Baylor Will Host Exclusive Movie Screening and Panel Discussion About Rural Communities on Nov. 2
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WACO, Texas (Oct. 31, 2017) — Baylor University will host an exclusive screening of the award-winning Sundance documentary, “Look and See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry,” from 3:30 to 6 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 2 at the Waco Hippodrome Theatre, located at 724 Austin Ave. The film follows Wendell Berry, who often has been called “a prophet for rural America,” due to his passionate voice for the communities that are frequently overlooked.
“Farmer, poet, novelist and activist Wendell Berry is arguably one of the most important intellectual figures in late 20th and early 21st-century American culture,” said Mikeal Parsons, Ph.D., professor and holder of The Kidd L. and Buna Hitchcock Macon Chair in Religion in Baylor’s College of Arts & Sciences. “He has been a leading voice in support of agrarian values and practices, land stewardship, sustainable family farming and rootedness in land and community. It is important for the Baylor community to engage with such thinkers as Wendell Berry.”
In this film, Berry shares the stories of small generational farmers to give the world a glimpse of the struggles, hopes and importance of rural land-based communities. After returning to his home in Henry County, Kentucky, Berry finds that it, like many rural communities across America, has become a quiet place of ideological struggle. The virtues of simplicity, land stewardship and sustainable farming have been replaced with industrial agriculture characterized by machine labor, chemical fertilizers, soil erosion and debt. The film exposes the effects of these changes on the people of rural communities as well as on the land.
“Berry's writings cut across a whole host of disciplines: literary, economic and social, to name a few, but the themes of his writings are also deeply and significantly religious,” Parsons said. “Many Christians draw inspiration from Berry's writings and see in them perspectives and practices that are not only congenial to but often undergirded by, a serious reading of the Gospels and the teachings of Jesus.”
A panel discussion moderated by Parsons will follow the screening. Mary Berry, director of the Berry Center in New Castle, Kentucky, will be Baylor's guest and a featured speaker on the panel. She will be joined by Baylor faculty from the Honors College and the departments of finance, insurance and real estate and religion.
Tickets for the screening are free and must be reserved in advance website —>.
by Joy Moton , student newswriter, (254) 710-6805
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Baylor University is a private Christian University and a nationally ranked research institution. The University provides a vibrant campus community for more than 17,000 students by blending interdisciplinary research with an international reputation for educational excellence and a faculty commitment to teaching and scholarship. Chartered in 1845 by the Republic of Texas through the efforts of Baptist pioneers, Baylor is the oldest continually operating University in Texas. Located in Waco, Baylor welcomes students from all 50 states and more than 80 countries to study a broad range of degrees among its 12 nationally recognized academic divisions.