Lecture: Stories and Revelations from a Postmodern Travel Writer
Rolf Potts
Monday, 27 Feb 2012 at 4:00 pm – Campanile Room, Memorial Union
Rolf Potts has reported from more than sixty countries for the likes of National Geographic Traveler, The New Yorker, Slate.com and Outside. His adventures have included piloting a fishing boat 900 miles down the Laotian Mekong, hitchhiking across Eastern Europe, traversing Israel on foot, bicycling across Burma, driving a Land Rover across South America. Potts is perhaps best known for promoting the ethic of independent travel and his book on the subject, Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel. His most recent book, Marco Polo Didn't Go There: Stories and Revelations from One Decade as a Postmodern Travel Writer, became the first American-authored book to win Italy's prestigious Chatwin Prize. Though he rarely stays in one place for more than a few weeks or months, Potts feels somewhat at home in Bangkok, Cairo, Pusan, New Orleans, and north-central Kansas, where he keeps a small farmhouse on thirty acres near his family. Part of the Symposium on Wildness, Wilderness & the Creative Imagination.----
This lecture was made possible in part by the generosity of F. Wendell Miller, who left his entire estate jointly to Iowa State University and the University of Iowa. Mr. Miller, who died in 1995 at age 97, was born in Altoona, Illinois, grew up in Rockwell City, graduated from Grinnell College and Harvard Law School and practiced law in Des Moines and Chicago before returning to Rockwell City to manage his family's farm holdings and to practice law. His will helped to establish the F. Wendell Miller Trust, the annual earnings on which, in part, helped to support this activity.
Cosponsored By:
- Bioethics Program
- Center for Excellence in the Arts & Humanities
- College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
- Creative Writing Milieu
- Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology
- English
- Geology & Atmospheric Sciences
- History
- LAS Miller Lecture Funds
- MFA Program in Creative Writing and Environment
- Wallace Chair for Sustainable Agriculture
- Committee on Lectures (funded by Student Government)
Stay for the entire event, including the brief question-and-answer session that follows the formal presentation. Most events run 75 minutes.
Sign-ins are after the event concludes. For lectures in the Memorial Union, go to the information desk in the Main Lounge. In other academic buildings, look for signage outside the auditorium.
Lecture Etiquette
- Stay for the entire lecture and the brief audience Q&A. If a student needs to leave early, he or she should sit near the back and exit discreetly.
- Do not bring food or uncovered drinks into the lecture.
- Check with Lectures staff before taking photographs or recording any portion of the event. There are often restrictions. Cell phones, tablets and laptops may be used to take notes or for class assignments.
- Keep questions or comments brief and concise to allow as many as possible.