Annual Gathering, July 10-14, 2019

 DAY

EVENT

LOCATION

Th, Fri, Sat, Sun

W E D N E S D A Y, JULY 10, 2018

1. Opening Remarks, Michael Frederick

2. Performance: Henry Thoreau's Heroic Journey, Michael Sperber, Director

3. Performance: Thoreau/Twain: Brothers on the River, Tammy Rose, Director

 W, F, Sat, Sun

T H U R S D A Y,  JULY 11, 2018

See the PDF program for schedule changes.

Th 6:30 am

Punkatasset Hill Walk with Peter Alden. Meet at Keyes Rd to carpool.

8:45-10:15 am

Main Level

1. Figure in the Mist: The Death of John Thoreau Jr. and the Changing Worlds of A Week, Audrey Raden, New York Theological Seminary

2. How the Crystal Hills Became Woedolor Mountain, Wende Lark Greenberg, PhD

3. “What’s the Railroad to Me?”: Teaching the Complexity of Thoreau’s Response to Technology, Christina Root

4. Rebecca Kneale Gould, PhD, panel chair

Lower Level

1. Cultivating a different kind of garden: Thoreau, Lawn-care, and the Modern Mowing Mania, Michael Stoneham, Humanities Chair, University of Pittsburgh Johnstown, panel chair

2. As a Forest of Wildlife: Observations on The Working Landscapes of Thoreau’s New England and the Adirondacks, NY, Marianne Patinelli-Dubay, Environmental Philosophy Program, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry

3.Lessons from a Replica House (or, I and Thoreau's Chimney), Ed Gillin, Professor of English, SUNY-Geneseo

4. Power politics, inspired persistence, and good luck in Thoreau’s Maine Woods, Jym St. Pierre

Th 10:30-noon

Main Level

Presentations 

Maine Woods Panel, Rediscovering the Maine Woods: Thoreau’s Legacy in an Unsettled Land.

John J. Kucich, discussion with Robert Thorson, Laura Dassow Walls, Dale Potts, and Chris Sockalexis

Masonic

 Lower Level

1. Dark Thoreau Revisited, Geoff Wisner

2. “Tell me who you go with”… The Ellery Connection, Theodore David, JD, Professor,  panel chair

3. The Other 'Hermit" of Thoreau's Walden Pond: The Sojourn of Edmond Stuart Hotham, Terry Barkley, M.A.T., M.L.S., C.M.S. of Law and Taxation

4. A Plummet Line, a Pencil, an Arrowhead, Catherine Staples, Villanova University

Th 12-1 pm

Special Event: Lasting Legacy Program with Ron Hoag, Michael Schleifer, and Ted David

This session is open to those who would like to learn more about naming the Thoreau Society as a beneficiary in their estate planning. A complimentary lunch catered by the Colonial Inn will be provided by the Thoreau Society.

Heritage Room at

Th 1-2 pm

Presentations

Masonic

Main Level

1. Sounds like Steam Spirit: the Railroad as Inspiration and Crisis in Thoreau’s Walden, Henrik Otterberg, PhD

Lower Level

1. Life on Fire: The Technology of Walden, Diana Lorence

Th 1-2 pm

Special Event, Thoreau Room, Colonial Inn

1. Tea With Thoreau, Sinton Stranger, USC, MSTC, Urasenke Tankokai LAA, Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, docent Chinese and Japanese Tea Garden

Main Level  

1. Engineering Through Junior High Language Arts with Henry David Thoreau, Donna Marie Przybojewski, Junior High Language Arts teacher at St. Benedict Catholic School

2. After STEM: Henry David Thoreau’s Contributions toward Consilience, John Barthell, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, University of Central Oklahoma

3. Thoreau’s Questions, Geoff Wisner

4. Jayne Gordon, panel chair

Lower Level

1. Thoreau and Humor, Michael Schleifer, panel chair

2. Thoreau in Billerica, MA, Marlies Henderson

3. Thoreau: A Teacher of Teachers, Hunter Cambon, English Teacher, St. Thomas Aquinas High School

4. Wheeler-Thoreau Shanty Site Discovery, Jeffrey Craig

Th 2:15-3:45 pm

Special Event: Walden Walk with Robert Thorson

1. The Making of Walden Pond, Robert Thorson, Professor of Geology, University of Connecticut (Meet at Keyes Rd to carpool.)

