UC Davis is hosting a May 7-8 environmental conference that looks at what the UC system has done over the past century, by way of arts, literature, social sciences and law, to help further people’s understanding of the natural world around them.

“The University of California has been remarkably effective at shaping how people understand nature and what they do with it — sometimes in controversial ways,” said conference organizer Louis Warren, the W. Turrentine Jackson Professor of Western U.S. History.

The program includes Davis-based science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson as the keynote speaker on May 7, giving a talk titled “California and the Invention of Permaculture.”

Plenary session topics: “UC Lands and Environmental Humanities,” “The University of California and Sustainable Agriculture,” “The University and Air Quality” and “Water Resources and Flood Control,” followed by a roundtable: “Crossing Disciplines — Humanities, Social Sciences, Sciences.”

Organizers said the conference will conclude with “playback theater,” in which actors tell the stories of people in the audience. The performance is part of graduate student Tracy Perkins’ thesis project on women’s struggles for environmental justice.

Conference sponsors: Davis Humanities Institute, the John Muir Institute of the Environment and the Air Quality Research Center, all at UC Davis; and UC Merced faculty.

CALIFORNIA, THE UNIVERSITY AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Conference: 1:30-6:30 p.m. May 7 and 7:45 a.m.-8 p.m. May 8, Buehler Alumni and Visitors Center. Program details.

25 STORIES FROM THE CENTRAL VALLEY

Performance: Public reception, 5 p.m. May 8, followed by the performance, 5:45-8 p.m., Buehler Alumni and Visitors Center.

Photo exhibition: April 23-Aug. 23, Buehler Alumni and Visitors Center. Opening celebration: 4-6 p.m. May 5, featuring a program of UC Davis researchers speaking on “Engaged Scholarship in the Central Valley: Stories from the Field.”

Web site: twentyfive.ucdavis.edu

IF YOU WANT TO GO …

The conference and performance are free and open to the public; preregistration is encouraged and can be arranged online.

The exhibition and May 5 program also are free and open to the public; no registration required.

All Seminars and Colloquia: calendar.ucdavis.edu.