Ernest Callenbach
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Ernest Callenbach (April 3, 1929 – April 16, 2012) was an American author,
film critic Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films and the film medium. In general, film criticism can be divided into two categories: journalistic criticism that appears regularly in newspapers, magazines and other popular mass-media outlets ...
, editor, and
simple living Simple living refers to practices that promote simplicity in one's lifestyle. Common practices of simple living include reducing the number of possessions one owns, depending less on technology and services, and spending less money. Not only is ...
adherent. He became famous due to his internationally successful semi-utopian novel ''
Ecotopia ''Ecotopia: The Notebooks and Reports of William Weston'' is a utopian novel by Ernest Callenbach, published in 1975. The society described in the book is one of the first ecological utopias and was influential on the counterculture and the gr ...
'' (1975).


Life and work

Born into a farming family in
Williamsport, Pennsylvania Williamsport is a city in, and the county seat of, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, United States. It recorded a population of 27,754 at the 2020 Census. It is the principal city of the Williamsport Metropolitan Statistical Area, which has a popula ...
, Callenbach attended the
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
, where he was drawn into the then 'new wave' of serious attention to film as an art form. After six months in Paris at the
Sorbonne Sorbonne may refer to: * Sorbonne (building), historic building in Paris, which housed the University of Paris and is now shared among multiple universities. *the University of Paris (c. 1150 – 1970) *one of its components or linked institution, ...
, watching four films a day, he returned to Chicago and earned a master's degree in English and Communications. Callenbach then moved to California. From 1955 to 1991, he was on the staff of the
University of California Press The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by faculty ...
(
Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California * George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer ...
). A general copywriter for a number of years, he edited the Press's ''
Film Quarterly ''Film Quarterly'', a journal devoted to the study of film, television, and visual media, is published by University of California Press. It publishes scholarly analyses of international and Hollywood cinema as well as independent film, including d ...
'' from 1958 until 1991. He also occasionally taught film courses at U.C. and at
San Francisco State University San Francisco State University (commonly referred to as San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a public research university in San Francisco. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers 118 different b ...
. For many years Callenbach edited the Natural History Guides at the U.C. Press. He began to take environmental issues and their connections to human value systems, social patterns, and lifestyles just as seriously as he had taken film. He was heavily influenced by
Edward Abbey Edward Paul Abbey (January 29, 1927 – March 14, 1989) was an American author, essayist, and environmental activist noted for his advocacy of environmental issues and criticism of public land policies. His best-known works include ''Desert Solit ...
. Callenbach talked publicly about being influenced, during work on his novel ''Ecotopia'', by numerous streams of thought: scientific discoveries in the fields of ecology and conservation biology; the urban-ecology planning movement, concerned with an approach to urban planning; and the soft-energy movement, championed by Amory Lovins and others. Callenbach is known as an author of
green Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 Nanometre, nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by ...
books, namely as author of the ecological "
utopia A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia (book), Utopia'', describing a fictional ...
s" ''Ecotopia'' (1975) and ''
Ecotopia Emerging ''Ecotopia Emerging'' ''(EE)'' by Ernest Callenbach is a fictionalized history of the events leading up to the secession of Northern California, Oregon, and Washington to form the steady-state, environmentalist nation of Ecotopia along the Pacif ...
'' (1981), and also ''The Ecotopian Encyclopedia'' (1981), ''Bring Back the Buffalo!'' (1995), and ''Ecology: A Pocket Guide'' (1998). (While his first novel popularized the term "ecotopia," the term was actually coined by the ethnographer E. N. Anderson.) In terms of concepts of human involvement with the ecology, as well as some of the economic and social concepts, the Ecotopia books are related to what is known as the
sustainability Specific definitions of sustainability are difficult to agree on and have varied in the literature and over time. The concept of sustainability can be used to guide decisions at the global, national, and individual levels (e.g. sustainable livi ...
movement. Callenbach's Ecotopian concept is not "
Luddite The Luddites were a secret oath-based organisation of English textile workers in the 19th century who formed a radical faction which destroyed textile machinery. The group is believed to have taken its name from Ned Ludd, a legendary weaver s ...
" — he does not reject high technology, but rather his fictional society shows a ''conscious selectivity'' about technology. In Ecotopia ecologically compatible high-technology exists alongside postmaterialistic attitudes and lifestyles. As an example, with its emphasis on personal rather than impersonal interaction, Callenbach's Ecotopian society anticipates the development and liberal usage of
videoconferencing Videotelephony, also known as videoconferencing and video teleconferencing, is the two-way or multipoint reception and transmission of audio signal, audio and video signals by people in different locations for Real-time, real time communication. ...
. Indeed, for all his involvement with print publishing, Callenbach remained quite interested in visual media. Aspects of his book ''Ecotopia'' in some ways anticipated
C-SPAN Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN ) is an American cable and satellite television network that was created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a nonprofit public service. It televises many proceedings of the United States ...
— which came into being a few years later — because in the story the daily life of the legislature and some of that of the judicial courts is televised in this fictional society, and televised debates (including technical debates concerning ecological problems) meet a need and desire among citizens. Callenbach was a part of the circle of West Coast technologists, architects, social thinkers, and scientists which included
Ursula K. Le Guin Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (; October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018) was an American author best known for her works of speculative fiction, including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe, and the '' Earthsea'' fantasy series. She was ...
, Sim Van der Ryn,
Peter Calthorpe Peter Calthorpe (born 1949) is a San Francisco-based architect, urban designer and urban planner. He is a founding member of the Congress for New Urbanism, a Chicago-based advocacy group formed in 1992 that promotes sustainable building practice ...
,
Stewart Brand Stewart Brand (born December 14, 1938) is an American writer, best known as editor of the ''Whole Earth Catalog''. He founded a number of organizations, including The WELL, the Global Business Network, and the Long Now Foundation. He is the auth ...
, Kevin Kelly, J. Baldwin, and John Todd. As with some of these others, he was often a speaker, discussion panellist, and essayist. In 2006 Callenbach introduced the story of a real-world community movement in Japan that is reminiscent, in its aims and practices, of his Ecotopian society. He visited Japan and investigated the Yamagishi movement. He found that it encompassed some three dozen intentional communities founded on the same underlying principles: living an ecologically based integration of people with agriculture (pig, cattle, and chicken livestock raising, and organic-vegetable and fruit farming), and living a social life based on principles of democracy, mutual understanding, support, and health. Each individual settlement is referred to as ''jikkenji'' ('demonstration community for the world'). In 2009, Callenbach was awarded an
honorary doctorate An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hon ...
by the
University of Freiburg The University of Freiburg (colloquially german: Uni Freiburg), officially the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg (german: Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg), is a public university, public research university located in Freiburg im Breisg ...
.
Freiburg Freiburg im Breisgau (; abbreviated as Freiburg i. Br. or Freiburg i. B.; Low Alemannic: ''Friburg im Brisgau''), commonly referred to as Freiburg, is an independent city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. With a population of about 230,000 (as o ...
is noted for its
renewable energy Renewable energy is energy that is collected from renewable resources that are naturally replenished on a human timescale. It includes sources such as sunlight, wind, the movement of water, and geothermal heat. Although most renewable energy ...
industry and has been called a "green utopia". He died of cancer on April 16, 2012 in Berkeley, California.


