Thoreau’s Sounds
A lecture by Ivan Gaskell (Bard Graduate Center)

Through the natural history specimens and Native American artifacts he collected, Henry David Thoreau sought connections with the worlds he inhabited. Appealing to these collections, Ivan Gaskell’s new book—Mindprints: Thoreau’s Material Worlds (University of Chicago Press)—examines Thoreau’s ideas about human migration, shelter, the fine and useful arts, and the role of sound in human experience. For Thoreau, mindprints are physical traces of making that imprint the maker’s mind on items such as Native American arrowheads, thereby rendering that mind intuitively accessible. In this talk, which marks the publication of Mindprints, Gaskell explores how Thoreau articulated his place within his worlds through an aesthetic understanding of the environment and everyday life.

November 6 at 6pm
38 West 86th Street, BGC Lecture Hall