Every 2nd Wednesday // 1pm – 2pm // 3 March to 12 May
Location: Wanneroo Library
Rewilding the landscape means returning some of the plants and animals indigenous to a place to their home. But what might ‘rewilding’ ourselves mean? In this course we’ll look at a selection of authors who have thought about how modern life in the Western world has made us isolated, physically inactive, and obsessed with owning the earth. We will learn, by turning to history and anthropology, how we might become more connected to our home places, more physically engaged, and ultimately, happier people. In the final week of the course we will consider the case of Bruno Manser, a Swiss-German man who lived with the Penan hunter-gatherers of the Borneo rainforest for several years in the 1990s.
The course is supported by the University of The Third Age (U3A). Bookings can be made here.
Course reading schedule:
| Week 1 – 3 March – Opening lecture and course overview | Thomas M Wilson |
| Week 2 – 17 March- Stepping Off: Rewilding and Belonging in the South-West | Thomas M Wilson |
| Week 3 – 31 March – Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to do is Healthy and Rewarding | Daniel Lieberman |
| Week 4 – 14 April – The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous | Joseph Henrich |
| Week 5 – 28 April – Owning the Earth: The Transforming History of Land Ownership | Andro Linklater |
| Week 6 – 12 May – The Last Wild Men of Borneo: A True Story of Death and Treasure | Carl Hoffman |