Indiana University Press blog

Tune in to an interview with Scott Russell Sanders tonight

Scott Russell Sanders, author of A Conservationist Manifesto, will discuss his book on WTIU's program, The Weekly Special. Tune in to the interview tonight at 8 p.m. (Channel 30, Bloomington, IN).

Go Green with Gene!

In celebration of the 100th anniversary of Gene Stratton-Porter's novel A Girl of the Limberlost, the Indiana State Historic Sites is sponsoring Go Green With Gene Week, which starts today and runs through May 2. Nature and educational events will be held throughout the week at the following locations: the Gene Stratton-Porter State Historic Site in Rome City; the Limberlost State Historic Site in Geneva; and the Loblolly Nature Preserve outside Bryant.

For more information visit IndianaMuseum.org and select “state historic sites,” contact Jamie Faller at jfaller@dnr.IN.gov, or call (260) 368-7428.           

Author Christine Barbour quoted in food article

Christine Barbour, author of Indiana Cooks! and Home Grown Indiana, was quoted in today's Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette article on local food. Read what she has to say on the politics of food.

Grist interview with Scott Russell Sanders

Scott Russell Sanders is quite a popular interview subject this Earth Week! Read his latest interview with Grist:

An interview with Scott Russell Sanders
By Jonathan Hiskes

I’ve had some great teachers over the years, but none quite like Scott Russell Sanders, the gentle guru of Bloomington, Indiana, and a leading light of Midwestern environmentalism. To call him articulate doesn’t begin to do justice. He exudes a sort of intellectual clarity, in both his works of non-fiction and fiction and in his teaching at Indiana University. (I’m a former student; you’re getting a thoroughly biased source here.)

Sanders’ book Staying Put offers a countercultural vision of what it means to live rooted in a place—not far from Wendell Berry country, geographically or philosophically. A Private History of Awe charts his development-of-conscience growing up on a military base during the civil rights and Vietnam eras. It’s one of the best memoirs I’ve ever read.

His new book, A Conservationist Manifesto (released this week), presents a host of arguments for why we’re better off thinking of ourselves as citizens and stewards than consumers in the face of ecological disaster. Here’s our recent phone conversation about the book. Continue reading article...

Author interview: Scott Russell Sanders

Today marks the official publication date for Scott Russell Sanders' latest book, A Conservationist Manifesto. On this Earth Day, I can't think of a more fitting way to honor our planet than to share my conversation with Scott about his work, his concerns for our planet, and what we can do to be better stewards of the Earth.

IU Press Blog: I found the theme of your book—moving from a culture of consumption to a culture of conservation—very timely in light of our current economic crisis. In your essay “A Few Earthly Words,” you discuss the meaning of the word “economy.” You explain that the roots of the word “economy” reveal that the definition is “management of a household,” but most people typically think of “economy” as “the distribution of goods and services through buying and selling.” Do you see our country’s financial collapse as an opportunity for us to re-examine the meaning of “economy” and to move toward becoming a more sustainable society? Or do you think that once our economic woes have passed, we will return to our consumptive ways?

Scott Russell Sanders: I do see the current economic collapse as an opportunity for reimagining what an economy is for. The purpose of the money-based economy—as opposed to the economy of nature—should be to provide goods and services that people actually need, to provide meaningful and rewarding jobs, and to distribute the benefits of human ingenuity as broadly and fairly as possible. But our pundits, politicians, and financiers treat the economy as if the piling up of money and the acceleration of “consumption” were the overriding goals. Advertising reinforces this message around the clock, by every medium known to humankind. It tells us that buying stuff is the way to happiness, and it treats the earth as a warehouse of raw materials to serve our pleasure. The earth is not a warehouse. It is our home. We are guests here. We should refuse to think of ourselves as “consumers” and think of ourselves instead as creators, conservers, citizens.

You write that conservation begins from this fact: “The land does not belong to us; we belong to the land.” How can we inspire others to feel more invested in caring for the place in which they live?

The first step in reconnecting to one’s home ground is to come away from the screens, pull the plugs from one’s ears, and go outside and look around. Explore the territory. Learn to know your neighborhood, your community, the surrounding landscape, and the watershed. Parents can insist that their children play outside for part of every day. Better yet, parents can go outside with the children, take a walk, look for birds or bugs, learn the names of neighborhood trees, study the stars. Cities and towns need to protect more open lands and wild lands so that citizens have the chance to glimpse the greater-than-human world. Schools need to establish gardens and meadows for children to explore. We evolved in relation to this marvelous planet. Our bodies are primed to respond to it, if we only renew our contact with the earth.

