Oct. 24, 2009

Rochelle Johnson

Thoreau's Natural History Projects and his Developing
Sense of Place.

Rochelle Johnson is Associate Professor of English and Environmental Studies at The College of Idaho and Immediate Past President of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE). She is the author of the recently published Passions for Nature: Nineteenth Century America's Aesthetics of Alienation (University of Georgia Press, 2009).

Edgar Allan Poe
vs.
Transcendentalism

Elise Lemire

Black Walden: Slavery and Its Aftermath in Concord Massachusetts

Jeffrey Cramer

Thoreau's The Maine Woods

John Brown and New England

Defending John Brown:
An Evening with Henry David Thoreau

John Brown and New England is a series of public programs commemorating the 150th anniversary of John Brown's raid on the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry. John Brown and New England is a collaborative project of the American Antiquarian Society, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Thoreau Society, The First Parish (Concord) Transcendental Committee, Worcester State College, and Mechanics Hall. This program is funded in part by the Mass Humanities, which receives support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and is an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The Kaleidoscope of History: John Brown after Fifteen Decades Bruce Ronda, the author of Reading the Old Man: John Brown in American Culture, will provide an overview of the ways John Brown has been understood and portrayed, first in New England, and then nationally, from 1859 onward by focusing on four creative individuals: Henry David Thoreau, John Greenleaf Whittier, Jacob Lawrence, and Robert Hayden.

Massachusetts Historical Society: Tuesday, October 27, 2009, 5:30 p.m.
American Antiquarian Society: Wednesday, October 28, 2009, 7:30 p.m.

Warriors for Freedom: John Brown and Henry David Thoreau David S. Reynolds, author of John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights, will describe how the Transcendentalists were the boldest and most publicly visible proponents of John Brown in the immediate aftermath of Harpers Ferry.

American Antiquarian Society: Friday, November 6, 2009, 7:30 p.m.
Massachusetts Historical Society Saturday, November 7, 2009, 2:00 p.m.

All of the above programs are free and open to the public.

Directions

First Parish in Concord is located at 20 Lexington Road, Concord, Massachusetts.

From the WEST: Take Route 2 EAST (Concord Turnpike) towards Boston. Take a left on Elm Street. Bear left on Main Street. At the rotary in the center of town, bear right onto Lexington Road. First Parish with be on your right.

From the EAST: Take Route 2 WEST (Concord Turnpike) towards Fitchburg. At the base of the hill when Route 2 turns left, go straight on the Cambridge Turnpike. At the stop sign, turn left onto Lexington Road.

Sundays November 1st and 8th from 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm
Sponsored by The Friends of Walden Pond (an activity of Sponsored by The Thoreau Society, Inc.), and DCR

Walden Pond State Reservation
Department of Conservation and Recreation
_________________________________________________
915 Walden Street                                        Contact: Michael W. Mitchell
Concord, MA 01742                                       Visitor Services Supervisor

CONCORD, MA:  Join a park staff at Walden Pond State Reservation on Sunday November 1st and 8th from 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm for a program about Henry David Thoreau.  Visitors will learn about Thoreau’s visit to Walden from 1845-1847.  Please meet at the Thoreau House Replica located near the main parking area. We will also hike ½ mile to the house site where Thoreau once lived. This program is for visitors of all ages. 

Park programs are sponsored by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation and Thoreau Society’s Friends of Walden Pond.  There is a daily parking fee of $5.00 per vehicle.  For more information, please contact the park headquarters at (978) 369-3254.  Walden Pond State Reservation is located on 915 Walden Street (Route 126), only ½ mile south of Route 2.

Concord – Join park staff at the Thoreau house replica on Sunday November 15th from 11:00am – 12:00pm for Thoreau for Kids, a program which introduces children and their families to Henry David Thoreau and his stay at Walden Pond.  We will also walk ½ mile out to the original location of Thoreau’s cabin. During the program children and their families will have the chance to participate in Park Passport Day and pick up their own DCR Park Passports.  Be sure to bring water and to wear shoes comfortable for walking.

Park programs are sponsored by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation and The Thoreau Society’s Friends of Walden Pond.  This is a free program, but there is a $5.00 daily parking fee.  For more information call park staff at (978) 369-3254.  To find out more about programs at Massachusetts state parks visit us on the web at: http://www.mass.gov/dcr/events.htm

Sunday, November 22nd  from 1:00-3:00 pm
Sponsored by The Friends of Walden Pond (an activity of Sponsored by The Thoreau Society, Inc.), and DCR

Walden Pond State Reservation
Department of Conservation and Recreation
_________________________________________________
915 Walden Street                                        Contact: Michael W. Mitchell
Concord, MA 01742                                       Visitor Services Supervisor

Concord – Join park staff at the Tsongas gallery at Walden Pond on Sunday, November 22nd  from 1:00-3:00 pm for Ducks at a Distance, a basic waterfowl identification program.  After an indoor presentation we will head outdoors to Goose Pond, an often overlooked area of the reservation to search for migratory waterfowl.  This program is for visitors of all ages.  Please bring a pair of binoculars if you have them.  

