Vivian S. Delbrook Visiting Writers Series: Jenny Odell

Jenny Odell comes to Shelton Auditorium on Thursday, April 15, 2027, as part of the Vivian S. Delbrook Visiting Writers Series. It's a reading presented in partnership with Butler's Philosophy Program, and the whole thing is free and open to the public—no ticket required.

If you're not familiar with her, Odell is a multidisciplinary artist and author based in Oakland, California. Her first book, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy (2019), was a New York Times bestseller and one of Barack Obama's Best Books of 2019. Her second, Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock (2023), also hit the New York Times bestseller list. She's currently working on a third book about repair, so this is a good time to catch up on the first two before that one arrives.

Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, and Sierra magazine, but she works in more than just text. Her visual art has been shown at The Contemporary Jewish Museum, the New York Public Library, Les Rencontres D'Arles, and apexart in New York. She's also spent time as an artist in residence at Recology SF, the San Francisco Planning Department, the Internet Archive, and the Montalvo Arts Center, and she taught digital art at Stanford University from 2013 to 2021.

The reading is at 7:30 PM at Shelton Auditorium on Butler's campus. It's free and open to the public, and you don't need a ticket to get in.