Reading the Landscape
@ Berger Park Cultural Center
6205 N Sheridan Rd, Chicago, IL 60660
Opening Wednesday, September 28th, at 7PM
Join us for the first gathering of a new book club, named after our seed text Reading the Landscape by May Theilgaard Watts. The 1957 edition of this work carried the subtitle: ‘An Adventure in Ecology’ and this is what we wish our group reading and discussion to be – purposefully following where the text/landscape takes us.
After this first gathering, the assembled participants will decide together on the frequency, timing, and trajectory of future group events. You do not have to read a particular book to join or participate in this group. With Reading the Landscape as a starting prompt, we will chart and document the unpredictable path of ourselves reading, as the group spreads out to follow individual curiosities, and gathers together to share what they have learned.
May Theilgaard Watts was a naturalist at The Morton Arboretum, and many of the ecologies examined in ‘Reading the Landscape’ are in close proximity to the City, including the Indiana Dunes, Rock River, Wisconsin lakes and forests, Wheatland prairie, Chicagoland highways, and elsewhere.
Roman Susan will aim to have a handful of copies of Reading the Landscape we can loan to anyone who would like to participate. Right now we are reading the second edition of this work, Reading the Landscape of America, which was published 18 years after the first publication. This edition includes postscripts to chapters that revisit landscapes described decades earlier. You can start wherever you want – first version, revised, or something else entirely, in the spirit of ’An Adventure in Ecology’ – let us know what you find!
For additional biographical information about May Theilgaard Watts, and to view samples of the diagrammatic and botanical drawing style which are found throughout her published texts, please visit The Morton Arboretum online archive: https://acorn.mortonarb.org/Detail/entities/554
This event is being shared at Berger Park Cultural Center as part of Movement Studies – a programming series investigating social and environmental transitions.
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Tags: Berger Park Cultural Center, Edgewater, May Theilgaard Watts, Movement Studies, Reading the Landscape, Rogers Park, Roman Susan
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