Triple G Colloquium | Near Woods: A new book about an old and familiar place | Dr. Kevin Patrick

Fri, September 15, 2023 4:00 PM at Geography Building 673 Auditorium Road, Room 126, East Lansing, MI 48824

Join the MSU Geography Graduate Group (Triple G) on Friday, September 15, 2023, at 4:00 PM in Rm. 126 in the Geography Building as they welcome Professor Kevin Patrick for the first Triple G Colloquium Session for the Fall Semester as he presents "Near Woods: A New Book About an Old and Familiar Place."

The near-woods are that patch of nature adjacent to any community to which residents of all ages go to find peace, solitude, and escape from the authority and responsibilities of the community. Like many others, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman went to the near-woods to learn about nature despite the exploitive scars exacted on these places by their adjacent communities. For the book, Near Woods; A Year in an Allegheny Forest, observations in Indiana, Pennsylvania’s White’s Woods were joined with research about its human and natural history to explain the geography of this representative example of near-woods everywhere.

Dr. Kevin Patrick has taught Geography at Indiana University of Pennsylvania since 1993. He has been a lifelong student of American geography and has written about cultural landscapes, place, and the interaction between humans and their natural environment, particularly in Pennsylvania. Books he has authored or co-authored include Diners of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Caves and Other Rocky Roadside Wonders, Pittsburgh and the Appalachians, Route 6 in Pennsylvania, and most recently, Near Woods; A Year in an Allegheny Forest.