Welcome to the Go Big Read Blog!
The Chancellor has selected In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, by Michael Pollan, as our inaugural common book. We welcome you to participate in Go Big Read by reading the book, attending the public lecture scheduled for September 24th, and participating in discussions and other programming to take place throughout the year.
The goals of Go Big Read include generating vigorous discussions and exchanges of diverse ideas; promoting connections among students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the wider community; and tapping into the intellectual resources of the campus. This blog will be a venue for the sharing of ideas across communities, and we are soliciting contributions from individuals who bring a broad range of perspectives. We invite you to make suggestions for viewpoints and topics you would like to see represented and to comment on the blog posts.
We are fortunate in Wisconsin to be home to vibrant communities of interest around reading, agriculture, food and sustainability. Our university is home to individuals who can approach the topics discussed in In Defense of Food from many different disciplinary and personal perspectives. Our alumni and community members will bring additional viewpoints and experiences to our conversations.
Many of us feel passionately about the issues in the book, and this blog will be one venue to engage in constructive conversations and debates. Go Big Read is intended for everyone who would like to participate, whether we are engaged in these issues at home, in our work, as citizens, as learners, or as volunteers.
Sarah McDaniel
Project Manager, Go Big Read
The goals of Go Big Read include generating vigorous discussions and exchanges of diverse ideas; promoting connections among students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the wider community; and tapping into the intellectual resources of the campus. This blog will be a venue for the sharing of ideas across communities, and we are soliciting contributions from individuals who bring a broad range of perspectives. We invite you to make suggestions for viewpoints and topics you would like to see represented and to comment on the blog posts.
We are fortunate in Wisconsin to be home to vibrant communities of interest around reading, agriculture, food and sustainability. Our university is home to individuals who can approach the topics discussed in In Defense of Food from many different disciplinary and personal perspectives. Our alumni and community members will bring additional viewpoints and experiences to our conversations.
Many of us feel passionately about the issues in the book, and this blog will be one venue to engage in constructive conversations and debates. Go Big Read is intended for everyone who would like to participate, whether we are engaged in these issues at home, in our work, as citizens, as learners, or as volunteers.
Sarah McDaniel
Project Manager, Go Big Read
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17 Comments:
Will this book be available to students/faculty/staff at a discounted price at the UW Bookstore or any other locations?
First-year students and those using the book in a course will receive free copies in the fall. Other members of the campus community will be able to purchase copies at a substantial discount, with details to be announced soon. Some local book stores, including University Book Store, are offering the book at very substantial discounts.
See http://www.gobigread.wisc.edu/book-access.html for updates and for information about copies from campus and public libraries.
Sarah
I have been a foreign exchange student in Wisconsin back in 1997 and I love people of Wisconsin, have had one of the best years of my life.
A number of agricultural organizations are promoting a piece that ran in the American Enterprise Institute's magazine entitled "Omnivore's Delusion". Will there be a clear place on the blog where people can post or link to material that is critical of Pollan's work?
i read this book, it was a great read, but i prefer reading books about sustainable food production, can you recommend something? thanks.
I dont know if I enjoyed the book more or the food I ate while reading it :-)
Nice blog posting, will be a referrence for me.
Yes so do I, I must first prepare food when I "forced" must be read with serious. Nice posting.
Good work.i wish you success.thanx
Nice blog. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this and will share with my colleagues.
In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan is a wonderful and informative book as is his The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. This book is for everyone who is curious about what we as humans should eat in order to live long and healthy lives.
"In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan is a wonderful and informative book as is his The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. This book is for everyone who is curious about what we as humans should eat in order to live long and healthy lives."
First off...yes!
Great post, glad to see you tackling such issues.
This article was extremely interesting.
Pollan traced a direct line between the industrialization of our food supply and the degradation of the environment. His new book takes up where the previous work left off. Examining the question of what to eat from the perspective of health, this powerfully argued, thoroughly researched and elegant manifesto cuts straight to the chase with a maxim that is deceptively simple: Eat food, not too much, mostly plants. But as Pollan explains, food in a country that is driven by a thirty-two billion-dollar marketing machine is both a loaded term and, in its purest sense, a holy grail. The first section of his three-part essay refutes the authority of the diet bullies, pointing up the confluence of interests among manufacturers of processed foods, marketers and nutritional scientists—a cabal whose nutritional advice has given rise to a notably unhealthy preoccupation with nutrition and diet and the idea of eating healthily. The second portion vivisects the Western diet, questioning, among other sacred cows, the idea that dietary fat leads to chronic illness. A writer of great subtlety, Pollan doesn't preach to the choir; in fact, rarely does he preach at all, preferring to lets the facts speak for themselves.
That's what I'm talking about. I love food and hate when people say not to eat so much. Personally I'm in favor of 8 meals a day!
8 meals a day?? oh my gosh what you talking about buddy :)
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