We will sample the best and most influential American environmental writing, using as our text Bill McKibben’s excellent American Earth (Library of America, 2008).

We will discuss what makes the writing successful and also how it reflects evolving conceptions of the natural world and of how we should live with it. Readings will include selections from Thoreau, John Muir, Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, Wendell Berry, Terry Tempest Williams, and Barbara Kingsolver among others. We will read some poetry (handouts) but mainly nonfiction prose (creative nonfiction).

Instructor John Knott is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Michigan and will lead this study group for those 50 and above which meets for one hour and 45 minutes on Wednesdays from October 18 through November 15.