Park programs are sponsored by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation and The Thoreau Society’s Friends of Walden Pond.  This is a free program, but there is a $5.00 daily parking fee.  For more information call park staff at (978) 369-3254.  To find out more about programs at Massachusetts state parks visit us on the web at: http://www.mass.gov/dcr/events.htm

November 29th from 12:00-1:00 pm
Sponsored by The Friends of Walden Pond (an activity of Sponsored by The Thoreau Society, Inc.), and DCR

Walden Pond State Reservation
Department of Conservation and Recreation
_________________________________________________
915 Walden Street                                        Contact: Michael W. Mitchell
Concord, MA 01742                                       Visitor Services Supervisor

CONCORD, MA – Join park staff, DCR NE Regional Park Ranger Stowe and her search rescue dog Emmitt on Sunday, November 29th from 12:00-1:00 pm for a search and rescue demonstration.  They will be demonstrating how the dogs are trained to search and rescue lost park visitors.  Meet at the main parking lot near the headquarters.  There are no other dogs allowed at Walden.  This program is for visitors of all ages.

Park programs are sponsored by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation and Thoreau Society’s Friends of Walden Pond.  There is a daily parking fee of $5.00 per vehicle.  For more information, please contact the park headquarters at (978) 369-3254.  Walden Pond State Reservation is located at 915 Walden Street (Route 126), only ½ mile south of Route 2. 

Collaborative Film Series at The Concord Museum, French Hall

free, all welcome

Sponsored by the Concord Historical Collaborative: The Concord Museum, Ralph Waldo Emerson House, The Old Manse/Trustees of Reservations, Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House, the Thoreau Society, the Concord Free Public Library, The Walden Woods Project’s Thoreau Institute, The Wayside at Minute Man National Historical Park, the Concord Chamber of Commerce, Concord-Carlisle Adult & Community Education, Walden Pond State Reservation, the Concord Art Association, the Concord Historical Commission, and the Thoreau Farm Trust. Refreshments donated by Dunkin Donuts of Concord.

The Inheritance
The Inheritance is based on an early novel written by a very young Louisa May Alcott, who was only 17 when she penned this romantic thriller-mystery. It was put away in a drawer and never published in her lifetime, but was discovered among her papers in Houghton Library at Harvard University and published for the first time in 1997. That same year this Jane Austen-like drama was aired as a television presentation, and stars Meredith Baxter and Tom Conti. The story, originally set in England by Alcott and now set in Concord, Massachusetts, is the intriguing tale of a beautiful Italian orphan girl who gets caught up in a hopeless love triangle and struggles with her position in the high-class society into which she is thrown.

Twice Told Tales
These horror stories are based on the writings of Nathaniel Hawthorne. In the first, "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment,” Heidegger attempts to restore the youth of three elderly friends. In "Rappaccini's Daughter,” Vincent Price plays a demented father inoculating his daughter with poison so she may never leave her garden of poisonous plants. In the final story "The House of the Seven Gables,” the Pyncheon family suffers from a hundred year old curse and while in the midst of arguing over inheritance, the Pyncheon brother kills his sister.

America’s Founding Thinker, Ralph Waldo Emerson
Emerson's belief in "the infinitude of the private man" still resonates with spiritual seekers today. Most people know Emerson's
essay, "Self-Reliance," but there is much more to the fascinating life of the man and his circle, which includes Henry David
Thoreau, Walt Whitman, and Margaret Fuller. The video features interviews with well-known Emerson scholars. You will never
look at Emerson-or yourself-quite the same way again.

New England Transcendentalists
Expert interviews, dramatic recreations at Walden Pond, and readings from major works are used to explore the evolution of the
American Transcendentalists Movement in the early 19th century. The lives and writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and Henry David Thoreau are examined to discover the spiritual foundations for America’s first authentic literary voice.

