The Thoreau Society has been celebrating its Annual Gathering since its founding in 1941. Thoreau Society members and enthusiasts from around the world gather in Concord each year around the time of Thoreau’s birthday on July 12.
Our Keynote speakers have featured a diverse group of individuals, all inspired by Thoreau in some way, such as Joyce Carol Oates, Arun Gandhi, and Edward O. Wilson. Milestones marked by Annual Gatherings include the discovery of the Walden cabin by Roland Robbins in 1944, the first open house of the Thoreau Institute in 1998, and the celebration of the 200th Anniversary of Thoreau’s birth in 2017.
2027: Thoreau’s Essential Elements: Science and the Living EartH
In Walden, Thoreau wrote, “Shall I not have intelligence with the earth?” Thoreau’s lifelong engagement with Nature was an essential element in his development as a writer and thinker. His turn to science was an effort to understand the earth, air, and water that shaped his world. But he also continued to identify himself as a Transcendentalist, and he was careful to root these beliefs in the living earth. What role did 19th century science play in his evolving Transcendentalism? How did his work anticipate later scientific developments? How do his later, more scientific writings fit alongside his other work? What does it mean to view Thoreau as a scientist when that term was rapidly changing? How did he understand the connection between the human and more-than-human world? How did science shape his approach to social reform? The 2027 Annual Gathering invites proposals that explore the many aspects of Thoreau’s engagement with the natural, scientific world.
2026: Living Well: Thoreau, Health, and Flourishing
“Nature is but another name for health,” Thoreau wrote in “Huckleberries,” even as he faced his own final illness. The 2026 Annual Gathering explored what Thoreau and his time can teach us about flourishing (physical, mental, spiritual, social, and ecological) and the conditions that support or undermine it. Together, we asked how we can be well, and live well, in a troubled world.
2025: Thoreau’s REVOLUTIONS
In 2025, amid the multi-year celebration of the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, the Annual Gathering explored Thoreau’s efforts to understand the political, social, cultural, economic, and spiritual revolutions that shaped his world, and his efforts to foment revolution in his own time.
Explore the 2025 Annual Gathering Program
2024: thoreau & RESILIENCE
In 2024, the Annual Gathering examined Thoreau and resilience writ large — nature’s resilience, Thoreau’s pursuit of cultural and political resilience, the resilient individual who was Thoreau, and the resilience of Thoreau’s legacy in our own times.
Highlights included the following:
Dana S. Brigham Memorial Keynote Lecture: “Thoreau’s Threshold: Temporal Imagination as Public Good”
“The Durable Texts: Editing Thoreau”
“A Conversation: Personal Stories of Thoreauvian Resilience”