John Burroughs: Nature Writing and Nineteenth-Century Science
June 15 - 19, 2008; Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY
This gathering will be the fifth in the John Burroughs Nature Writing Conference and Seminar Series. For the 2008 conference, we will consider the effects on literature of some of the scientific revolutions of the nineteenth-century, such as biological evolution, the magnitude of geologic time and consequent interpretations about the history of the earth, and the emerging sense of the environmental limitations of the planet.
Papers are delivered to plenary sessions of students, faculty, and visiting scholars. Topics could include Burroughs in relation to Charles Lyell, Charles Darwin, Herbert Spencer, or Henri Bergson; the development of conservation organizations such as the Museum of Natural History, the New York Botanical Gardens, the Audubon Society, the Boone and Crockett Club, and the Sierra Club; Burroughs seen in the light of geology, biogeography, ornithology, forestry, or other scientific disciplines; Burroughs and his circle of friends, such as Walt Whitman, John Muir, Theodore Roosevelt, Frank Chapman, and Fairfield Osborn; Burroughs and science education; science in nineteenth-century periodicals; Burroughs and genres of travel writing, natural history, and scientific discourse. Papers on any aspect of Burroughs’s life and career are also strongly encouraged.
The conference will be held at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, on June 15-19, 2008. The conference will include a special session in the Vassar College Special Collections to view their extensive Burroughs collection.
Send abstracts or proposals by March 31, 2008 to Jeff Walker, Department of Earth Science and Geography, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie. NY 12604. E-mail submissions should be in the form of a MS Word attachment sent to jewalker@vassar.edu
An ASLE-affiliated conference