Past Annual Gatherings
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, 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.
2019
Engineering Thoreau: Nature, Technology & the Connected Life
July 10-14th, 2019, Concord, Massachusetts
Dana S. Brigham Memorial Keynote Panel: Jayne Gordon (Moderator), Lawrence Buell, Rebeccal Kneale Gould, Richard Higgins, Robert Gross, and Robert Thorson
2018
Thoreau's Ecological and Cultural Vision for a Tolerable Future
July 12-15th, 2018, Concord, Massachusetts
Dana S. Brigham Memorial Keynote Speaker: Aaron Sachs
2017
Thoreau Bicentennial
Celebrating the Life, Works and Legacy of Henry David Thoreau
July 11-16th, 2017, Concord, Massachusetts
Dana S. Brigham Memorial Keynote Speaker: Terry Tempest Williams
2016
75th Annual Gathering, Finding the Extraordinary in the Ordinary
Thoreau as Proto-Ecologist, Reformer, and Visionary
July 7-10, 2016, Concord, Massachusetts
Dana S. Brigham Memorial Keynote Speaker: Elizabeth Witherell, PhD.
2015
Thoreau’s Sense of Place
July 9-12, 2015, Concord, Massachusetts
Dana S. Brigham Memorial Keynote Speaker: Robert Gross
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2014
Thoreau’s Creative Genius: Connecting the Arts, Sciences, and Higher Law.
July 10-13, 2014, Concord, Massachusetts
Dana S. Brigham Memorial Keynote Speaker: John Stauffer
Agenda
2013
Henry D. Thoreau: Mystic, Transcendentalist, and Natural Philosopher to Boot
July 10-14, Concord, Massachusetts
Dana S. Brigham Memorial Keynote Speaker: Robert Richardson
2012
Celebrating 150 Years of Henry David Thoreau's Life, Works, and Legacy
July 12 – 15, 2012 Concord, Massachusetts
Dana S. Brigham Memorial Keynote Speaker: Edward O Wilson
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2011
Henry David Thoreau's Environmental Ethos: Then & Now
July 7 – 10, 2011 Concord, Massachusetts
Dana S. Brigham Memorial Keynote Speaker: Laura Dassow Walls
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2010
Henry David Thoreau & New England Transcendentalism: Then & Now
July 8 – 11, 2010 Concord, Massachusetts
Dana S. Brigham Memorial Keynote Speaker: Megan Marshall, Professor, Emerson College
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2009
Social Awareness: Thoreau and the Reform Movement
July 9 – 12, 2009 Concord, Massachusetts
Dana S. Brigham Memorial Keynote Speaker: John T. Matteson
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2008
The Individual and the State:The Politics of Thoreau in Our Time
July 10-13, 2008 Concord, Massachusetts
Dana S. Brigham Memorial Keynote Speaker: Dr. Lawrence Buell, Powell M. Cabot Professor of American Literature, Harvard University
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2007
Simplify, Simplify: Thoreau's Timeless Message
July 12-15, 2007 Concord, Massachusetts
Dana S. Brigham Memorial Keynote Speaker: Scott Russell Sanders
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2006
Mountains, Seashores, Moonlight: Thoreau's Exploration of Wildness
July 6-9, 2006 Concord, Massachusetts
Dana S. Brigham Memorial Keynote Speaker: Donald M. Whaley
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2005
Thoreau: Nature, Science, and Higher Laws
July 7-10, 2005 Concord, Massachusetts
Dana S. Brigham Memorial Keynote Speaker: Michael Kammen
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2004
Walden: Of Its Time, For our Time A Sesquicentennial Celebration
July 8-11, 2004 Concord, Massachusetts
Dana S. Brigham Memorial Keynote Speaker: Leo Marx
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2003
Thoreau and the Emersonian Influence
July 10-13, 2003 Concord, Massachusetts
Dana S. Brigham Memorial Keynote Speaker: Robert N. Hudspeth
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2002
The Spiritual and Political Mind of Thoreau
July 11-14, 2002 Concord, Massachusetts
Dana S. Brigham Memorial Keynote Speaker: Lewis Hyde
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2001
60th Anniversary
July 12-15, 2001 Concord, Massachusetts
Dana S. Brigham Memorial Keynote Speaker: Donald Worster
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