New York Council for the Humanities: Reading Groups: Adult Reading Groups

Into the American Wilderness

This series explores the changing role that the natural world has played in the American experience, paying particular attention to more recent encounters with it and to works not typically associated with this theme. Each of the conversations centers on a book selected by Martin Woessner, a graduate student at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

The series opens with a discussion of The Meadowlands: Wilderness Adventures on the Edge of a City, by Robert Sullivan. Sullivan serves as the explorer, historian, archaeologist adn comic bard of the land beyond New York City .

This session focuses on The Monkey Wrench Gang, by Edward Abbey--a classic comic novel about a band of ecological saboteurs who take on urban expansion in the American Southwest.

A discussion of the humorous and sometimes poignant A Walk in the Woods: Resdiscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson, which makes the case for the conservation of the American wilderness.

The series concludes with a conversation about Dead Cities by Mike Davis. This collection of essays examines urban landscapes and challenges us to rethink our definition of "wilderness."