Date: Thursday, March 17
Time: 8:00
Admission: $5

Poet Joshua Beckman and artist James Walsh will discuss John Burroughs’ controversial 1903 essay “Real and Sham Natural History.” After a short introduction to Burroughs the man and the writer, they will read from the essay and from the offending, delightful animal stories it criticizes, and they’ll discuss the controversy and some of the larger issues of fact and fiction it raised.

Burroughs was then at the height of his fame and influence, and was known for his gentle, intimate, closely-observed nature essays. The nature essay, and particularly stories about animals, had become enormously popular, but Burroughs felt that many of the writers had very little direct experience of nature and simply pretended that the animals are just like us. He wrote “Real and Sham Natural History” to set the record straight but he wasn’t prepared for the bitter controversy it unleashed in the popular press. The controversy raged until 1907 when Rough Rider and President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt came to Burroughs’ defense in his article “Nature Fakers,” which effectively ended the debate.

An artist’s talk with writer and artist James Walsh
Date: Tuesday, January 18
Time: 8:00
Admission: $5

Artist and writer James Walsh will talk about the making of his current installation, The Arctic Plants of New York City, and its place in his larger project of discovering the surprising number of plants that are common to both New York City and the arctic. As an introduction to the project and a demonstration of how it evolved, Walsh will read selections from a series of letters he wrote to friend while his plans for the project were just beginning to form. After that, he will speak a little about how the plants, texts, and images he collected were distilled down into the present installation.