Summer Arts Series – Session 3

Summer Arts Series - Session 3
A Queer Response to Climate Change — What Would Walt Whitman Do?
with storyteller, performance artist, and scholar Peterson Toscano

Occurred on August 18, 2020

Performance artist, queer Bible scholar, and on-line content creator, Peterson Toscano tackles the biggest issue of them all – global warming – and does so with a campy, thoughtful, mind expanding interactive performance designed especially for the Zoom platform. He resurrects the spirit of Walt Whitman and makes connections to LGBTQ+ issues, the power of art, environmental justice, and much more. Travel to the past and the future as Peterson’s character transformations, creative thought experiments, and original multimedia. You will laugh and learn, but most importantly your imagination will be unlocked to help you envision a better world as you consider your role in it.

Peterson Toscano

View biography

What people are saying:

"Having Peterson Toscano involved with one's community is like inviting an emissary from some bright, possible future to the conversation pit. Intelligent, compassionate, approachable, Peterson is light in the American darkness, and his performances are touching and his conversations engaging."

- Jesse Waters, Director, Bowers Writers House Elizabethtown College, Dept. of English

"He does such a good job at taking really big and scary issues … and is able to present them in a way that is accessible. One of the best things his talks are able to do is focus on the intersections of people’s identities and social justice issues, and not a lot of people are able to do that."

- Justin Adkins, Allegheny College, Associate Dean and Director of the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Access and Social Justice Center

"Peterson Toscano, a true beam of light, touched hearts and minds as he equipped Bates students with the rhetorical tactics and perspective necessary to create a more equitable world, and for that we are so thankful!"

- Zsofia Duarte, Bates College Student, Environmental Politics major

Additional resources recommended by Peterson Toscano:

Leaves of Grass Whole Book Experience
Whitman with Civil War
PDF of 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass
Gary Schmidgall’s book Walt Whitman: A Gay Life
Opera singer Madame Marietta Alboni
Fac ut Portem from Rossini’s Stabat Mater