Do we return to our original nature in chaos and crisis? That's been the theory of disaster management (and Hollywood disaster movies), but what if our original nature is calm, openhearted, generous, and creative? Rebecca Solnit has studied and written about major disasters and reached conclusions that are relevant not only to emergencies but to larger questions about our deepest desires and greatest possibilities.

Based in San Francisco, Solnit is the author of thirteen books about art, landscape, public and collective life, ecology, politics, hope, meandering, reverie, and memory. They include November 2010’s Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas, a book of 22 maps and nearly 30 collaborators; 2009's A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster, and many others, including Storming the Gates of Paradise; A Field Guide to Getting Lost; Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities; Wanderlust: A History of Walking; As Eve Said to the Serpent: On Landscape, Gender and Art; and River of Shadows, Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West (for which she received a Guggenheim, the National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism, and the Lannan Literary Award). She has worked on an array of topics including climate change, Native American land rights, antinuclear, human rights, antiwar and other issues as an activist and journalist. A product of the California public education system from kindergarten to graduate school, she is a contributing editor to Harper’s and frequent contributor to the political site Tomdispatch.com and has made her living as an independent writer since 1988.
 

From national pride to the art of taxidermy to the changes wrought upon
the land and people of the Great Plains, the horse known as Comanche has
been an enduring ­ and changing ­ symbol for almost 150 years. At 7 p.m.
Thursday, Feb. 2, the KU Natural History Museum Student Advisory Board
invites the public to explore the history of this famous horse exhibited
at the museum.

Speakers for the event include Leonard Krishtalka, director of the KU
Biodiversity Institute; William Sharp, co-author of "The Dashing Kansan,"
and Bruce Scherting, director of exhibits at the KU Natural History
Museum. Light refreshments will be served.

What can we learn about cities and urban design after a disaster? Professor Jake Wagner, Associate Professor of Urban Planning + Design,
 University of Missouri - Kansas City
, will address some of the challenges of rebuilding cities in the wake of major disasters through examples including New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and the recovery of Joplin, MO after the May 2011 tornado.

The Idea Café is intended to elicit energetic exchanges between attendees in response to the speaker's introduction. 

Lunch is provided, and RSVP is required by October 31. Limit 40 guests.
 RSVP to Emily Ryan at thecommons@ku.edu

For more than 140 years, KU scientists and students have collected and studied Earth's animals and plants. Only a few of these specimens are on display for the public in the exhibits of the KU Natural History Museum; milions more are in jars or on shelves throughout the Biodiversity Institute's research areas.

Now is your chance to see one of our collections up close. At 5 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 6, fishes collections manager Andy Bentley will offer a behind-the-scenes tour of our fishes (ichthyology) collection. The collection includes more than 600,000 specimens of fishes from around the world and is the basis of ichthyology research at KU. In addition to an emphasis on freshwater fishes of the central United States, the collection has significant marine holdings that include sharks, rays and a coelacanth.

Advanced registration for this event is required. A $7 contribution for the tour is suggested for the public, and $5 for museum members. Please call 785.864.2344 to register.