John Tallmadge is an American

author An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...

and

essay An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal a ...

ist on issues related to

nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physics, physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomenon, phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. ...

and

culture Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tyl ...

. He is in private practice as an educational and literary consultant after a career in higher education, most recently as a core professor of

Literature Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...

and

Environmental Studies Environmental studies is a multidisciplinary academic field which systematically studies human interaction with the environment. Environmental studies connects principles from the physical sciences, commerce/economics, the humanities, and social ...

at Union Institute and University in

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

, Ohio. He served as president of the

Association for the Study of Literature and Environment The Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE), also known as ASLE-USA, is the principal professional association for American and international scholars of ecocriticism and environmental humanities. It was founded in 1992 at a ...

(ASLE) and director of the

Orion Society The Orion Society is a United States non-profit organization that engages environmental and cultural issues through publication of books, magazines, and educational materials, and facilitation of informational networks. It was founded in 1992 and i ...

. He is a

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

veteran A veteran () is a person who has significant experience (and is usually adept and esteemed) and expertise in a particular occupation or field. A military veteran is a person who is no longer serving in a military. A military veteran that has ...

Biography

John Tallmadge grew up in northern New Jersey. He credits his urban upbringing with instilling in him "a childhood longing for lakes and forests". He increasingly experienced the natural world at

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...

and visiting

Big Sur Big Sur () is a rugged and mountainous section of the Central Coast of California between Carmel and San Simeon, where the Santa Lucia Mountains rise abruptly from the Pacific Ocean. It is frequently praised for its dramatic scenery. Big Sur ha ...

and the High Sierra while in the Army. Those experiences encouraged him to explore nature writers like

Thoreau Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817May 6, 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading transcendentalist, he is best known for his book ''Walden'', a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and hi ...

and

John Muir John Muir ( ; April 21, 1838December 24, 1914), also known as "John of the Mountains" and "Father of the National Parks", was an influential Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, botanist, zoologist, glaciologist, a ...

. The outdoors complimented the academic work that he was pursuing and he applied his graduate studies in

comparative literature Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across linguistic, national, geographic, and disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role similar to that of the study ...

to his passion for the outdoors. His studies in

nature writing Nature writing is nonfiction or fiction prose or poetry about the natural environment. Nature writing encompasses a wide variety of works, ranging from those that place primary emphasis on natural history facts (such as field guides) to those in w ...

fall under the genre of

ecocriticism Ecocriticism is the study of literature and ecology from an interdisciplinary point of view, where literature scholars analyze texts that illustrate environmental concerns and examine the various ways literature treats the subject of nature. It wa ...

, a term coined by

William Rueckert William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Eng ...

in 1978, and focus on the works of

Edward Abbey Edward Paul Abbey (January 29, 1927 – March 14, 1989) was an American author, essayist, and environmental activist noted for his advocacy of environmental issues and criticism of public land policies. His best-known works include ''Desert Solit ...

, and

Aldo Leopold Aldo Leopold (January 11, 1887 – April 21, 1948) was an American writer, philosopher, naturalist, scientist, ecologist, forester, conservationist, and environmentalist. He was a professor at the University of Wisconsin and is best known for his ...

. He served in the United States Army in California in the late 1960s in a Russian language program. Tallmadge is married. He lives with his family in Cincinnati.

Career

Tallmadge graduated from

in 1969 beforeTallmadge website
/ref> the "Army preempted grad school." He received his PhD from

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

in 1977 in

. He proceeded to teach at Yale, the

University of Utah The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University of De ...

Carleton College Carleton College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota. Founded in 1866, it had 2,105 undergraduate students and 269 faculty members in fall 2016. The 200-acre main campus is between Northfield and the 800-acre Cowling ...

, the

Associated Colleges of the Midwest Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM) is a consortium of 14 private liberal arts colleges, primarily in the Midwestern United States. The 14 colleges are located in five states (Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Colorado). The ACM was es ...

, and Dartmouth College, before settling at TUI. He served as a dean there from 1987 to 1992. Tallmadge worked as a

consultant A consultant (from la, consultare "to deliberate") is a professional (also known as ''expert'', ''specialist'', see variations of meaning below) who provides advice and other purposeful activities in an area of specialization. Consulting servic ...

in developing

curricula In education, a curriculum (; : curricula or curriculums) is broadly defined as the totality of student experiences that occur in the educational process. The term often refers specifically to a planned sequence of instruction, or to a view ...

Green Mountain College Green Mountain College was a private liberal arts college in Poultney, Vermont, at the foot of the Taconic Mountains between the Green Mountains and Adirondacks. The college was affiliated with the United Methodist Church and offered a liberal a ...

University of Kentucky The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a Public University, public Land-grant University, land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentu ...

, and

Antioch University New England Antioch University New England is a private graduate school located in Keene, New Hampshire, United States. It is part of the Antioch University system, a private, non-profit, 501(c)(3) institution that includes campuses in Seattle, Washington; L ...

. He consulted at Concordia College,

Chatham College Chatham University is a private university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Originally founded as a women's college, it began enrolling men in undergraduate programs in 2015. It enrolls about 2,110 students, including 1,002 undergraduate students an ...

, the Roger Tory Peterson Institute, and the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History and Science. He offers

workshop Beginning with the Industrial Revolution era, a workshop may be a room, rooms or building which provides both the area and tools (or machinery) that may be required for the manufacture or repair of manufactured goods. Workshops were the only ...

s on the themes of

and human values,

spirituality The meaning of ''spirituality'' has developed and expanded over time, and various meanings can be found alongside each other. Traditionally, spirituality referred to a religious process of re-formation which "aims to recover the original shape o ...

, and

writing Writing is a medium of human communication which involves the representation of a language through a system of physically Epigraphy, inscribed, Printing press, mechanically transferred, or Word processor, digitally represented Symbols (semiot ...

, as well as seminars on personal and professional development for college faculty. Tallmadge has been published in the ''

Utne Reader ''Utne Reader'' (also known as ''Utne'') ( ) is a digital digest that collects and reprints articles on politics, culture, and the environment, generally from alternative media sources including journals, newsletters, weeklies, zines, music, and ...

'', ''Orion'' magazine, ''

Audubon Magazine ''Audubon'' is the flagship journal of the National Audubon Society. It is profusely illustrated and focuses on subjects related to nature, with a special emphasis on birds. New issues are published bi-monthly for society members. An active bl ...

'', ''

Whole Terrain ''Whole Terrain: Journal of Reflective Environmental Practice'' is an environmentally-themed literary journal that is published approximately once a year by Antioch University New England (ANE). Each volume explores emerging ecological and social ...

'', the ''

Michigan Quarterly Review The ''Michigan Quarterly Review'' is an American literary magazine founded in 1962 and published at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. The quarterly (known as "MQR" for short) publishes art, essays, interviews, memoirs, fiction, poetry, and ...

'', the Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment ('' ISLE''), the ''

North Dakota Quarterly ''North Dakota Quarterly'' (''NDQ'') is a literary journal published quarterly by the University of North Dakota. ''NDQ'' publishes poetry, fiction, interviews, and literary non-fiction. It was first published in 1911 as a vehicle for faculty p ...

'', the '' Emerson Society Quarterly'', and ''Witness''.

Works

* Leslie, Clare Walker, John Tallmadge, and Tom Wessels. ''Into the Field: A Guide to Locally Focused Learning'' (Orion Society, 2005). *Tallmadge, John. ''Meeting the Tree of Life: A Teacher's Path'' (University of Utah Press, 1997). *Tallmadge, John, and Harry Harrington, eds. ''Reading Under the Sign of Nature: New Essays in Ecocriticism'' (University of Utah Press, 2000). *Tallmadge, John. ''The Cincinnati Arch: Learning from Nature in the City'' (University of Georgia Press, 2004).

Articles available online

A Matter of ScaleDeerslayer with a DegreeToward a Natural History of Reading

References

fro
ERICDigests.org
*Union Institute and University Networ

Winter 2004-2005

* ttp://www.wholeterrain.org/bio.cfm?Contributor_ID=270 Whole Terrain profile of John Tallmadge

External links

Whole Terrain
link to Tallmadge's articles published in

podcasts on nature and nature writing 1
Thoreau
2
Where is Nature?
3
On Nature Writing
*Grand Rapids Community Colleg
Sustainability Series
podcasts. 1
Creative Sustainability lecture
2
Reading
from ''The Cincinnati Arch'' *Guest on
Anyplace Wild TV Show
Season 3, Episode 3: ''Chasing Thoreau's Ghost: Canoeing and Hiking in Maine'' *Blog
The Staying Alive Project for faculty development
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tallmadge, John Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American non-fiction environmental writers Carleton College faculty University of Utah faculty Dartmouth College alumni Writers from New Jersey United States Army soldiers Yale University alumni Yale University faculty