Distinguished Lecture Series: Dr. J Drew Lanham
We are excited to announce Dr. J Drew Lanham as 2026’s Distinguished Lecturer on October 2, 2026.
While this is a free event, attendees will need to register to secure a seat. Registration will open in the fall. Sign up below for early bird notice!
Dr. Lanham is a cultural ornithologist, naturalist, educator, and poet, is the author of The Home Place, Sparrow Envy, and Joy is the Justice We Give to Ourselves.
A native of Edgefield, South Carolina, J. Drew Lanham is the author of The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature, which received the Reed Award from the Southern Environmental Law Center and the Southern Book Prize, and was a finalist for the John Burroughs Medal. Most recently, he is the author of Sparrow Envy: Field Guide to Birds and Lesser Beasts. He is a birder, naturalist, and hunter-conservationist who has published essays and poetry in publications including Orion, Audubon, Flycatcher, and Wilderness, and in several anthologies, including The Colors of Nature, State of the Heart, Bartram’s Living Legacy, and Carolina Writers at Home. Lanham is a 2022 MacArthur Fellow. An Alumni Distinguished Professor of Wildlife Ecology and Master Teacher at Clemson University, he and his family live in the Upstate of South Carolina, a soaring hawk’s downhill glide from the southern Appalachian escarpment that the Cherokee once called the Blue Wall.
Learn more about Dr. Lanham through these resources:
Links to his books are below!
Learn more about our Distinguished Lecture Series, generously supported by the Lyndhurst Foundation.