Description

The Gloucester Writers Center & the Gloucester Unitarian Universalist Church will host a reading and discussion with Lydia Willsky-Ciollo, author of Wildness, Henry David Thoreau and the Making of An American Theology.
 
Through his love of nature, Thoreau developed a distinctly American theology of the wild. In Wildness, Lydia Willsky-Ciollo traces Thoreau’s post-college years and his time at Walden Pond, as he evolved from hopeful writer to observant theologian, whose primary work as a surveyor enabled his theological vocation. The focus of Thoreau’s theology—wildness itself— reflects a distinctly American set of tensions: progress and tradition, wilderness and civilization, and the individual and society. While remaining critical of dogma and institutions, he hoped his readers would pick up the pen where he left off and write their own theologies of wildness.
Lydia Willsky-Ciollo is Professor of Religious Studies and Director of American Studies at Fairfield University. She was raised in Bedford, Massachusetts and spent her summers in Lanesville with her grandparents, Robert and Lee Natti. As an American Religious Historian, she specializes in the 19th century with a focus on the religious thought of Unitarianism and Transcendentalism. In addition to Wildness, Lydia is author of American Unitarianism and the Protestant Dilemma.
 
This is event is free and open to the public.
 
For more information, https://www.gloucesterwriters.org/
 
Contact: JoeAnn Hart, 978-729-0601, joeann@joeannhart.com