Assuming we are successful in inspiring a new crop of budding conservationists, what resources or books do you suggest consulting in order to develop a more sustainable lifestyle?

One could begin with a few of the many websites that are devoted to environmental issues and news. Here are a few of my favorites: grist.org, orionsociety.org, wiserearth.org, ecogeek.org, realclimate.org, and newdream.org. There are many sites devoted to simple living, sites associated with major environmental organizations (Audubon, Green Peace, Sierra Club, Trust for Public Land, Nature Conservancy, etc.), and sites focused on particular conservation strategies (solar and wind power, retrofitting homes, bicycle commuting, back yard gardening, etc.). As for books, there are many to choose from. I have learned a great deal from the work of Wendell Berry, Gary Snyder, Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, and, behind them all, Henry David Thoreau. Two excellent anthologies offer a sampling of the American nature-and-conservation tradition: John Elder and Robert Finch, eds., Nature Writing (Norton, 2002) and Bill McKibben, ed., American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau (Library of America, 2008).

What do you think of the recent Earth Hour event? Do you think it’s effective in raising the public’s consciousness about climate change, or is it just a gimmick as some have suggested?

The quenching of unnecessary lights and appliances on Earth Hour was an effective way of reminding people around the world of how much energy we ordinarily waste. It also reminds us that we are in this predicament together. We all inherit the consequences of climate destabilization, ozone depletion, acid rain, coral die-off, exhaustion of ocean fisheries, and the like. Environmental problems are global, and the responses need to be global, as well. The Earth Hour event also puts policy makers on notice that millions of citizens are calling for decisive action to slow and eventually reduce the amount of greenhouse gases being emitted.

Speaking of Earth events, how do you plan to celebrate Earth Day? (Or do you consider every day “Earth Day?”)

I do try to celebrate every day as Earth Day—noticing what’s in bloom, how the clouds are moving, what the birds are doing, how the dirt smells. But it’s useful to designate a particular day for a worldwide celebration. On this April 22, I will be working at school, as usual, until late afternoon, but I hope to find an hour or so before supper to work in our garden. My wife and I live in a small house on a small city lot, which is shaded by several big trees. We don’t have much space for gardening, but we devote every available square inch to flowers, ferns, vegetables, and other plants. Working in the soil and watching things grow are among my deepest pleasures. That evening, I will be joining perhaps two or three hundred people who are concerned with green initiatives in our community. I’ll talk about A Conservationist Manifesto, which is to be published that day, and I’ll share my thoughts on the practice of conservation.

As a conservationist and an author, what do you think about the growth of the e-book market? E-books save resources, but do you think there are any drawbacks to becoming more dependent upon technology (and power, as the batteries in reading devices need to be recharged) to read books? What is your preferred format for reading?

I recognize that e-books have some advantages, including the capacity to store a great deal of reading material. They might also reduce the waste of paper involved in the publication of conventional books. (Each year, millions of books are pulped or thrown away.)  On the other hand, as with computers and cell phones and other electronic devices, every stage of the manufacture of e-books produces pollution and waste—in the mining and refining of materials, shipping, etc. The devices are likely to have a short life before they are discarded, usually to end up in landfills. Amazon’s first electronic reader was replaced in less than a year. By contrast, one can find in any library perfectly legible books that were made hundreds of years ago. Some methods of paper manufacturing pollute our waterways. But new techniques have reduced or even eliminated this pollution. My own book, for example, is printed on 30% postconsumer recycled paper, processed chlorine-free. Rightly made, books are ecologically friendly, durable, portable, and precious.  

Next month, you will receive the Mark Twain Award from the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature. How does it feel to be the recipient of such a prestigious honor?

