GREAT AMERICAN NATURALISTS: THE ROOTS AND IMPLICATIONS OF ENVIRONMENTALISM

     Beginning with Thoreau’s Walden and George Perkins Marsh’s (Dartmouth class of 1820)  Man and Nature, American naturalist-writers have played a major role in shaping our values and warning us about the importance of caring for the environment. John Burroughs, John Muir, Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, Terry Williams, Wallace Stegner and Bernd Heinrich have continued this tradition and have helped determine our current environmental laws and institutions.  These writers combine accurate observation, scientific knowledge of their time, and passionate concern for the natural world with skillful writing to convey a message with political and economic ramifications. 

The format for this course will be brief introductory remarks on the historical context and biographical background of each writer followed by group discussion.  Class participants will read and analyze key texts (approximately 20 – 30 pages each week) from each of these nine authors and discuss the political, ethical, scientific, economic, and spiritual implications expressed in their writing.   We will also examine the meaning of an ecocentric world view as well as the importance of the environment for the survival of civilization.  Contemporary local environmental issues like the impact of acid rain on the northern forest, the need for wilderness, and the conflict between the need for wildlife habitat and a growing population will be discussed.

Class is limited to 12 members.

LYNN PETERSON practiced surgery (for 40 years) and taught ethics (for 20 years) at  Harvard Medical School before moving to Vermont in 2004.  In 1983-85 he studied ethics at Oxford University before becoming Director of the Division of Medical Ethics and a member of the Faculty Committee of the Institute for Ethics in the Professions at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.  He has owned a home in Vermont’s Green Mountains for 17 years where he has appreciated the wonders of the natural world stimulating his study of naturalist  writers.  His concern for the environment and background in ethics led to his move to Vermont where he has become a director on the boards of two local environmental organizations.