A Program in Partnership with the Thoreau Society
Author talks and writing workshops that encourage critical thinking and perceptive writing about the world and ourselves.
Spring 2025
Unsettling Thoreau with John Kucich
Sunday, February 9
2:00 PM
Goodwin Forum, Concord Free Public Library
Free Event. Registration Required.
Register
Author John J. Kucich discusses his book Unsettling Thoreau: Native Americans, Settler Colonialism, and the Power of Place (University of Massachusetts Press, 2024).
Drawing on Indigenous studies and critiques of settler colonialism, as well as new materialist approaches that illustrate Thoreau’s radical reimagining of the relationship between humans and the natural world, Unsettling Thoreau explores the stakes of Thoreau’s effort to live mindfully and ethically in place when living alongside, or replacing marginalized peoples. By examining the whole scope of his writings, including the unpublished Indian Notebooks, and placing them alongside Native writers and communities in and beyond New England, this book gauges Thoreau’s effort to use Indigenous knowledge to reimagine a settler colonial world, without removing him from its trappings.
John J. Kucich is a Professor of English at BSU, teaching courses in American literature, Native American Literature, English education, and sustainability. He has coordinated the Sustainability Program and the Integrative Learning and Research Initiative. He currently serves as president of the Thoreau Society. Before coming to BSU, he taught high school English for ten years. He has published two books: Unsettling Thoreau: Native Americans, Settler Colonialism, and the Power of Place (University of Massachusetts Press, 2024) and Ghostly Communion: Cross-Cultural Spiritualism in Nineteenth-Century America (Dartmouth College Press, 2004), and edited two collections: Thoreau in the Nick of Time (Mercer University Press, 2025) and Rediscovering the Maine Woods: Thoreau’s Legacy in an Unsettled Land (University of Massachusetts Press, 2018).
Co-sponsored with the Concord Free Public Library.
Windswept: Author Annabel Abbs-Street in conversation with Catherine Staples
Sunday, February 23, 2025
2pm
FREE Zoom event. Registration required.
Annabel Abbs-Streets shares her new book, Windswept: Walking the Paths of Trailblazing Women, a beautifully written meditation on connecting with the outdoors through the simple act of walking.
What Does it Mean to Love a Forest?
Thursday, March 6, 2025
7pm
At Thoreau Farm and online.
$10 to attend at Thoreau Farm / $5 to attend online. Registration Required.
Only those who love trees should cut them, writes forester Ethan Tapper. In How to Love a Forest, he asks: what does it mean to live in a time in which ecosystems are in retreat and extinctions rattle the bones of the earth? How do we respond to the harmful legacies of the past? How do we use our species’ incredible power to heal rather than to harm? How do we reach towards a better future?
Ethan is joined in conversation by Brian Donahue.
Ethan Tapper is a forester, bestselling author, birder, naturalist and digital creator from Vermont. He has been recognized as a thought-leader and a disruptor in the forestry and conservation community of the northeastern United States and beyond, winning multiple regional and national awards for his work. Ethan is a regular contributor to Northern Woodlands magazine and a variety of other publications, and is a digital creator with tens of thousands of followers on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and Facebook. In his personal life, Ethan works, writes, hunts and birds at Bear Island and plays in his 10-piece punk band — The Bubs.
Slow Wood: Brian Donahue in Conversation with Amity Wilczek
Sunday, March 23
2pm
At Thoreau Farm
At Thoreau Farm and online.
$10 to attend at Thoreau Farm / $5 to attend online. Registration Required.
A radical proposal for healing the relationship between humans and forests through responsible, sustainable use of local and regional wood in home building.
Brian Donahue is professor emeritus of American Environmental Studies at Brandeis University. He is a farmer, historian, and conservationist, and the author of prize-winning books about the past and future of New England farms and forests. He lives in Gill, MA.
All registration fees for Write Connection at Thoreau Farm programs are non-refundable.
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