David Abram

David Abram -- cultural ecologist and geophilosopher -- is the author of Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology, and of The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-Human World. Described as "revolutionary" by the Los Angeles Times, as “daring” and “truly original” by the journal Science, David’s work has helped catalyze the emergence of several new disciplines, including the burgeoning field of ecopsychology. His earlier craft as a professional sleight-of-hand magician sparked his journeys as an itinerant magician through remote regions of southeast Asia, where he began learning from traditional, indigenous magicians and medicine people. Today, David’s work engages the ecological depths of the imagination, exploring the ways in which sensory perception, language, and wonder inform the relation between the human body and the breathing earth. A close student of the traditional ecological knowledge of diverse indigenous peoples, David was the very first contemporary philosopher to advocate for a reappraisal of "animism" as a complexly nuanced and uniquely ecological worldview – a broad reappraisal that is now underway in many fields. David lectures and teaches widely around the world; he is a distinguished teaching fellow at Schumacher College, and recently held the international Arne Naess Chair in Global Justice and Ecology at the University of Oslo. He has been the recipient of numerous awards, including fellowships from the Rockefeller and the Watson foundations and the international Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction. David is the co-founder and creative director of the Alliance for Wild Ethics (AWE); he lives with his family in the foothills of the southern Rockies