2012 Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters: Barry Lopez

Barry Lopez
Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters

Barry Lopez, a well-known author, lecturer and essayist and short-story writer, was born in 1945 in Port Chester, New York. After finishing a master's degree at the University of Notre Dame in 1968, he moved to western Oregon and made it his permanent home. He has traveled through more than 60 countries and has been a full-time writer since 1970.

Mr. Lopez has been hailed for bringing together anthropology, biology and human history in his work and for his descriptions of the relationships between human cultures and physical landscapes. He contributes regularly to such publications as Harper's, National Geographic, Orion, Outside, The Paris Review and The Georgia Review, and his writing his been widely translated and anthologized. For many years Mr. Lopez was also active as a landscape photographer. Today, he maintains close ties with a diverse community of visual and performing artists, collaborating often with them on concerts, theater productions and exhibitions.

Arctic Dreams, Mr. Lopez's seminal work on northern landscapes and cultures, published in 1986, received the National Book Award. In researching the book, Mr. Lopez spent several years sojourning in the Arctic North with Inupiat, Yup'ik and Inuit guides and in the company of archeologists, biologists and geologists who were conducting field research there. Arctic Dreams and his later essays on arctic regions have had a profound impact on the national awareness of Alaska's environmental issues and have been used extensively in classrooms across the University of Alaska system.

Mr. Lopez has been honored by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Explorers Club, the Lannan Foundation, the Association of American Geographers, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and other institutions.

In recognition of his literary and artistic endeavors and his impact on expanding awareness of the arctic landscape, the University of Alaska Anchorage proudly confers upon Barry Lopez the title of Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters.