Join us on Thursday, March 23, 2023 at 6:30 PM for a night of "stand-up tragedy" with Andrew Boyd. Boyd invites us to come together and—aided by gallows humor and some unusual prompts—reflect on some of the biggest questions that face humanity, through an interactive, multimedia reading from his new book, I Want a Better Catastrophe. In it, he engages eight leading climate thinkers on a key question: "Is this really the end of the world? and if so, now what?" Boyd steers readers through their climate angst as he walks his own. From storm-battered coastlines to pipeline blockades and "hopelessness workshops," he maps out our existential options, and tackles familiar dilemmas: "Should I bring kids into such a world?" "Can I lose hope when others can't afford to?" and "Why the fuck am I recycling?" He finds answers that will surprise, inspire, and maybe even make you laugh. Drawing on wisdom traditions Eastern, Western, and Indigenous, Boyd crafts an insightful and irreverent guide for achieving a "better catastrophe."
This event is presented in collaboration with the Havens Wright Center for Social Justice, COWS, the Office of Sustainability, and the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at UW-Madison.
