The Wild Bunch: A Conversation with Curt Meine and Gavin Van Horn
An important new essay collection avoids the old arguments about wilderness and instead offers 26 meditations on living well in our places.
Tagged: Ideas of Nature
The (Built) Environmental Revolution: A Conversation with Sarah Williams Goldhagen
We know nature is good for our brains. Can buildings be, too? A preeminent architectural critic calls for a radical shift in how we design the places where we live, work, and play.
From TNT to Tallgrass: Prairie Restoration at a Munitions Plant Turned National Grassland
It was the world’s largest munitions plant. Now it’s a rich grassland teeming with wildflowers, hikers, and even a bison herd. Illinois’s Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie offers an environmental success story for our time.
Knowing Prairies: An Essay in Comic Form
What can the world’s first restored prairie tell us about living with the land? The University of Wisconsin–Madison Arboretum inspires one artist to reflect on ecological restoration and what we call nature.
The Art of Anxious Environments
Through art, Yayoi Kusama takes an extreme challenge, mental illness, and connects to millions, inviting viewers into the curious and profound beauty of her interior world. Encountering Kusama’s art inspired the author of this essay to reach through her own “a wall of silence” and use art to express her anxious environment.
Politics for a Maimed World: A Conversation with Jedediah Purdy
The acclaimed cultural critic and author of “After Nature” set off to explore the uncharted depths of the Anthropocene. But he found Thoreau there waiting for him.
Creationism, Mastodons, and Natural History in Kentucky
In northern Kentucky, conflicting stories about natural history mirror the religious and scientific debates of the late eighteenth century.
Natural Food to Eat When Changing the World
Two recipes drawn from research reveal how cookbook authors believed natural food had the ability to withstand physical, moral, and social degradation.
Rethinking Frank Lloyd Wright in the 21st Century
Frank Lloyd Wright wanted to embrace the natural world and push the boundaries of modern design. What do these conflicting desires mean for environmental teaching and thinking today?
Four Greco-Roman Perspectives on Humans and the Environment
What did ancient people think about human impacts on the environment? Four passages offer perspectives from Greece and Rome.
