An Author Talk from Dr. Barbara Mossberg
Mossberg returns to the Thoreau Farmhouse to explore “The World as Walden,” Thoreau’s meaning to writers today, and his role in her recent eco-memoir, Here for the Present.
Reading from her work as an example of inspiration from Thoreau’s writing in “thinking like the sun,” Mossberg shares Thoreau’s influence on the book, the challenge as a California laureate, city’s poet in residence, to make of any place a “Walden” in her vision and writings.
She will also share about her project with current eco students in their own essays entitled, “My Walden,” showing the remarkable way Thoreau is influencing today’s 20-year-olds who are in environmental studies, education, leadership, and other fields.
Saturday, September 10
7:00pm
Free. $5 Suggested Donation.
Registration is required. Space is limited.
for in person program
This lecture will also be streamed online. Register on Zoom for Online Access
Dr. Barbara Mossberg is a prizewinning teacher and memoirist on the page and stage and in the air, with recent books (Here for the Present, A Grammar of Happiness in the Present Imperfect, Live from the Poet’s Perch, and Sometimes the Woman in the Mirror Is Not You, and other hopeful news postings), in poetry, essays, one-woman plays, and radio and podcast programs. Actor, playwright, dramaturg, literary scholar, diplomat, and California laureate/city poet in residence, Barbara is Professor of Practice, Clark Honors College at the University of Oregon.
She has taught creative writing and literature at public, private, large, small, traditional and innovative colleges and universities, including Indiana University, Union Institute and University, Mt. Vernon College (Distinguished Institute Scholar), Pacifica Graduate Institute (Engaged Humanities Faculty), and the University of Helsinki, where she twice was Senior Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer and Bicentennial Chair of American Studies. She has held administrative and leadership positions at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and National University, and both teaching and leadership positions at California State University – Monterey Bay, as founding dean of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences and Director of the Integrated Studies Special Major, at Goddard College, as President and Professor from 1997-2001, and where she was awarded the title President Emerita in 2001, and at the University of Oregon, where as tenured professor in the English Department she co-founded and co-directed the American Studies program, as well as served as acting dean of the graduate school and director of the graduate Individualized Studies: Interdisciplinary Program.
Mossberg has also held distinguished national and federal appointments, including representing the University of Oregon and United States as U.S. Scholar in Residence to the U.S. Department of State (American Studies Specialist), Senior Fellow to the American Council on Education, and Poet Laureate for the Lilly Conference on College and University Teaching. Mossberg is known as a dedicated mentor for writers from school-age through 101, and studies creativity in aging.