Although I do not generally make a point of emphasizing it, my lectures and writings are based upon several sources: reading, reflection, research, observation and fieldwork, correspondence, and discussion with students and colleagues. For any course and its set of lectures, my goal is to blend all of these into presentations that cover the appropriate topics and themes related to the subject area in such a way that essential elements are brought into focus and presented so that the ultimate experience of the student is the integrative perspective of knowledge and understanding.
Much of what I present in class is the outcome of wide reading, but I have seldom documented that reading for any particular course. It has been my personal intellectual habit since my days in high school to read widely and in particular to read those sources that offer angles of vision oblique to the conventional approaches to the subject. I have never been satisfied to accept the normative scholarship on any subject area and have always sought to broaden the context of study by wide reading and to intensify my analysis of any topic by looking at sharply different areas that may have some bearing upon understanding my own subject.
My readings in ethics and spirituality, for instance, have been supplemented by my readings in systems theory and business management; my studies of southern religion have been infused by my readings of Nineteenth Century agricultural and industrial technology. My studies of the ecology and traditions of hunting are tempered by much reading in the area of animal liberation and animal rights as well as in the literature of ritual and worship. I have been unable in my own intellectual pursuits or my work as a scholar to accept the neat territorial divisions that have driven and divided scholarship in the colleges and universities.
Often when I read technical scholarly works, I am reminded of John Macmurray's observation that "Much of what passess for knowledge among us is really the half-hearted effort to prove the falsity of what we know to be true." A lot of what is called knowledge is also the effort to ignore what is obvious and manifest to all but scholars. There is a place for the disciplined reading that makes a scholar the master of any discipline; no one can claim that status without that discipline. But scholarship is not the end of learning and the teacher of non-specialists must broaden the narrow readings of scholarship if it is ever to be hoped to bring non-specialists to interest and understanding.
What follows here is an interim inventory of readings that have had effect or bearing upon the formation of the ideas I present in Religion and Ecology. I have collected them here in part to remind myself of the truth of what I have written in the paragraphs above but also to invite students to use any of these works to take up these subjects for themselves. The readings here have roots that go far back into my personal intellectual development, but they reflect my active reading during the 1993-1995 period. These works have also served me as I wrote and photographed "People and the Land."
The books listed here are, for the most part, in my personal library and the list does not reflect library borrowings[1] nor does it reflect several dozen titles related to fly-fishing read during this period.[2]
Poems & Poetry:
T. S. Eliot, The Wasteland, Four Quartets
W. B. Yeats, The Collected Poems
e.e. cummings,Poems, 1923-1954
Wendell Berry, Collected Poems
Jim Harrison, The Theory and Practise of Rivers
Essays
Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America
_____,What Are People For?
_____, Home Economics
_____, The Gift of Good Land
_____, Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community
Jim Kilgo, Deep Enough For Ivorybills
_____, Inheritance of Horses
Franklin Burroughs, Horry and the Waccamaw
_____, Billy Watson's Croker Sack
Jim Harrison, Just Before Dark
Christopher Lasch, The True and Only Heaven: Progress and Its Critics
David E. Shi, The Simple Life: Plain Living and High Thinking in American Culture
Rivers and Waters
Lyman P. Van Slyke, Yangtze: Nature, History, and the River
Roderick L. Haig-Brown, A River Never Sleeps, Measure of the Year
Wilma Dykeman, The French Broad
Norman MacLean, A River Runs Through It
David James Duncan, The River Why
Janet Lembke, River Time
Michael Allen, Western Rivermen, 1763-1861: Ohio and Mississippi Boatmen and the Myth of the Alligator Horse
H. E. Bates, Down the River
R. Kay Gresswell and Anthony Huxley, Standard Encyclopedia of the World's Rivers and Lakes
Kenneth Grahame, Paths to the River Bank: The Origins of The Wind in the Willows
J. R. Schubel, The Life & Death of the Chesapeake Bay
Wildlife & Hunting
Raymond Bonner, At the Hand of Man: Peril and Hope for Africa's Wildlife
Ted Ownby, Subduing Satan: Religion, Recreation, & Manhood in the Rural South, 1865-1920
Ralph H. Lutts, The Nature Fakers
Tennessee, State Planning Office, Critical Environmental Areas in Tennessee: IV. Wildlife
Kathryne E. Holland Braund, Deerskins & Duffels: Creek Indian Trade with Anglo-America, 1685-1815
Matt Cartmill, A View to a Death in the Morning: Hunting and Nature Through History
Congressional Research Service, National Wildlife Refuges: Places to Hunt?
