Lizzie Agassiz and Radcliffe

For a little spin-off from my new Agassiz biography, just out from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, check out my homepage.   You'll encounter some memorable characters from the early days of Radcliffe College, Gertrude Stein among them.

Jacket for my new Agassiz biography

Here's the jacket design for my new book, Louis Agassiz:  Creator of American Science, to be released by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt as part of their Fall 2012 line-up.

WFIU Radio Profile to be reprised

On Sunday, November 13, at 7 p.m. WFIU will re-broadcast an hour-long interview Gena Asher conducted with me last April.   Among the topics we discussed are my work on John James Audubon, my teaching at Indiana University, my forthcoming biography of Louis Agassiz (to be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt next year), and the meaning of ecocriticism.  Musical interludes include a movement from the sonata in G by Robert Schumann, played by the fabulous Icelandic pianist Jon Sigurdsson, and "Do No Harm," one of fabulous singer-songwriter Carrie Newcomer's contributions to Wilderness Plots.

Fanny Longfellow

I have long been fascinated with the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's brilliant wife, Fanny Appleton Longfellow. A blog post I recently wrote for the Library of America's Reader's Almanac reflects on her horrific death 150 years ago.

Audubon at Trinity College

Here is a link to Richard Ring's account of my visit to Trinity College, where, among other things, I offered comments at a public viewing of their Audubon set, once owned by Audubon's engraver, Robert Havell!

A Keener Perception has now appeared

Our co-edited volume A Keener Perception is now available. It can also be ordered from Amazon.
Here's the flyer for the book:

A Keener Perception
Ecocritical Studies in American Art History
EDITED BY Alan C. Braddock and Christoph Irmscher
FOREWORD BY Lawrence Buell

A landmark collection of essays on the intersections of visual art,
cultural studies, and environmental history in America

“[This book] represents an important testing of an ecocritical approachwithin the discipline of art history. Ecocriticism continues to gain greater and greater visibility in cultural studies; and as A Keener Perception attests, this is a discussion art history ought to join.”
—Michael Gaudio, author of Engraving the Savage

“By aligning art history with the interdisciplinary practice of eco-criticism,
this vibrant collection offers an approach to American visual culture that will speak to readers across the Humanities. The essays span an array of genres and time periods…. Braddock and Irmscher’s introduction lucidly defines the theory and practice of eco-criticism and will prove indispensable to students as well as scholars. I will soon be teaching from this uncommon book.”
—Laura Rigal, author of The American Manufactory

CONTRIBUTORS
Janet Catherine Berlo / Alan C. Braddock / Lawrence Buell /
Finis Dunaway / Thomas Hallock / Elizabeth Hutchinson /
Christoph Irmscher / Jonathan Massey / Angela L. Miller /
Jeffrey Myers / Rebecca Solnit / Timothy Sweet / Mark Andrew White

Paper, $29.95
ISBN: 0-8173-5551-0

The University of Alabama Press
Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0380 www.uapress.ua.edu

Front cover: Subhankar Banerjee, Caribou Migration I

"A Keener Perception" about to appear from Alabama University Press

My friend and long-time collaborator Alan Braddock (Art History, Temple University) and I have completed work on our anthology of ecocritical essays on American art, titled A Keener Perception, a phrase we have borrowed from Thomas Cole. This innovative collection, which seeks to contribute to the "greening" of American art history, will be published in the fall of 2009 by Alabama University Press. To pre-order a copy, go to their website. Featured on the left is Antoine Sonrel's wonderful lithograph of a jellyfish, Cyanea arctica, from Louis Agassiz's Contributions to the Natural History of the United States of America.