Courtesy of LSU Ogden Honors College
The LSU Roger Hadfield Ogden Honors College has selected Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore by award-winning writer Elizabeth Rush as its 2021 Summer Shared Read text.
In Rising, Rush explores the impact of climate change and sea-level rise on communities across the United States, including the Isle de Jean Charles community in coastal Louisiana.
As one reviewer notes, Rush uses her experience as a “journalist and scholar to eloquently tell the stories of those impacted by a changing climate in America, and situate those experiences within the broader story of climate change. Specifically, Rush documents the story of changing coastlines, and what that means for the vulnerable residents who live within these rapidly evolving environments.”
Rising was a 2019 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in general nonfiction, winner of the 2018 National Outdoor Book Award, a Chicago Tribune Top Ten Book of 2018, and a Guardian, Publishers Weekly, Lit Hub, and Library Journal Best Book of 2018.
Rush’s work has appeared in The Washington Post, Harper’s, Guernica, Granta, Orion, and The New Republic. She is a recipient of a Society for Environmental Journalism Grant; the Metcalf Institute Climate Change Adaptation Fellowship; and the Science in Society Award from the National Association of Science Writers. She lives in Rhode Island, where she teaches creative nonfiction at Brown University.
The Shared Read introduces new students to the academic and intellectual culture of the Ogden Honors College through a common reading experience. Each year, the College selects a single text as required summer reading for our incoming students and as recommended reading for current Honors students. Our academic year begins in the fall with Honors Convocation and an address by the author of the Shared Read text. This year’s convocation is scheduled for September 1.