Receiving this award is a special honor, because Mark Twain has enthralled me since I was a boy, when I first read his tale about Huckleberry Finn and Jim traveling down the Mississippi River. He has been one of the stars I reckoned by, because he set his greatest books here in the heartland, far from the cultural power centers, and because he drew on American speech instead of the English imported from Britain. Previous winners of the award include several of my literary heroes, such as Toni Morrison, Jim Harrison, and Wright Morris, as well as other worthies such as Ray Bradbury, Jack Conroy, Harriet Monroe, William Maxwell, and Gwendolyn Brooks. That is heady company for someone who first dreamed of setting out on the writer’s path as a nine-year-old immersed in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

In your interview with Live at IU, you said that you have been drawn back to fiction, after years of writing nonfiction. Why did you shift to writing mainly nonfiction for so long? And what inspired you to return to writing fiction?

In the 1980s, after writing nothing but fiction for more than a decade, I shifted into nonfiction, mainly because I found the essay to be a more effective way of addressing the matters that concerned me most deeply—war and peace, the culture of families, the meaning of good work, the practice of community, the health of the land and its creatures, and spiritual inquiry. Because the kind of nonfiction I write often requires me to stare long and hard at troubling subjects, I take a break occasionally by writing short fiction. Over the past couple of years, I have completed six linked stories of a projected ten, and I hope to return to that project soon. But right now I am immersed, as usual, in writing essays about pressing concerns, trying to understand our predicament and trying to imagine ways of moving toward a more just, peaceful, and sustainable way of life.

As the parent of a young child, I was delighted to learn that you are also a children’s author. (We are looking for new material as our daughter wants to read the same books over and over again.) Why did you decide to write for children, and do you have any plans for future children’s books?

I have written eight books for children, seven of them picture books and one of them a chapter book. The latter, Hear the Wind Blow, is a collection of short stories inspired by classic American folk songs. Of the seven picture books, five relate tales about families settling the Ohio River wilderness. Perhaps the best known titles are Aurora Means Dawn and Warm as Wool, both in print from the Wooster Book Company. The other two picture books, Meeting Trees and Crawdad Creek, both published by National Geographic, tell about children exploring nature. I undertook those projects in response to invitations from two editors of children’s books; when those editors moved on, I did not feel I could take the time away from my writing for adults to seek out new contacts in children’s publishing. 

Finally, what projects are you currently working on, and what events do you have scheduled?

I’m involved in several projects. I am performing in a show of songs and stories inspired by my early book of tales, Wilderness Plots. I am adapting my historical novel, Bad Man Ballad, into a stage play of the same title. I am working on the collection of linked stories that I mentioned above. And I am gathering materials for a book about preserving and restoring what I call the common wealth—those gifts from nature, culture, and community that we share by virtue of our membership in the human family.

Earth Day poetry

In honor of Earth Day, we share the following poem from Norbert Krapf's book, Bloodroot:

Weeping Willow

Old World refugee
huddling around
lakes and streams

as if brooding
on what you left behind

with spineless limbs
and limp leaves

you crack the
first green whip
of spring.

Krapf will give a reading of nature poems this Saturday, April 25 at 12 p.m. during the Earth Day Indiana Festival at the American Legion Mall in Indianapolis.

Green reading selections for Earth Day

Happy day before Earth Day! In anticipation of this event, I offer personal reviews of some of my favorite green reads that we've published:

A Conservationist Manifesto by Scott Russell Sanders
This is one of the best books I've read lately. Sanders' call to move from a culture of consumption to one of conservation is more timely than ever now in the wake of our uncertain financial future, depleting oil supply, and global climate change. I thought I was doing enough by recycling, buying organic and local foods when possible, and driving a fuel efficient car, but after reading this book, I realize that I was being green only when it was convenient for me. If the recycling center didn't take a certain kind of plastic, I threw it away. If I didn't feel like paying the premium for organic and local foods, I'd opt for the cheaper food shipped halfway around the world and probably sprayed with chemicals. I thought it was OK to drive my car everywhere because it was fuel efficient. This book makes me think twice about my actions as they not only affect me, but also the planet and everyone else who lives on it. I am better for reading it, and hopefully this positive impact will be felt by the Earth as well. I can't recommend this book enough. It will change your life.

