Great art combines with a wealth of scientific knowledge in the work of Barbara Kingsolver.
The acclaimed novelist accepted the Nicholas School of the Environment’s award for Lifetime Environmental Achievement in the Fine Arts during a ceremony Saturday afternoon in Page Auditorium.
Nicholas School Dean Bill Chameides presented the LEAF Award in an event that highlighted the intersection of art and science with musical performances, short films and a book reading by Kingsolver.
“Barbara Kingsolver is no small wonder,” Chameides said. “In fact, she may be just the eighth natural wonder of the world—a natural scientist who has become one of the most celebrated and accomplished writers of our time.”
Kingsolver’s award-winning writing draws on her academic background in science. She holds an undergraduate degree in biology and a masters in evolutionary biology, and her work often deals with humans interacting with the environment, from the jungles of the Congo in “The Poisonwood Bible” to the forests and farms of Appalachia in “Prodigal Summer.”
“Being a scientific artist or an artistic scientist, it’s a small club for sure,” Kingsolver said in her address.
The award program began with a musical performance by John Currie and Jon Shain, Trinity ’89, which filled the auditorium with bluegrass music as attendees entered. President Richard Brodhead introduced the event, before four short films were screened, as part of the Nicholas School’s Flat Grok Video Contest.
Chameides then spoke of Kingsolver’s history, how she arrived at college on a classical piano scholarship before turning to biology. He introduced sophomore Clara Starkweather, an A. B. Duke scholar and aspiring neurosurgeon who is also a prize-winning pianist. She delivered a rendition of Franz Liszt’s “La Campanella,” which garnered a standing ovation.
Priscilla Masselink, Trinty ’79, presented the award, a sculpture of a hand grasping a branch of the American chestnut tree, after which Chameides introduced the recipient.
In his introduction, Chameides noted that Kingsolver’s writing “illuminates the deeper, more profound reality, the reality of our connections... to each other and connections to nature.”
In her acceptance speech, Kingsolver, who delivered the commencement address at Duke in 2008, discussed her love of writing as a profession and described her initial realization of her passion for biology. She went on to analyze how cultural perceptions of science tend to divide people.
“You see it in children’s cartoons: Scientists wear white coats, they wear thick glasses, they have no social skills, they often have vaguely Germanic accents [and] they rapidly cover whole blackboards with indecipherable gobbledy-gook,” she said. “They are infused with an alien aura.”
It is the role of the artistic scientist, or scientific artist, then, to bridge this gap in understanding, Kingsolver said.
“I thought if this stuff that I love is so important, I need to find a way to communicate it that will be relevant, not just to the handful of people who already know it,” she said. “I need to show how its relevant to everybody, even the people who are threatened, who might think it’s terrible or ugly.”
Kingsolver set out to explain five key ecological principles over the course of her novel “Prodigal Summer.” The characters and plot elaborate such topics as evolution through natural selection, keystone predators and the persistence of extinction. She closed with a reading of the final chapter of the novel, which unfolds in “first-person coyote” narration.
In an interview after her address, Kingsolver elaborated on the need for writers in journalism, poetry and literature who understand science well.
“I think if a person wanted to do that, it would make sense to study science while reading a lot of poetry and fiction of the type that you wish you had written yourself,” Kingsolver said.
Lane Burgette, a post-doctoral student in statistics, agreed with Kingsolver’s call for scientists to communicate beyond their niche.
“I think sometimes scientists don’t even try to make their work accessible to people outside of their field, and it’s something worth working on because I think most of us do find our work important and relevant to broader social goals,” Burgette said.
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