Featured Book: Lost Woods: The Discovered Writings of Rachel Carson Moderator: H. Patricia Hynes, Professor of Environmental Health, Boston University
The readings are organized into 4 parts [for each week] which progress from the threshold of Carson’s writing career to the conclusion of her life.
Week 1: Part 1 offers a story she wrote for publication as a teenager and early writings of the 1930s and ‘40s, including a few preludes for Under the Sea-Wind, field notes from watching the fall migration of hawks, an imagistic portrait of an island on the Sheepscot River in Maine, and a section from a Conservation in Action publication on the national wildlife refuge at Mattamuskeet, North Carolina published by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Week 2: Part 2 highlights Carson’s theme of human ignorance and apathy regarding the conservation of natural resources and habitats and the relentless development of destructive technology gains in volume and tone. The contrast of human haste to develop weapons and disregard for their impact on ecosystems with Nature’s “so deliberate, so unhurried, so inexorable” ways becomes progressively more marked in her work.
Week 3: Part 3 (forthcoming)
Week 4: Part 4 will address a theme that weaves thread-like through all of the parts - the theme of spirituality and nature.
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