Thoreau's Nature: Ethics, Politics, and the Wild (Modernity and Political Thought)

Thoreau's Nature: Ethics, Politics, and the Wild explores how Thoreau crafted a life open to 'the Wild, ' a term that marks the startling element of foreignness in every object of experience, however familiar. Thoreau's encounters with nature, Bennett argues, allowed him to resist his all-too-human tendency toward intellectual laziness, social conformity, and political complacency. Bennett pursues this theme by constructing a series of dialogues between Thoreau and our contemporaries: Foucault on identity and power, Haraway on the nature/culture of division, Hollywood celebrities on the Walden Woods Project, the National Endowment for the Humanities on politics and art, and Kafka on the question of political idealism. The pertinence to the late 20th century of Thoreau's pursuit of independent judgment, ecological foresight, and moral nobility becomes apparent through these engagements.--Publisher description Cover Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents Series Editor's Introduction Preface to the New Edition Preface Bibliographical Key 1. Why Thoreau Hates Politics The They American Politics Reformers and Dissenters A Night in the Concord Jail 2. Techniques of the Self Moving Inward Idealizing a Friend Keeping Quiet Going Outside Microvisioning Living Doubly Hoeing Beans Eating with Care Building the Sojourner 3. Writing a Heteroverse Pliny's Assumption Ktaadn and the Mosquito Universe and Heteroverse Swamps, Winter Animals, and Frogs Mythological Earnestness Inflection A Quiet Acknowledgment Thoreau and Haraway 4. Art and Politics The Walden Woods Project Contra Thoreau Contra Politics Art/Politics A Minor Literature? A Word for Politics 5. Fronting Thoreau Temperament and Sensibility On Transcending Nietzsche, Freud, and Genealogy America Community and Justice Kafka's Laugh Political Sojourning Index About the Author Thoreau's encounters with nature, the author argues, allowed him to resist his all-too-human tendency toward intellectual laziness, social conformity and political complacency. Bennett pursues this theme by constructing a series of dialogues between Thoureau and modern contemporaries.