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Reading group to meet Thursday

MARQUETTE — The Transition Marquette County Reading Group begins another year with a discussion of “The Mushroom at the End of the World — on the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins” by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing at 7 p.m. on Thursday in the Dandelion Cottage Room at Peter White Public Library in Marquette.

Against the backdrop of the precarious nature of life today — both environmental and economic — Tsing explores the global commodity chain of matsutake mushrooms, the most valuable mushroom in the world. “Matsutake are wild mushrooms that live in human-disturbed forests across the Northern Hemisphere,” Tsing writes. “Like rats, raccoons, and cockroaches, they are willing to put up with some of the environmental messes humans have made. Yet they are not pests — they are valuable gourmet treats.” Her story shows us Japanese gourmets, capitalist traders, Hmong jungle fighters, Finnish nature guides and more as she addresses the question: What manages to live in the ruins we have made? In the face of capitalist destruction, she raises the possibility of collaborative survival within multi-species landscapes as a prerequisite for continuing life on earth.

Tsing is Professor of Anthropology at University of California, Santa Cruz, and Niels Bohr Professor at Aarhus University in Denmark.

For more information call Charlie at 226-3314 or email mqtchaz@gmail.com.

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