Th 4-5:30 pm

Main Level

Presentations

Saving Thoreau’s Birthplace: How Citizens Rallied to Bring Henry Out of the Woods, Lucille Stott

Masonic

Lower Level

1. Henry David Thoreau in Defense of Uncivil Disobedience, James Mathew, MD

2. Concord Community and Emerson's Antislavery Movement, Izumi Ogura, Daito Bunka University

Th 7:30-9 pm

Emerson Society Panel

Transcendentalism: Men and Women Conversing, Part I, co-sponsored by the Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and Louisa May Alcott Societies

1. The Vexed Nature of Home: Concord in 1845, Sarah Ann Wider

2. Margaret Fuller and John Neal Conversing, Fritz Fleischmann, Professor of English, Babson College

3. Helen Thoreau’s Brother Henry and Lucretia Mott, Audrey Raden, PhD, New York Theological Seminary

4. Darkened Domesticity: The Sturgis Sisters in Dialogue with Emersonian Poetics, Kathy Lawrence, Aff. Associate Professor, Department of English, Georgetown University

5. Phyllis Cole, panel chair

Masonic

 Masonic

W, Th, Sat, Sun

F R I D A Y,  JULY 12, 2018

See the PDF program for schedule changes.

Fri 6:30 am

Field Trip: A Walk to Thoreau’s Boiling Spring & Deep Cut, Henrik Otterberg, Corinne Smith, and Bob Young. Meet at Keyes Rd to carpool.

Main Level

1. Henry's Best Science, Robert Thorson, Professor of Geology, University of Connecticut

2.'I Should Like to Invent Useful Machinery' — John Muir, Alexander von Humboldt, and Henry David Thoreau," J. William T. "Bill" Youngs

3. Thoreau the Surveyor from the perspective of a modern day surveyor, David Lee Ingram,Professional Land Surveyor

4. Living with Future Shock from Thoreau to the Present, Pamela Mack, Professor of History, Clemson University

5. Rochelle Johnson, panel chair

Lower Level

1. Henry D. Thoreau and Basic Income, Brent Ranalli, Research Scholar, Ronin Institute; Editor, Thoreau Society Bulletin

2. Thoreau in his extremes: technology as a way of reproducing the “quiet desperation”, Ferenc Szabó, Doctoral student, University of Szeged

3. Thoreau and the U.S. Elections: The Mechanics of How to Vote With Your Life, Joanna Greenfield, MFA

4. Wallace Kaufman’s Coming Out of the Woods: An Anti-pastoral Response to Thoreau and Technology, Richard J. Schneider

5. Robert Gross, panel chair

Main Level

Transcendentalism: Men and Women Conversing, Part II, co-sponsored by the Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and Louisa May Alcott Societies

1. Rewriting the Life of an ‘Ultra-Radical’: Ralph Waldo Emerson on Margaret Fuller in Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Alice de Galzain, University of Edinburgh, Ph.D. Student

2. Woman Conversing: Feminine Philosophers at the Concord School of Philosophy, Tiffany K. Wayne, PhD

3. Let It Be Known: Fuller’s Voice in Emerson’s Work on Women’s Rights, Jennifer N Daly, Doctor of Letters candidate, Drew University

4. Standing Her Ground: Caroline Healey Dall and the Male Transcendentalists, Helen R. Deese

5. Sarah Ann Wider, panel chair

Lower Level

1. Chopped & Reconstructed: How the Early Publishing History of Thoreau’s *Journal* Reveals an Engineered Canonization, William Coughlin

2. The Engineering of Henry David Thoreau’s Reputation in Louisa May Alcott’s ‘Moods’, Tracey A. Cummings, Associate Professor of English, Lock Haven University, panel chair

