Unsettling Thoreau - with John J. Kucich

Library : Concord Free Public Library

Location : Goodwin Forum Main Library, 129 Main Street, Concord, MA, 01742

Start : Sunday 30th of March 2025 2:00 PM

End : Sunday 30th of March 2025 3:30 PM

Description :

You are registering to attend this event in person. If you prefer to attend on Zoom, please register here.            Linda Coombs (Aquinnah Wampanoag), author and historian from the Wampanoag Tribe of Aquinnah, will join John Kucich, president of the Thoreau Society, in a conversation about Thoreau and Native Americans and John's new book Unsettling Thoreau: Native Americans, Settler Colonialism, and the Power of Place (University of Massachusetts Press, 2024). Drawing on Indigenous studies and critiques of settler colonialism, as well as new materialist approaches that illustrate Thoreau’s radical reimagining of the relationship between humans and the natural world, Unsettling Thoreau explores the stakes of Thoreau’s effort to live mindfully and ethically in place when living alongside, or replacing marginalized peoples. By examining the whole scope of his writings, including the unpublished Indian Notebooks, and placing them alongside Native writers and communities in and beyond New England, this book gauges Thoreau’s effort to use Indigenous knowledge to reimagine a settler colonial world without removing him from its trappings. Linda Coombs (Aquinnah Wampanoag) is an author and historian from the Wampanoag Tribe of Aquinnah and lives in the Wampanoag community of Mashpee on Cape Cod, MA. Coombs began her museum career in an internship at the Boston Children’s Museum and later worked there in the Native American Program. She and her colleague Paulla Dove Jennings (Narragansett) wrote children’s books for a museum series highlighting aspects of southern New England tribal cultures. Coombs also worked for 30 years in the Wampanoag Indigenous Program (WIP) of Plimoth Plantation, including 15 years as WIP’s Associate Director and 9 years at the Aquinnah Cultural Center. Presently, she does independent museum consulting and cultural presentations. John J. Kucich is a Professor of English at BSU, teaching courses in American literature, Native American Literature, English education, and sustainability. He has coordinated the Sustainability Program and the Integrative Learning and Research Initiative. He currently serves as president of the Thoreau Society. Before coming to BSU, he taught high school English for ten years. He has published two books: Unsettling Thoreau: Native Americans, Settler Colonialism, and the Power of Place (University of Massachusetts Press, 2024) and Ghostly Communion: Cross-Cultural Spiritualism in Nineteenth-Century America (Dartmouth College Press, 2004), and edited two collections: Thoreau in the Nick of Time (Mercer University Press, 2025) and Rediscovering the Maine Woods: Thoreau's Legacy in an Unsettled Land (University of Massachusetts Press, 2018). Co-sponsored with Thoreau Farm and The Thoreau Society. concordlibrary.assabetinteractive.com/calendar/joint-thoreau-farm-thoreau-society-for-john-kucichs-new-book-unsettling-thoreau/