Thoreau Society 2009 Annual Gathering

 

Thursday, July 9, 2009      

8-9:30 am      Walking Tours at Walden Pond

  1. Walter Brain, Exploring Walden Woods
  2. Brianne Keith & Jeff Cramer, Pine Hill Walk/Henley Library Tour

9:30-3:30       Registration

9:30-10:30     Refreshments

10:30-12:00   Workshop I at the Masonic Temple, 58 Monument Square, Concord, MA

  1. Panel Presentations (Main Floor)
    • John Chateauneuf, Moderator
    • Patrick Chura, The Concord Surveyor and the Kansas Surveyor
    • Albena Bakratcheva, Wisdom Applied to Life:  ‘Thoreau’s Life Without Principle’

  2. Jym St. Pierre, A Modern Saunter Through Thoreau’s Maine Woods (Downstairs)

Noon              Lunch on your own

1:30-3:00       Workshop II at the Masonic Temple, 58 Monument Square, Concord, MA

  1. Panel Presentations (Main Floor)
    • Brianne Keith, Moderator (Introduce & Keep Time)
    • Audrey Raden, Seeds without Fruit: Henry David Thoreau and the Limitations of John Brown
    • Therese Nelson, Reflections on Walden

  2. Neil Yetwin, Thoreau & Carl Jung (downstairs)

3:30-5:00       Workshop III at the Masonic Temple, 58 Monument Square, Concord, MA

  1. Panel Discussions: Thoreau and Indian Reform (Main Floor)
    • Jessie Bray, Panel Moderator & Presenter
    • Joshua David Bellin
    • Brad King

  2. Edmund Schofield, Where's Walden? Limning the Bounds of Elysium (Walden Pond/Woods/Ecosystem) (Downstairs)
5:30-7 pm      Thoreau Farm Trust Picnic. Bring your own picnic.  Drinks provided. (341 Virginia Road in Concord)

7:30-9 pm      John Stauffer, Election of Abraham Lincoln: Transcendentalism and the 1860 Presidential Election. This is at the Masonic Temple, 58 Monument Square, Concord, MA

 


Friday, July 10, 2009

Walking Tours of Concord & Pencil Factory Dam

6:45-9:30 am Peter Alden, Birds and plants on a 2-mile (dry) loop walk at Great Meadows N.W.R.  Meet at the CS lot at 6:30 for ride sharing.

8:30-10 am    Janet Beck & Jayne Gordon, Walking Tour:  John Brown’s Concord. Meet at the Masonic Temple

Randall Conrad & Richard Lenat, Exploring the Pencil Factory Dam Site in Acton. Please gather promptly in Masonic Temple parking lot for car pool.

9:30-3 pm      Registration

9:30-10:30     Refreshments

10:30-Noon   Workshop IV at the Masonic Temple, 58 Monument Square, Concord, MA

  1. Panel Presentations (Main Floor)
    • Keya Banerjee, Moderator
    • Stephen Spratt, Eating Ethically in Thoreau's ‘Wild Fruits’
    • Tom O’Malley, Walking the Road to Reform: "the hundred hills of Concord"

  2. D. B. Johnson, Keeping it Simple:  Writing Thoreau for Kids (downstairs)

Noon              Box Lunch

1-2:30     Workshop V Masonic Temple

    1. Kevin Van Anglen, Discussion of AG Theme (Main Floor)

    2. Brian Donahue, Harvard Forest Wildlands & Woodlands: A Vision for the Future of the Massachusetts Forest

3-4:30    Workshop VI at the Masonic Temple, 58 Monument Square, Concord, MA

    1. Tom Potter, 150th Anniversary of Origin of the Species (Main Floor)

    2. Len Gougeon, Thoreau's Civil War (downstairs)

    3. Leslie Wilson and Robert Hall, Concord Free Public Library Presentation, Editing the TSB at CFPL

5:30-7             Dinner

7:30-9:00       Emerson Society Panel: Emerson’s Politics Intro by Todd H. Richardson; A discussion led by Daniel S. Malachuk. Takes place at the Masonic Temple, 58 Monument Square, Concord, MA

9-10                Social Hour


Saturday, July 11, 2009

7 am               Corinne H. Smith, Walter Harding Memorial Walk at Walden Pond

8-9                  Refreshments

9-10:30           Annual Business Meeting

Morning business meeting, keynote address, and A PLEA take place at the Trinitarian Congregational Church, 54 Walden Street, Concord, MA

10:45-Noon   Dana S. Brigham Memorial Keynote Address
                   by John T. Matteson

"Most Careful Bravery": Thoreau and the Problem of
Prudence in Antebellum Reform

John T. Matteson has an A.B. in History from Princeton University and a Ph.D. in English from Columbia University. He also holds a law degree from Harvard University and has practiced as a litigation attorney in California and North Carolina. He has written articles for The Harvard Theological Review, Architectural Record, CrossCurrents, New England Quarterly, Streams of William James, and other publications. He received the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for his book Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father, published by W.W. Norton and Co. in 2007. He is currently working on a book tentatively titled The Lives of Margaret Fuller. He has taught literature and legal writing at John Jay College since 1997.
                 
Noon              Box Lunch

12:15-1:15     Church Lawn (ringing of the bell) Richard Smith, Henry Thoreau reads:  "A Plea for Captain John Brown." Takes place at the Trinitarian Congregational Church, 54 Walden Street, Concord, MA

1:30-2:00 Registration

2:00-3:30       Workshop VII at the Masonic Temple, 58 Monument Square, Concord, MA

    1. Susan Gallagher, Brianne Keith, and Michael Frederick, The Wooden Gun of Government:  Using Digital Technologies to Document Thoreau’s Political Vision (Main Floor)

    2. Richard Higgins, Thoreau and the Language of Trees (downstairs)

    3. Jayne Gordon, Sleepy Hollow Cemetery Walk

4-5 pm       Reception for Keynote Speaker

5-6:30 pm   Dinner

7-8:30 pm  Dave Mallett: The Fable True
Tickets are $10 for registered annual gathering participants.

Takes place at the Trinitarian Congregational Church,
54 Walden Street, Concord, MA

8:30-10      Book Signing & Refreshments LIST OF AUTHORS: Takes place at the Trinitarian Congregational Church, 54 Walden Street, Concord, MA

Sunday, July 12, 2009

6:45-9:30 am Peter Alden, Easy walk to Great Blue Heron colony on hemlock wooded peninsula near White Pond. Park around Monument Square and meet at Masonic Temple for car pooling.  This is a great show with 50 nests and over 100 noisy babies, lots of other life in a beaver swamp in a wild setting.

10-11:30        Workshop VIII at the Masonic Temple, 58 Monument Square, Concord, MA

    1. Nikita Pokrovsky, Thoreau and Reform (Personal and Public)  (Main Floor)
    2. John Wawrzonek, Reform in an age of crises: The possibility of a new enlightenment (Downstairs)

Noon-2 pm    Open House:  Thoreau Farm Trust

Birthday cake and tours with Larry Sorli, architect of the Thoreau birth house restoration. Directions to the Thoreau Farm Trust. (341 Virginia Road in Concord)

2:30-5 pm      Special Event

The Thoreau Society & Orchard House at the School of Philosophy. John T. Matteson, John Stauffer, Daniel S. Malachuk, Lawrence Buell Margaret on the Stairs, Waldo on the Common: The Origins of the Transcendental Self

Orchard House is located at 399 Lexington Road

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