3. Thoreau’s Cabin and the Art of Carpentry: In his Days and Today, Nikita Pokrovsky, Professor and Head, Department of General Sociology, National Research University - Higher School of Economics, Russia

4. Thoreau Fever and the Walden Phenomenon in China, Julia Du, PhD

Masonic

Main Level

1. Printing Thoreau on Period Presses, Randy Newcomer, Typesetter at Conestoga Press

2. Michael Stoneham, panel chair

Fri 1-2 pm

Special Event:  Fellowship Reception

Reception with Marjorie Harding Memorial Fellowship Awardee David K. Leff for the Marjorie Harding Fellowship and Awardee Jake A. McGuiness for the Graduate Student Fellowship

Thoreau Institute

Main Level

The Innermost House Foundation Panel

The Transparent Eyeball: The Art of Photography as the Technology of Transcendentalism

1. Transcendental Douglass, John Stauffer, Professor of English and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University

2. Transcendentalism Gone West: Ansel Adams and the End of History, Michael Lorence, Innermost House, panel chair

3. The Transcendental Moment, Melinda Levin, Professor of Media Arts at the University of North Texas

Lower Level

1. “May we not see God?”: Henry David Thoreau’s Doctrine of Spiritual Senses, Lydia Willsky-Ciollo, PhD, Fairfield University, panel chair

2. The Engineering of the Senses: Thoreau, Politics, and Literary Form, Alex Moskowitz, Doctoral Candidate, Boston College

3. Sympathy with Intelligence: Thoreau's Scientific Practice, William Homestead, MA, Communication Studies; MS, Environmental Studies; MFA Creative Writing, Associate Professor, New England College

4. The Divided Thoreau: Romantic poet, or Seminal Scientist/Forest Ecologist?, David Gordon, PhD, Instructor in Philosophy and Ethics at Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania

Special Event: Concord Free Public Library Presentation

1. Farewell open house with Leslie Wilson, Curator of the William Munroe Special Collections of the Concord Free Public Library

CFPL

 Main Level

Sponsored by SUNY Geneseo, The Thoreau Society, and the Walden Woods Project

1. Reverse Engineering Thoreau, Paul Schacht, Professor of English, SUNY Geneseo

Lower Level

1. Thoreau as Mythic Engineer, Keith Badger, MST

2. Formal Elements: Thoreau's Textual Technologies, Karah Mitchell, Graduate Teaching Fellow, University of North Carolina--Chapel Hill

3. “Yankee in Canada,” Cape Cod, and Thoreau’s Re-engineered America, Jake McGiness, PhD Student, University of Notre Dame

4. Phyllis Cole, panel chair

Fri 4-5:30 pm

Special Event: Perspectives of Henry's Pond in Winter: Surveying Procedures, Drafting Techniques, Tools and Tricks of Thoreau's Trade, Kim Buchheit, at William Munroe Special Collections of the Concord Free Public Library (workshop on Thoreau’s Surveying of Walden Pond)

CFPL

Fri 5:30-7:30 pm

Dinner on your own

Fri 7:30-8:30 pm

First Parish

Wed, Th, Fri, Sun

S A T U R D A Y,  JULY 13, 2018

See the PDF program for schedule changes.

Sat 10:45-Noon

Dana S. Brigham Memorial Panel

Our keynote speaker, Henry Petroski, is unfortunately unable to be with us for the Annual Gathering due to health issues. While wishing Henry a speedy recovery, we have replaced the Keynote Address with a panel discussion. Please join us on Saturday, 10:45-noon, at First Parish, Concord for a conversation moderated by educator Jayne Gordon on “Nature, Technology, and the Connected Life.” 

Our distinguished panelists are Lawrence Buell (Powell M. Cabot Research Professor of American Literature, Harvard University emeritus), Rebecca Kneale Gould (Associate Professor of Environmental Studies, Middlebury College), Richard Higgins (Writer and editor and author of Thoreau and the Language of Trees), Robert Gross (Draper Professor of Early American History, University of Connecticut emeritus), and Robert Thorson (Professor of Geology, University of Connecticut).