Quotes


Bibliography

* ''Living Poor With Style'' (New York: Bantam, 1972) * ''
Ecotopia ''Ecotopia: The Notebooks and Reports of William Weston'' is a utopian novel by Ernest Callenbach, published in 1975. The society described in the book is one of the first ecological utopias and was influential on the counterculture and the gr ...
'' (Banyan Tree Books, 1975) ** Italian translation: ''Ecotopia'' (Castelvecchi Editore, 2012) * ''
Ecotopia Emerging ''Ecotopia Emerging'' ''(EE)'' by Ernest Callenbach is a fictionalized history of the events leading up to the secession of Northern California, Oregon, and Washington to form the steady-state, environmentalist nation of Ecotopia along the Pacif ...
'' (Banyan Tree Books, 1981) * ''The Ecotopian Encyclopaedia for the 80's: A Survival Guide for the Age of Inflation'' (Berkeley: And/Or Press, 1981)
''A Citizen Legislature''
(Bookpeople, 1985; rev. ed. Imprint Academic, 2008) * ''Publisher's Lunch'' (Ten Speed Press, 1989) * ''Ecology: A Pocket Guide'' (U. of California Press, 1998; rev. ed. 2008) * ''Living Cheaply With Style: Live Better and Spend Less'' (Berkeley: Ronin, 1993). * ''Living Cheaply With Style: Live Better and Spend Less,'' Second edition (Berkeley: Ronin, 2000). * ''Bring Back the Buffalo!: A Sustainable Future for America's Great Plains'' (U. of California Press, 2000)


Further reading

* Ernest Callenbach "Ecotopia in Japan?," in: ''
Communities A community is a Level of analysis, social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place (geography), place, Norm (social), norms, religion, values, Convention (norm), customs, or Identity (social science), identity. Communiti ...
'' 132 (Fall 2006), pp. 42–49. * R. Frye, "The Economics of Ecotopia," in: ''Alternative Futures'' 3 (1980), pp. 71–81. * K.T. Goldbach, "Utopian Music: Music History of the Future in Novels by Bellamy, Callenbach and Huxley," in: ''Utopia Matters. Theory, Politics, Literature and the Arts'', ed. F. Viera, M. Freitas, Porto 2005, pp. 237–243. * R. Meinhold, "Ecotopia", in: Paul B. Thompson and David M. Kaplan (eds.) Encyclopedia of Agricultural and Food Ethics (2013), pp 548–551 * U. Meyer: "Selling an 'ecological religion'. Strategies of Persuasion in Ernest Callenbach's ''Ecotopia''". In: M. Lotz, M. van der Minde, D. Weidmann (Hrsg.): ''Von Platon bis zur Global Governance. Entwürfe für menschliches Zusammenleben''. Marburg 2010, pp. 253–280. * H. Tschachler, "Despotic Reason in Arcadia. Ernest Callenbach's Ecological Utopias," ''
Science Fiction Studies ''Science Fiction Studies'' (''SFS'') is an academic journal founded in 1973 by R. D. Mullen. The journal is published three times per year at DePauw University. As the name implies, the journal publishes articles and book reviews on science fic ...
'' 11 (1984), pp. 304–317.


External links


Ernest Callenbach's website
* * *
Ecotopia in the News



Tomgram: ''Ernest Callenbach, Last Words to an America in Decline''
(Includes his final written work; "Epistle to the Ecotopians")


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Callenbach, Ernest 1929 births 2012 deaths 20th-century American novelists American male novelists American non-fiction environmental writers American science fiction writers Environmental fiction writers Simple living advocates People from Williamsport, Pennsylvania People of intentional communities University of Chicago alumni University of Paris alumni 20th-century American male writers Novelists from Pennsylvania 20th-century American non-fiction writers American male non-fiction writers American expatriates in France