Friday, October 4 (evening) – Saturday, Oct. 5 (morning/afternoon)
“RUSKIN IN AMERICA” Conference
Friday, Oct. 4: Keynote address at Telescope Studio with reception
Saturday, Oct. 5: Doheny Library all day (with lunch), 10am-4:30pm. Six presentations and a panel discussion.
For a man who never set foot in America, John Ruskin, at the turn of the twentieth century, wielded an outsized influence on art, environmental, and social movements in this country. This is a fact often underappreciated in assessments of Ruskin's global impact. From the American Pre-Raphaelites to utopian social experiments in Florida, Georgia, and California, Ruskin's vision inspired many facets of American idealism and social reform. This conference, the first of its kind, will explore Ruskin's contributions to American movements, thinkers, and culture in the 19th and 20th centuries and suggest ways in which he speaks to the issues of American life today.
List of speakers:
Gabriel Meyer – keynote, “Ruskin and the California Dream”
Sara Atwood, “’Over-hopefulness and getting on-ness’: Ruskin, Nature, and America”
Virginia Anderson: “The Artist Is a Telescope: John Ruskin, Charles Herbert Moore, and the American Pre-Raphaelite Movement”
Gray Brechin, “Ruskin’s Influence on Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal”
Sharon Weltman, “Thinking Ecologically with Ruskin, or How Women Will Save the World”