First Parish

Sat 1:15-2:15 pm

Special Event: Presentation of the Henry David Thoreau Prize for Literary Excellence in Nature Writing

Deborah Cramer, author of The Narrow Edge, Smithsonian Ocean, and Great Water, will honor poet Mary Oliver (1935-2019), the Thoreau Prize Winner for 2019.

Masonic

Sat 2:30-3:45 pm

A Gathering of Poets on Henry David Thoreau: From Louisa May Alcott to Mary Oliver—Celebrating a Life of Contemplative Inspiration, David Leff, 2019 Marjorie Harding Memorial Fellow.

Join in a discussion, conversation, and reading of poets who have been moved to verse by Thoreau’s life and work.  Bring a favorite poem about Thoreau to read (your own or someone else’s) and add to the many voices he’s inspired.

Masonic

Main Level

Panel Sponsored by The Association for the Study of Literature and Environment

Engineering for the Planet, Rochelle Johnson, panel chair

1. Engineering the Self in Walden and Walden Two, Michelle Neely, Assistant Professor of English, Connecticut College

2. Thoreau Alone Again, Mark Noble, Associate Professor, Georgia State University

3. Thoreau's Eco-Erotics, Cristin Ellis, Associate Professor of English, University of Mississippi

4. Thoreau’s Philosophy of Description, Dominic Mastroianni, Associate Professor of English, Clemson University

5. Respondent: Rochelle Johnson, Professor of English & Environmental Studies, College of Idaho

Lower Level

1. Geraniums & Gentians: The Herbariums of Emily Dickinson & Henry David Thoreau, Ann Beebe, PhD, Associate Professor of English, University of Texas at Tyler

2. How Art Technology Inspires Life: Thoreau Reacts to Painted Panoramas, Corinne Smith

3.“Some Incidents Greatly Exaggerated”: Mabel Loomis Todd’s Pebble Painted by Sophia of the Cabin at Walden (or Not), Mary Jo Downey,  PhD, English and Literature instructor, SUNY Delhi

4. Thoreau’s smallest scale drawing: maps in the late Journal, Dennis Noson

5. Deborah Medenbach, panel chair

Sat 5:30-7:30 pm 

Banquet Dinner and Reception for Annual Gathering Panelists

Piano by Andrew Celentano

S U N D A Y,  JULY 14, 2018

See the PDF program for schedule changes.

Sun 7:30-10am

Special Event: Canoeing with Connection: Insights from Paddlers Past and Present with Deborah Medenbach (Meet at Keyes Road to carpool.)

Sunday Morning Workshops and Discussion Groups.  Please join us for interactive discussions at the Masonic Temple

Sun 10 am

Sunday Sermon First Parish

Transcendentalist Friendships, Rev. Dr. Jim Sherblom, Unitarian Universalist minister

Sun 10:15-11:15 am

Main Level

Lower Level

Presentations

1. Thoreau in Minnesota: A review of the life of the naturalist as field ornithologist, Gordon Andersson, MS

1. Searching for Thoreau: Exploring Technology to Disseminate a Nature-Based Ethos, Beverly Salas, M.Ed., National Writing Project Consultant

Main Level

Lower Level

Thoreau’s Walking Stick, Fly Wheel of Imagination, Leslie Bartlett, Sandy Bay Historical Society and Museums, Rockport on Cape Ann 

1. “‘Without Further Ado . . . 'and ‘On Your Way Out . . .’: Introductions, Prefaces, and Afterwords to Thoreau’s Writings, Joseph Hutcheson, English Instructor, Kennett Consolidated School District

Sun 12:30-2 pm

Sun 2:30-5 pm

Thoreau Society and Orchard House Panel

Laura Dassow Walls, Phyllis Cole, Helen Deese

Trinity Episcopal Church

81 Elm St. Concord

Sun 7-9:30 pm

Special Event: Film Screening and Panel Discussion 

Surveyor of the Soul, a film by Huey

Discussion led by Laura Dassow Walls 

See the PDF program for schedule changes.