A mixture of creative nature writers and scholars: the poet David Baker (Midwest Eclogue) and the non-fiction essayists Joy Williams (III Nature, Florida Keys, The Quick and the Dead) and Janisse Ray (Ecology of a Cracker Childhood) along with a group of  'eco-critics' will be talking about the literatures and cultures of various American environments (New England, the Gulf Coast, the mid-west, Los Angeles, to mention a few places); John Elder from Middlebury will give the keynote address on the future of the field.

A field trip will take place to both the Nichols Arboretum and the Matthei Botanical Gardens; in the arboretum, we will learn about native species preservation, our ancient prairie remnant in Dow field, and also 'oak openings,' an ecological feature John Knott is currently writing about.