Affiliated Symposia

To find out more about past US and international events, visit our symposia archives.

The Third Annual Rural Heritage Institute at Sterling College:

Is Local Enough? Promises and Limits of Local Action

June 18-20, 2010, Sterling College, Craftsbury Common, VT.

Are there limits to local thinking?
What is the relationship between rural and local?
What is the role of local knowledge in an age of globalization?

Is Local Enough? Promises and Limits of Local Action explored these questions as well as the developing dialogue between local and global concerns as it applies to economy, agri­culture, history, food, culture and rural identity.

Part of the third annual Rural Heritage Institute, Is Local Enough?,includes a diverse range of workshops, presentations and fea­tured events.  Located at the heart of Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, the Institute capitalizes on the model of community and experiential learning at the center of the Sterling College curriculum and apparent throughout the surrounding communities.

Each year, The Rural Heritage Institute draws participants who are passionate about solidifying the connections among community, academic scholarship, and meaningful action in the field. The intimate atmosphere of the Institute (between 50-75 participants) enables productive conversations among a broad range of practitioners, scholars, community members, and under/graduate students who share an interest in exploring the intersections of local, regional, and global issues – particularly as manifested in the rural Northeast.

SHARP EYES VI: OLD LESSONS FOR A NEW MILLENNIUM: NATURE WRITING AND ENVIRONMENTALISM IN THE 21ST CENTURY

John Burroughs Nature Writing Conference and Seminar, June 7-11, 2010, State University of New York at Oneonta

This event is the sixth in the John Burroughs Nature Writing Conference & Seminar series. The 2010 conference focuses on the work of writers who contributed to the early conservation movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century, and the work of contemporary writers who are exerting an influence on the development of early twenty-first century environmentalism. Papers are delivered to plenary sessions of students, faculty, and visiting scholars. The conference included a field trip to John Burroughs’s Woodchuck Lodge in Roxbury, New York (which is within walking distance of his burial site). There was an additional trip scheduled to the site of the old Catskill Mountain House, which offers a panoramic view of the Hudson River, and to the beautiful Kaaterskill Falls. Graduate or undergraduate credits were available through SUNY College at Oneonta.