Perennials Short and Tall by Moya Andrews
Moya Andrews just might be my yard's savior! We built a house and it's my first experience living at a place with absolutely no landscaping. Every other home we lived in already had flower beds. I just maintained them or planted some new flowers when the existing ones petered out. I did manage to plant some rose bushes last year in the back yard (which now I realize I planted too closely together). But the front of our house is still a blank canvas, which I don't know how to fill. Our yard is part sun/part shade, and I'm having trouble thinking of a good plant that doesn't need a lot of sun or shade. So I asked my coworker, who is also an avid gardener, what to do. She told me that I need not look further than my office bookshelf. "You know, we publish some great gardening books." Well, duh, of course we do! So I snapped up a copy of this book. Andrews offers great advice for novice gardeners such as myself on bed preparation, design, growing seasons, and flower bed maintenance. The book also includes descriptions and illustrations of 25 species of perennials, which has been helpful to me in selecting appropriate plants for my garden. (I think I'll start with coreopsis or astilbe and see what happens!)

The Tao of Cooking by Sally Pasley
I still have not fulfilled my New Year's resolution to make a recipe from this vegetarian cookbook. I have eight more months, so I haven't broken my resolution...yet. The problem is that I think I'm the only one in my household who would actually enjoy eating a vegetarian meal. There are several recipes for breakfast items, so perhaps I'll start with one of those and work my way up to main courses. Although I haven't actually cooked anything from this book, the recipes look pretty straightforward (and if the queen of the easy 30-minute meal thinks she can cook a recipe from this book, then ANYONE can do it). All the recipes come from the legendary Tao Restaurant in Bloomington, IN. Although the restaurant is no longer open, locals still rave about it, and their Tao dressing is still for sale at the local grocery co-op. If you are vegetarian or interested in reducing your carbon footprint, this is the cookbook for you.

Book review: A Conservationist Manifesto

"[Sanders] writes beautiful prose and never fails to stir our souls and imaginations. ...In this awesome new book..., Sanders outlines the practical, ecological, and ethical grounds for a conservation ethic." —Spirituality & Practice

Reading selections for Holocaust Days of Remembrance

“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” —Elie Wiesel

Today marks the beginning of the week-long observation of the Holocaust Days of Remembrance. Established by the United States Congress, the Days of Remembrance is America's annual commemoration of the victims of the Holocaust. Each year, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) leads the nation in commemorating the Days of Remembrance. For this year's theme, the Museum has selected: Never Again: What You Do Matters.

One of our latest releases, Refugees and Rescue, (co-published with the USHMM), ties-in with this year's Days of Remembrance theme of personal responsibility. The book is the second volume of a three-volume set of James McDonald's diaries and papers. (The first volume, Advocate for the Doomed, was published in 2007.) Fearing Nazi intentions to remove or destroy Jews in Germany, in 1933 McDonald became League of Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and sought aid from the international community to resettle outside the Reich Jews and others persecuted there. In late 1935 he resigned in protest at the lack of support for his work.

New evidence presented in Refugees and Rescue challenges widely held opinions about Roosevelt's views on the rescue of European Jews before and during the Holocaust. The struggles of McDonald and his allies to transfer many of the otherwise doomed are disclosed here for the first time. Although McDonald's efforts as chairman of FDR's advisory committee on refugees from May 1938 until nearly the end of the war were hampered by the pervasive antisemitic attitudes of those years, fears about security, and changing presidential wartime priorities, tens of thousands did find haven. McDonald's 1935–1936 diary entries and the other primary sources presented in this book offer new insights into these conflicts and into Roosevelt's inconsistent attitudes toward the "Jewish question" in Europe.

Next month, IU Press and the USHMM will co-publish another important contribution to Holocaust scholarship. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945 is the first volume of a 7-volume encyclopedia. This encyclopedia is the result of years of work by the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the USHMM. For the first time, a single reference work will provide detailed information on each individual camp and ghetto site—some 20,000 in all.

For further reading on the Holocaust, please see our complete list of excellent Holocaust studies books.

Michael Maurer to speak at benefit for local organization

Michael Maurer, author of 19 Stars of Indiana, will be the featured guest speaker at My Sister's Closet's annual Spring Tea and Luncheon. The event takes place Sunday, April 19 from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Bloomington Country Club. Tickets are $25 and can be purchased in person at the My Sister's Closet store (1010 S. Walnut St., Bloomington, IN) or online.

My Sister's Closet provides at-risk, low-income women pursuing employment with free workforce attire. The organization accomplishes its mission through the use of a voucher system and the generosity of those who donate professional attire to thestore. Founded in 1998, My Sister's Closet is a volunteer run non-profit organization offering its services to the Monroe and Owen County areas.