UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Eric Klinenberg, author and Helen Gould Shepard Professor of Social Science and director of the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University, will be Penn State’s 2024-25 Colloquium on the Environment keynote speaker at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, April 9 (rescheduled from Feb. 5). Klinenberg’s talk will expand on his bestselling book, “2020: One City, Seven People, and the Year that Changed Everything,” which explores lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic about how sociological factors intersect with health outcomes. The event will be hybrid, held both in person at 118 Katz Building on the University Park campus and also livestreamed online. Those interested can register here.
“While the COVID pandemic may feel both distant and too recent, we have not contended much as a society with its lasting impacts or its lessons for how to make more resilient communities,” said Lara Fowler, chief sustainability officer and director of Penn State Sustainability (SustainPSU). “We are excited to bring Eric Klinenberg, whose dissection of how we responded to the pandemic offers hope and guidance for the simple power of building human connections in improving public health.”
As a sociologist, Klinenberg has explored the many ways in which social embeddedness, or lack thereof, has affected people’s health, happiness and sense of well-being, as well as how our social connectivity affects our political polarization. He is the author of “Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life”; “Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone”; “Fighting for Air: The Battle to Control America’s Media”; and “Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago,” among other books, as well as co-author with Aziz Ansari of The New York Times No. 1 bestseller “Modern Romance.” He has contributed to The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, and This American Life.
“The goal of the colloquium is to bring Penn State together in cross-cutting conversations that break down silos and encourage connection around sustainability,” said Peter Boger, director for engagement at SustainPSU. “In exploring the relationships between sustainable cities, public health and civil discourse, Eric Klinenberg’s work highlights how we can address several of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals simultaneously. We invite faculty, students, staff, alumni and the public to join us in this learning and community building.”
Since 2004, Penn State’s Colloquium on the Environment — originally co-sponsored by the Institute of Energy and the Environment and now managed by SustainPSU — has sought to promote critical conversations at Penn State about sustainability by inviting prominent scholars, politicians, business leaders, activists and artists. The 2024-25 colloquium is co-sponsored by the Social Science Research Institute and funded in part by the Student Initiated Fee at University Park.
For more information, contact Grant Rowe at ger5277@psu.edu.