Reading Thoreau in the 21st Century
Whither and Why
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12901268 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Rebecca Kneale Gould (Middlebury College, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 16 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Publication date | 2023-02-18 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal for the Study of Religion Nature and Culture (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1749-4907 • E-ISSN: 1749-4915 |
| Publisher | Equinox Publishing (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1558/jsrnc.25139 |
| OpenAlex | W4327728168 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 16 |
This essay offers a critical re-assessment of Henry David Thoreau’s life and legacy in the context of contemporary critiques of the mainstream environmental tradition. It takes seriously concerns raised about Thoreau’s status as a privileged white male, but calls for more nuance. In particular, the essay challenges those portraits of Thoreau that emphasize Thoreau’s status as a devotee of American nature religion to the exclusion of Thoreau’s significant contributions as an abolitionist and as a prescient critic of an emergent culture of consumption that relied on slavery for its success. The essay assesses the ambivalent legacies that Thoreau left in his wake, demonstrating those moments when Thoreau’s public life as a social critic chafed against his most deeply held spiritual orientations and practices. This essay also argues for the necessity of reading and teaching Thoreau side-by-side with the work of Black writers whose renderings of human-nature relationships both resonate with and depart from Thoreau’s Transcendentalist vision
Aesthetics · Ambivalence · Art · Consumption (sociology · Context (archaeology · Environmental ethics · Ideology · Literature · Mainstream · Political science · Politics · Psychoanalysis · Reading (process · Sociology · Theology · American Environmental and Regional History · American Literature and Culture · History · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Thoreau and American Literature
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |