Thoreau Bicentennial

The Walden Woods Project was proud to participate in a wide variety of programs that honored Henry David Thoreau on the occasion of his bicentennial in 2017.

The bicentennial of Thoreau’s birth offered the perfect opportunity to consider the myriad ways that Thoreau’s words and actions are still very relevant, having direct applicability to so many realms of 21st-Century life.

Following are some of the bicentennial programs we offered:

  • The first-of-its-kind in Massachusetts, Thoreau Bicentennial Statewide Read, co-sponsored by UMass Lowell Honors College, the Massachusetts Center for the Book and Freedom’s Way Heritage Area
  • Translating Thoreau: A Panel Discussion—five scholars shared their experiences with and motivations for translating Thoreau’s work into different languages.
  • We were happy to be a Community Partner on the Concord performances of Nature, an outdoor, walking play that is the “mythic telling of Emerson and Thoreau’s mutual love affair with the natural world.”
  • A return to the stage by Christopher Childs, who brought his one-man play “Clear Sky, Pure Light: An Evening with Henry David Thoreau” back to Concord for this special year.

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