Stories provide a bridge between the sciences and the humanities, offering a critical means of communicating and reflecting upon urban wildlife issues. Join Gavin Van Horn, the author of The Way of Coyote: Shared Journeys in the Urban Wilds (University of Chicago Press, 2018), in exploring the importance of story as a means to knowing the city and its nonhuman denizens. Van Horn will highlight his recently published book as well as the “City Creatures” project, which he leads for the Center for Humans and Nature. Comprised of an interdisciplinary collective of authors and artists, this project utilizes the power of art, poetry, and personal narrative to draw attention to urban animals and our shared urban habitats. Van Horn will draw examples from the City Creatures Blog; the edited volume City Creatures: Animal Encounters in the Chicago Wilderness (University of Chicago Press, 2015); and The Way of Coyote to illustrate the ways in which stories can deepen appreciation for the ways in which our lives are entangled with urban wildlife.

Funding provided by a grant from the Oakton Educational Foundation to the Environmental Studies Concentration.