Ted Kerasote, Bloodties: Nature, Culture, and the Hunt
Forests & Soils
USDA, Soil Conservation Service, Early American Soil Conservationists
_____, H. S. Person, Little Waters: A study of headwater streams & other little waters, their use and relations to the land
_____, Water Quality Field Guide, 1983
USDA, Bureau of Forestry, John Foley, Conservative Lumbering At Sewanee, Tennessee (1903)
Wes Jackson, New Roots for Agriculture
_____, Altars of Unhewn Stone: Science and the Earth
Harrison E. Salisbury, The Great Black Dragon Fire: A Chinese Inferno
Lois Green Carr, et al., Robert Cole's World: Agriculture and Society in Early Maryland
Sam B. Hilliard, Hogmeat and Hoecake: Food Supply in the Old South, 1840-1860
Stephen E. Puckette, Comparative Description of the Native Trees of the Sewanee Area
William M. Harlow, Trees of the Eastern and Central United States and Canada
Ellwood S. Harrar and J. George Harrar, Guide to Southern Trees
Arthur Stupka, Trees, Shrubs, and Woody Vines of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Wilbur H Duncan and Marion B. Duncan, Trees of the Southeastern United States
Joseph S. Illick, Tree Habits: Howto Know the Hardwoods
G. H. Collingwood and Warren D. Brush, Knowing Your Trees
Michael Williams, Americans and Their Forests--A Historical Geography
Congressional Research Service, Below-Cost Timber Sales: Overview
_____, Clearcutting in National Forests
_____, Wilderness: Overview and Statistics
_____, Major Federal Land Management Agencies: Management of Our Nation's Lands and Resources
Edward T. Luther, Our Restless Earth: The Geologic Regions of Tennessee
Other U.S. Gov't & Technical
U.S. Interagency Floodplain Management Review Committee, Sharing the Challenge: Floodplain Management into the 21st Century
Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, Wildlife Resource Report--Big Game Harvest Data and Range Surveys 1993-94
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Water Quality Inventory: 1990 Report to Congress
_____, State Water Quality Standards Summaries, 1988
_____, Environmental Impact Statement, Sewanee, Tennessee, Wastewater Facilities, 1981
Congressional Research Service, River and River Corridor Protection: Status of State and Federal Programs and Options for Congress
USDA, Final Environmental Impact Statement: 1996 Olympic Whitewater Slalom Venue, Ocoee River, Polk County Tennessee, 1994
Congressional Research Service, Ecosystem Management: Status and Potential [for the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works]
Tennessee Valley Authority, Final Environmental Impact Statement: Chip Mill Terminals on the Tennessee River, 3 vols
National Academy of Sciences, Committee on Water, Water and Choice in the Colorado Basin: An Example of Alternatives in Water Management, 1968
Tennessee Valley Authority, Technical Report No. 26, Floods and Flood Control, 1961
Congressional Research Service, Multiple Use and Sustained Yield: Changing Philosophies for Federal Land Management?
