Thoreau's Wildflowers & Thoreau's Animals
Taught by Geoff Wisner
Geoff Wisner writes for periodicals including the Christian Science Monitor, The Quarterly Conversation, Warscapes, and Words Without Borders. He is the editor of Thoreau’s Animals (Yale University Press, 2017) and Thoreau’s Wildflowers (Yale, 2016). His earlier books are A Basket of Leaves: 99 Books That Capture the Spirit of Africa and African Lives: An Anthology of Memoirs and Autobiographies.
Just in time for Henry David Thoreau’s 200th birthday in July, find out how Thoreau’s observations of the flowering plants and wildlife of his hometown shaped his spiritual life and inspired some of his finest writing.
Drawing on the two million words of Thoreau’s Journal, author and editor Geoff Wisner presents Thoreau’s words alongside the art of Barry Moser and Debby Cotter Kaspari. Learn how Thoreau’s search for the earliest spring flowers and the last colors of autumn informed his faith in nature, how Thoreau became an ecologist before the term was coined, and how he revived frozen creatures, hypnotized a woodchuck, and even captured a flying squirrel in his handkerchief.
Copies of Thoreau's Animals and Thoreau's Wildflowers will be available for purchase at the talk.
