Film Viewing and Discussion: Into the Wild
Location
Leu Center for the Visual Arts (LCVA) 117
Presentation Type
Event
Start Date
20-9-2009 2:30 PM
Description
Does "Nature" (whatever that is ... ) really DO anything? Does it actually free us, transform us, urge us happily on to an authentic sense of self, or is it all in our heads? If Thoreau is correct and "in wildness is the preservation of the world," where does one go in a world that seems to have few wild places left? If as William Cronon suggests, nature is "profoundly a human creation" and one in which "we see the reflection of our own unexamined longings and desires," then does nature really exist outside of our own imaginings of it? What are we to make then of a young man that ceremoniously cuts himself off from the world, thumbs his nose at conventional society, and embarks on an idyllic quest into nature, into the wild, only to wind up dead-two years later-in an abandoned bus in the backcountry of Alaska? Does our myth of nature, of wildness, destroy us, bring us "home," or perhaps something altogether different?
Recommended Citation
Roberts, Ken, "Film Viewing and Discussion: Into the Wild" (2009). Humanities Symposium. 27.
https://repository.belmont.edu/humanities_symposium/2009/2009/27
Film Viewing and Discussion: Into the Wild
Leu Center for the Visual Arts (LCVA) 117
Does "Nature" (whatever that is ... ) really DO anything? Does it actually free us, transform us, urge us happily on to an authentic sense of self, or is it all in our heads? If Thoreau is correct and "in wildness is the preservation of the world," where does one go in a world that seems to have few wild places left? If as William Cronon suggests, nature is "profoundly a human creation" and one in which "we see the reflection of our own unexamined longings and desires," then does nature really exist outside of our own imaginings of it? What are we to make then of a young man that ceremoniously cuts himself off from the world, thumbs his nose at conventional society, and embarks on an idyllic quest into nature, into the wild, only to wind up dead-two years later-in an abandoned bus in the backcountry of Alaska? Does our myth of nature, of wildness, destroy us, bring us "home," or perhaps something altogether different?
Comments
Convo: C&A