Whether referring to a place, a nonhuman animal or plant, or a state of mind, wild indicates autonomy and agency, a will to be, a unique expression of life. Yet two contrasting ideas about wild nature permeate contemporary discussions: either that nature is most wild in the absence of a defiling human presence, or that nature is completely humanized and nothing is truly wild. This book charts a different path. Exploring how people can become attuned to the wild community of life and also contribute to the well-being of the wild places in which we live, work, and play, Wildness brings together esteemed authors from a variety of landscapes, cultures, and backgrounds to share their stories about the interdependence of everyday human lifeways and wildness. As they show, far from being an all or nothing proposition, wildness exists in variations and degrees that range from cultivated soils to multigenerational forests to sunflowers pushing through cracks in a city alley. Spanning diverse geographies, these essays celebrate the continuum of wildness, revealing the many ways in which human communities can nurture, adapt to, and thrive alongside their wild nonhuman kin. From the contoured lands of Wisconsin’s Driftless region to remote Alaska, from the amazing adaptations of animals and plants living in the concrete jungle to indigenous lands and harvest ceremonies, from backyards to reclaimed urban industrial sites, from microcosms to bioregions and atmospheres, manifestations of wildness are everywhere. With this book, we gain insight into what wildness is and could be, as well as how it might be recovered in our lives—and with it, how we might unearth a more profound, wilder understanding of what it means to be human.Wildness: Relations of People and Place is published in association with the Center for Humans and Nature, an organization that brings together some of the brightest minds to explore and promote human responsibilities to each other and the whole community of life. Visit the Center for Humans and Nature's Wildness website for upcoming events and a series of related short films.
John Hausdoerffer is a fellow for the Center for Humans and Nature as well as dean of the School of Environment & Sustainability at Western State Colorado University. He is the author of Catlin’s Lament: Indians, Manifest Destiny, and the Ethics of Nature and editor of Aaron Abeyta’s Letters from the Headwaters. For more information, visit www.jhausdoerffer.com. He lives in Gunnison, CO.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Into the Wildness Gavin Van HornPart 1. Wisdom of the Wild 1. Wildfire News Gary Snyder2. Conundrum and Continuum: One Man’s Wilderness, from a Ditch to the Dark Divide Robert Michael Pyle3. No Word Enrique Salmón4. The Edge of Anomaly Curt Meine5. Order versus Wildness Joel Salatin6. Biomimicry: Business from the Wild Margo Farnsworth7. Notes on “Up at the Basin” David J. RothmanPart 2. Working Wild 8. Listening to the Forest Jeff Grignon and Robin Wall Kimmerer9. The Working Wilderness Courtney White10. The Hummingbird and the Redcap Devon G. Peña11. Losing Wildness for the Sake of Wilderness: The Removal of Drakes Bay Oyster Company Laura Alice Watt12. Inhabiting the Alaskan Wild Margot Higgins13. Wilderness in Four Parts, or Why We Cannot Mention My Great-Grandfather’s Name Aaron AbeytaPart 3. Urban Wild 14. Wild Black Margins Mistinguette Smith15. Healing the Urban Wild Gavin Van Horn16. Building the Civilized Wild Seth Magle17. Cultivating the Wild on Chicago’s South Side: Stories of People and Nature at Eden Place Nature Center Michael Bryson and Michael Howard18. Toward an Urban Practice of the Wild John TallmadgePart 4. Planetary Wild 19. The Whiskered God of Filth Rob Dunn20. The Akiing Ethic: Seeking Ancestral Wildness beyond Aldo Leopold’s Wilderness John Hausdoerffer21. On the Wild Edge in Iceland Brooke Hecht22. The Story Isn’t Over Julianne Lutz Warren23. Cultivating the Wild Vandana Shiva24. Earth Island: Prelude to a Eutopian History Wes Jackson Epilogue: Wild Partnership: A Conversation with Roderick Frazier Nash John Hausdoerffer Acknowledgments Permissions About the Contributors Index
