Calvin to Host National Geographic Explorer and Voodoo Expert

From: Phil deHaan <dehp@calvin.edu>
Date: Mon May 03 2004 - 11:43:10 EDT

May 3, 2004 == MEDIA ADVISORY

The Calvin Environmental Assessment Program (CEAP), the Calvin student
Environmental Stewardship Coalition (ESC) and the locally based Wellspring
Society are teaming up to bring an intriguing speaker to Grand Rapids this
week.

Wade Davis is an anthropologist, botanical explorer, and best-selling author
who received his Ph.D. in ethnobotany from Harvard University. He spent more
than three years in the Amazon and Andes as a plant explorer, living among 15
indigenous groups in eight Latin American nations while making some 6,000
botanical collections.

On Thursday, May 6 at 7:30 pm in Calvin's Gezon Auditorium, he will speak on:
"Light at the Edge of the World: A Journey Through the Realm of Vanishing
Cultures."

Davis, who was born December 14, 1953, in British Columbia, has published
scientific and popular articles on subjects ranging from Haitian voodoo and
Amazonian myth and religion to the global biodiversity crisis, the traditional
use of psychotropic drugs, and the ethnobotany of South American Indians.

A National Geographic Explorer, Davis has worked extensively in Haiti,
investigating folk preparations implicated in the creation of zombies, an
assignment that led to his writing Passage of Darkness as well as The Serpent
and the Rainbow (1986), an international best-seller that appeared in 10
languages and was later adapted by Universal Studios as a motion picture.

NOTE: Contact Dave Warners, biology professor at Calvin, at 616-526-6820 for
more information. For more on Davis, see
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/council/eir/bio_davis.html

-end-
Received on Mon May 3 11:43:21 2004

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