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A Search For Meaning In A Life Close To Nature

Michael Dwyer
/
AP
In this photo taken Friday, July 13, 2012, stone pillars delineate the actual site of Henry David Throeau's cabin on the shores of Walden Pond in Concord, Mass.

The 1960s and '70s saw a lot of people arrive in Vermont with the back-to-the-land movement. Their idealism followed the legacies of people like Helen and Scott Nearing, and even Henry David Thoreau well before them. On the next Vermont Edition, we discuss the impulse to find meaning in a life close to nature. Our guest is Rebecca Kneale Gould, a writer and senior lecturer at Middlebury College.

Professor Gould recommends these titles for further reading:

  • Family Planting: A Farm-Fed Philosophy of Human Relations by Kimerer LaMothe
  • Back to the Land: The Enduring Dream of Self-Sufficiency in Modern America by Dona Brown
  • Meanwhile, Next Door to the Good Life by Jean Hay Bright
  • Scott Nearing: An Intellectual Biography by John Saltmarsh
  • At Home in Nature: Modern Homesteading and Spiritual Practice in America by Rebecca Kneale Gould

Also in this episode of Vermont Edition, 26 Vermont downtowns now have free Wi-Fi zones.  We learn more from Caitlin Lovegrove, network and outreach coordinator for the Vermont Digital Economy Project.

And in Summer School, we take to the water for a lesson in how to roll your kayak and get it back upright after taking a dunk.

Broadcast live on Mon., July 28 at noon; rebroadcast at 7 p.m.

Patti is an integral part of VPR's news effort and part of the team that created Vermont Edition. As executive producer, Patti supervises the team that puts Vermont Edition on the air every day, working with producers to select and research show ideas, select guests and develop the sound and tone of the program.
Steve has been with VPR since 1994, first serving as host of VPR’s public affairs program and then as a reporter, based in Central Vermont. Many VPR listeners recognize Steve for his special reports from Iran, providing a glimpse of this country that is usually hidden from the rest of the world. Prior to working with VPR, Steve served as program director for WNCS for 17 years, and also worked as news director for WCVR in Randolph. A graduate of Northern Arizona University, Steve also worked for stations in Phoenix and Tucson before moving to Vermont in 1972. Steve has been honored multiple times with national and regional Edward R. Murrow Awards for his VPR reporting, including a 2011 win for best documentary for his report, Afghanistan's Other War.
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