Henry David Thoreau: Speaking for Nature
See and hear Thoreau's Concord. Near the end of his life, Thoreau transformed his interest with nature into a passion. Thoreau's
plan for his "great work" was nothing less than a comprehensive day-by-day calendar describing the nature of the Concord region. And although his life was cut short, his legacy from that period is astonishing. Walk with Thoreau on an early Spring morning as he delights in the arrival of redwings - calling the river to life and tempting the ice to melt. Follow him into a meadow where the air is liquid with the bluebirds' warble. Paddle up the Assabet to search out painted turtles and the earliest blossoms of the silver maple. Join Thoreau as he solves the mystery of his "dream frog," collects starflowers, violets, and marigolds, and tracks the red fox along the river bank. By Richard K. Walton & John Huehnergard.

Remembering Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau
(1817-1862)

May 6, 2010 will mark the 148th Anniversary of the death of Concord’s own
Henry David Thoreau.
Please join us for a commemorative celebration of Thoreau’s life and writings at
Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord.

Sunday, May 2, 2010
11:00 AM- 12:00 PM

Participants are urged to bring their favorite Thoreau passage, quotes or stories to share at the event. We will meet, rain or shine, at the base of Author’s Ridge in Sleepy Hollow.

Two hundred years after her birth, Margaret Fuller still challenges our social, intellectual, political, and spiritual assumptions.

The Transcendentalism Council at First Parish in Concord invites you to celebrate Margaret Fuller’s bicentennial on May 21–23, 2010, in Concord, Massachusetts, center of the Transcendentalist circle of which she was an integral part.

Joan von Mehren, President of the Margaret Fuller Society and author of Minerva and the Muse: The Life of Margaret Fuller

Margaret Fuller in Concord

Joan von Mehren is a community activist and independent scholar. During a year in Rome in 1970 she discovered Margaret Fuller just as a new burst of feminism was taking root in Europe and America. In addition to her Fuller biography, she has published essays: “Margaret Fuller, Woman of Letters”; “Margaret Fuller and the Media”; and “Margaret Fuller and the Marchese Giovanni Ossoli, and the Marriage Question: Considering the Research of Dr. Roberto Colzi.”

Moderator: Rev. Jenny Rankin, Minister, First Parish in Concord; scholar of the Transcendentalists

Jenny Rankin is a Unitarian Universalist minister who was ordained in 1988 and has served the First Parish in Concord since 1997. Jenny graduated from Princeton University, where she majored in European Cultural Studies. She received her M.Div. degree from Harvard Divinity School. Jenny has studied the history of First Parish in Concord from its beginnings in 1636, especially the Transcendentalist era. She has taught classes on Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller and has led a group from First Parish to Italy to “trace the steps of Transcendentalists."

co-sponsored by The Thoreau Society and The Emerson Forum.

Photo credit:  Gail Samuelson

The Dana S. Brigham Memorial Keynote Address will be given by Megan Marshall, who is the author of two nonfiction books and has published numerous essays and reviews in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Slate Online, The New York Times Book Review, The London Review of Books, The New Republic, The Boston Review, and elsewhere.  Her biography The Peabody Sisters:  Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism (2005) won the Francis Parkman Prize, awarded by the Society of American Historians; the Mark Lynton History Prize, awarded by the Anthony Lukas Prize Project jointly sponsored by the Columbia School of Journalism and Harvard's Nieman Foundation; the Massachusetts Book Award in nonfiction; and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in biography and memoir. 

Marshall has been the recipient of fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Massachusetts Artists Foundation, and she has been a fellow of the Massachusetts Historical Society since 1991.  During 2006-2007 she was a fellow in creative nonfiction writing at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University where she began work on a biography of Ebe Hawthorne, Nathaniel's brilliant and reclusive older sister.

(Courtesy of http://www.emerson.edu/writing_lit_publishing/faculty.cfm?facultyID=2513)

The Peabody Sisters is available at The Thoreau Society Shop at Walden Pond:

www.shopatwaldenpond.org

"All the World is Seashore" reception, Friday, July 9, 2010, 6:30-8:00 p.m., Concord Free Public Library: Members of the Thoreau Society registered for the 2010 Annual Gathering are cordially invited to attend a reception (refreshments, including wine and beer; opportunity for display viewing; and a brief program) to mark the opening of the show "All the World is Seashore," which will be on exhibit in the Concord Free Public Library art gallery throughout July, August, and September of 2010.  The exhibition--a collaboration between the library's William Munroe Special Collections and Concord artist Kristina Joyce--will feature Kristina's artwork and calligraphy, art from the CFPL's permanent collection, freshwater shells from Concord, observations by Thoreau, and a selection from the CFPL's holdings of photographs by Alfred Winslow Hosmer and Herbert Wendell Gleason.  Clamshell Hill--a Native American freshwater midden on the Sudbury River in Concord--will form a focus of the display.  Kristina Joyce will speak briefly at the reception.