Bill McKibben Will Speak on the Tower of Babel and Higher Education on Nov. 17

MIDDLEBURY, Vt. – Author and environmentalist Bill McKibben, the Schumann distinguished scholar at Middlebury, will deliver a lecture on the Tower of Babel and its relevance for higher education on Monday, November 17, at 7:30 p.m. in Dana Auditorium.

The acclaimed author of “The End of Nature” will veer away from the subject of climate change to give a talk titled “The Tower of Babel and the Ivory Tower: Reflections on Reaching for the Heavens.”

McKibben will discuss Genesis 11 and examine the issues the text raises for the modern college, such as: Are there limits to what we should discover? What are some of the early ideas about what we now call multiculturalism.

Free and open to the public, the talk is sponsored by the Scott Center for Spiritual and Religious Life, with support from Cook Commons.

McKibben joined the Middlebury faculty in 2002 as a scholar in residence in environmental studies, and he writes extensively about climate change, nature, and religion. He is a frequent contributor to the religious publications “Sojourners,” “Christian Century,” and “Christianity Today,” and during the 2015 Winter Term at Middlebury College McKibben will teach the course Stories from the Bible (INTD 1163) for undergraduates.