Ocean Doctor at Grace, Race & Renewing the Commons at Wollam Gardens, Virginia

Ocean Doctor President Dr. David E. Guggenheim is a featured speaker at, Grace, Race & Renewing the Commons, a literary-and-activism-inspired festival featuring speakers and workshops at Wollam Gardens – a sustainable locavore farm and flower destination. The event will cultivate conversations, ideas, and strategies to think out loud about ways to answer some of the most pressing challenges facing all of us today. Dr. Guggenheim’s remarks will include readings from his forthcoming book, DEEP in Enemy Territory: An American Marine Scientist’s 20-Year Odyssey in Cuba and the Race to Save the World’s Coral Reefs.

What are some of the historic factors driving conversation in the public square about race, and how can we use those, as well as today’s developments, to create broader awareness and dialogue? In agriculture, what can we do to adapt to changing climate conditions? Can we devise new ways based on old practices to think about sharing common natural resources? What is the role of ordinary citizens in creating dialogue with policymakers about sustaining the oceans and slowing the extinction of species? How might we bring grace to our civic discourse about the opioid epidemic? What is the role of humor in countering alternative facts? Taking inspiration from our three themes of grace, race, and renewing the commons, these are just a few of the questions we’ll be exploring.

Panelists and Workshop Hosts Include:

Clarence Lusane – Department of Political Science at Howard University; author, The Black History of the White House, Hitler’s Black Victims
Thomas Lovejoy – Professor, George Mason University; originator of the term “biodiversity”
David E. Guggenheim – President, Ocean Doctor
David Bollier – Director, Reinventing the Commons Program at the Schumacher Center for a new economics; author, Think Like a Commoner, Free Fair & Alive.
Barry W. Lynn – Ordained Minister, United Church of Christ; former president, Americans United for Separation of Church & State; author, God & Government
Grace Tiffany – Author and Shakespeare scholar, Western Michigan University; author, Paint, Gunpowder Percy
Ellen Polishuk – Farmer, teacher; author, Start Your Farm
Sanho Tree – Fellow, Director of the Drug Policy Program at the Institute for Policy Studies; co-author, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb
Bonnie Monteleone – Executive Director, Plastic Oceans Project
O.H. Perry Cabot – Historian; co-Chair, Society for the Preservation of Culpeper History
Zach Lester – Grower; soil and landscape artist
Shawn Appling– Agriculture & Natural Resources Agent, based in the Culpeper extension office.
Florence Nash – Former director of the OLLI Poetry Workshop for Duke University’s department of continuing studies; Author, Fish Music, Crossing Water
Ralph Chami – Assistant Director, Institute for Capacity Development at The International Monetary Fund
Arjun Singh Sethi – Civil rights lawyer; Adjunct Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law School; Editor, American Hate: Survivors Speak Out
David Riemer – Lawyer, author, politician, administrator, and advocate. Harvard Law School. Has worked with Democrats and Republicans to create path-breaking public policy at the state level and influence national policy.
Michael Gerard Mason – Professor, Associate Dean, and the Director of the Luther Porter Jackson Black Cultural Center at the University of Virginia.