Daily Archives: April 22, 2012

Saturday, May 12, 2:00 pm – Shellshocked: Saving Oysters to Save Ourselves

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In conjunction with the new exhibition, Mollusks, the Harvard Museum of Natural History, 24 Oxford Street in Cambridge,  will screen Shellshocked, a new documentary by Emily Driscoll, on Saturday, May 12 beginning at 2 pm. The film follows efforts to prevent the extinction of wild oyster reefs, which keep oceans healthy by filtering water and engineering ecosystems. Due to overfishing and pollution, much of the world’s wild oyster reefs have been declared “functionally extinct.” Followed by a Q&A with the filmmaker and George Buckley, of the Sustainability and Environmental Management Program at Harvard Extension School.  Regular admission rates apply.  For more information, visit www.hmnh.harvard.edu.

 

 

Wednesday, May 9, 6:00 pm – Coffee Life in Japan

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Boston University Professor of Anthropology Merry White explores the fascinating role that coffee and cafe society have played in Japanese culture in a lecture on Wednesday, May 9, from 6 – 8 at 808 Commonwealth Avenue in Boston.  White’s book, Coffee Life in Japan – part ethnography, part memoir – traces the cafe craze from 1888, when Japan helped to launch the Brazilian coffee industry, up to the present.  Her work examines themes as diverse as gender, privacy, perfectionism, and urbanism.  Learn how coffee and coffee spaces have played essential roles in the formation of Japanese beliefs about public space, social change, modernity, and pleasure.  Hear how the cafe has been a place to encounter new ideas and experiments in thought, behavior, sexuality, dress and taste.  Each person attending this event will receive a copy of White’s book.  Refreshments will be served.  $25.  Register online at www.bu.edu/foodandwine.