6:30 p.m.
Across the globe, rivers are dying鈥攃hoked by pollution, parched by drought, and shackled by dams. The prevailing narrative treats freshwater as a mere resource, water as a liquid asset, existing solely for human use. This lecture offers a different current: an ancient and urgent story in which rivers live, die, and even possess rights. It reimagines rivers as vital, sentient life-forces, intertwined with our own survival.听
Spanning Ecuador, India, Aotearoa New Zealand, northeastern Canada, and the speaker鈥檚 native southern England, the talk weaves together the voices of activists, artists, and lawmakers. Passionate and immersive, it promises to spark debate, shift perspectives, and invite listeners to recognize a profound truth: our fate has always flowed with the rivers.听
Robert Macfarlane, Author听
Robert Macfarlane is an internationally acclaimed writer whose work explores nature, people, and place. His bestselling books鈥�Underland, Landmarks, The Old Ways, The Wild Places, and Mountains of the Mind鈥攈ave been translated into more than thirty languages, earning numerous global awards and widespread adaptation across film, music, theatre, radio, and dance. He also penned the book-length prose poem Ness and has written operas, plays, and films, including River and Mountain, both narrated by Willem Dafoe.听
Macfarlane has collaborated closely with artists such as Olafur Eliasson and Stanley Donwood. With Jackie Morris, he co-created the internationally bestselling nature-poetry and art books The Lost Words and The Lost Spells. His latest work, Is a River Alive?, was published in May 2025.听
Beyond literature, he is a lyricist and performer, having written albums and songs with musicians including Cosmo Sheldrake, Julie Fowlis, and Johnny Flynn鈥攔eleasing two albums, Lost in the Cedar Wood and The Moon Also Rises. In 2017, he received the E.M. Forster Prize for Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 2023, he became the inaugural recipient of the Weston International Award for nonfiction. Macfarlane is a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.