad Nic Craith gives Tony McManus Lecture: On Common Ground: Kenneth White and John Moriarty

12 February 2022 Virtual Geopoetics Day At 2.30 pm the Tony McManus Lecture: On Common Ground: Kenneth White and John Moriarty will be given by Mairéad Nic Craith, Professor of Public Folklore at the Institute of Northern Studies

A contemporary of Kenneth White and once described as “the greatest Irish thinker you’ve never read”, the late John Moriarty has been lauded as an Irish eco-poet who illuminated a better way for humanity. Drawing on Tony McManus’s analysis of Kenneth White as a transcendental Scot, this lecture explores “common ground” in the life trajectories and work of White and Moriarty and their respective move away from Western mainstream. The lecture compares the views of the two thinkers on issues like the Cartesian dualism that separates mind from body, and human from nature, as well as the Christian position that places humans in dominion over the Earth.

The discussion explores White and Moriarty’s invocation of ancient narratives as a contemporary resource for enlightened re-thinking of our relationship with the earth. White and Moriarty’s prioritisation of the imagination over analytical reasoning (including their exploration of Shamanism) will be considered. The lecture places the alternative vision of reality proposed by Moriarty in the context of Geopoetics and explores the contribution that White and Moriarty’s intellectual nomadism can make to dealing with climate change in the twenty-first century.

This will be a popular event, so don't delay, book your place now at  https://bit.ly/GeopoeticsDay2022

12 February 2022 Virtual Geopoetics Day - Free to attend

1 pm AGM of the Scottish Centre for Geopoetics (no need to attend)

2.20 pm Break

2.30 pm Tony McManus Lecture: On Common Ground: Kenneth White and John Moriarty by Máiréad Nic Craith, Professor of Public Folklore at the Institute of Northern Studies, Orkney, University of the Highlands and Islands.