Natural History
John Burroughs, John Muir, et al., Alaska: The Harriman Expedition, 1899
Lewis H. Morgan, The American Beaver
Isaac Walton, The Compleat Angler
Sir Walter Ralegh, His Colony in America
Gervase Markham, The Pleasures of Princes, 1614
Col. Robert Venables, The Experienced Angler, 1614
Rev. Joseph Seccombe, A Discourse at Ammauskeeg Falls, 1739
Henry David Thoreau, Collected Writings
General Ecology & Biology
Hynes, The Ecology of Running Waters
Robert L. Usinger, The Life of Rivers and Streams
William A. Niering, The Life of the Marsh
_____, Wetlands of North America
Neil Hotchkiss, Common Marsh, Underwater & Floating-leaved Plants of the United States and Canada
W. B. Willers, Trout Biology
Paul R. Needham, Trout Streams
Ann H. Morgan, Field Book of Ponds and Streams
Orrin Pilkey, Jr., How to Live With an Island
James G. Needham and Paul R. Needham, A Guide To The Study of Fresh-Water Biology
James G. Needham, The Life of Inland Waters
Marie Morisawa, Streams: Their Dynamics and Morphology
_____, Rivers: Form and Process
George C. Berg, Water Pollution
Brian Moss, Ecology of Fresh Waters
American Water Resources Association, Water Balance in North America
Luna b. Leopold and Thomas Maddock, Jr., The Flood Control Controversy: Big Dams, Little Dams, and Land Management
E. A. Colman, Vegetation and Watershed Management
John Alexander and James Lazell, Ribbon of Sand: The Amazing Convergence of the Ocean and the Outer Banks
David A. Etnier and Wayne C. Starnes, Fishes of Tennessee
Environmentalism
Paul Hawkins, The Ecology of Commerce
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, ABC's For a Better Planet
F. Herbert Bormann, et al., Redesigning the American Lawn: A Search for Environmental Harmony
Martin W. Lewis, Green Delusions: An Environmentalist Critique of Radical Environmentalism
Aldo Leopold, The River of the Mother of God and Other Essays
Donald Hoffmann, Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater: The House and its History
Kenneth Brower, One Earth
Anna Bramwell, Ecology in the 20th Century
Earth Works Group, The Recycler's Handbook
_____, 50 Simple Things You Can Do To Save The Earth
William Vogt, Road To Survival
Barry Commoner, The Poverty of Power: Energy and the Economic Crisis
Lester R. Brown, State of the World--1992
_____, State of the World--1991
World Wildlife Federation, The Earth Care Annual--1992
_____, The Earth Care Annual--1991
Donald VanDeVeer and Christine Pierce, People, Penguins, and Plastic Trees
_____, Environmental Ethics and Policy Book: Philosophy, Ecology, Economics
Task Force on Land Use and Urban Growth, The Use of Land: A Citizen's Policy Guide to Urban Growth
Al Gore, Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit
World Resources Institute: The 1992 Information Please Environmental Almanac
Peter C. List, Radical Environmentalism: Philosophy and Tactics
Club of Rome, Mankind at the Turning Point
_____, The Limits to Growth
Jeffrey Hollender, How to Make the World a Better Place: A Guide to Doing Good
Geoffrey Lean, et al., Atlas of the Environment
Norman Myers, Gaia: An Atlas of Planet Management
Worldwatch Institute, Paper 60, Soil Erosion: Quiet Crisis in the World Economy
Jeremy Rifkin, Beyond Beef: The Rise and Fall of the Cattle Culture
James H. Kunstler, The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape
Religion, Ecology, Environment
William Anderson, Green Man: The Archetype of our Oneness with the Earth
Sallie McFague, The Body of God
Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature
John Hart, The Spirit of the Earth: A Theology of the Land
John Paul II, The Ecological Crisis: A Common Responsibility
John F. Haught, The Promise of Nature: Ecology and Cosmic Purpose
Stephen B. Scharper and Hilary Cunningham, The Green Bible
Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, Ecology and Life: Accepting Our Environmental Responsibility
_____, Tending the Garden: Essays on the Gospel and the Earth
David R. Komito, "Madhyamaka, Tantra and `Green Buddhism'," in The Pacific World, (Fall, 1992)
Berit Kjos, Under the Spell of Mother Earth
James Lovelock, The Ages of Gaia: A Biography of Our Living Earth
James A. Nash, Loving Nature: Ecological Integrity and Christian Responsibility
J. Baird Callicott and Roger T. Ames, Nature in Asian Traditions of Thought: Essays in Environmental Philosophy
John Seed, et al., Thinking Like A Mountain: Towards a Council of All Beings
Charlene Spretnak, The Spiritual Dimensions of Green Politics
Ian Bradley, God is Green: Ecology for Christians
Management Theory
Peter F. Drucker, Managing for the Future: The 1990's and Beyond
_____, The Frontiers of Management: Where Tommorrows Decisions Are Being Shaped Today
_____, The Effective Executive
_____, Technology, Management, and Society
Price Prichett, New Work Habits for a Radically Changing World
Eliyahu M. Goldratt, The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement
Rosabeth Moss Kanter, The Change Masters: Innovation & Entrepreneurship in the American Corporation
Robert H. Waterman, Jr., Adhocracy
_____, What America Does Right: Learning From Companies That Put People First
Mary Walton, The Deming Management Method
Mary E. Boone, Leadership and the Computer