Reading the Book of Nature

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provided the foundation for Visions of the Land a few years later.) Thirdly, the additional research I conducted on Rachel Carson and Loren Eiseley during that leave produced a scholarly article focused on their scientific rhetoric in a 2003 issue of Technical Communication Quarterly. II. Mapping the Urban Wilderness: An Ecological and Literary Topography of Chicago (spring 2007) -- My second research leave provided me with an exceptional opportunity to change directions in my research agenda significantly, from a wide-ranging emphasis on scienceand-literature studies to a new focus on the urban environment (particularly Chicago) and citybased nature writing. The goals of this study were to lay the initial groundwork for a book tentatively entitled Mapping the Urban Wilderness: An Ecological and Literary Topography of Chicago, discussed earlier in this proposal, as well as to write and publish a scholarly essay (of 30-40 manuscript pages) based on that research that would be suitable for publication as a standalone article in a notable environmental studies / interdisciplinary journal. This leave period also was fruitful on multiple fronts. Notably, in the course of my research for Mapping the Urban Wilderness, I unearthed some fascinating information on the Chicago-based urban nature writer Leonard Dubkin, a self-taught naturalist and journalist who published a string of singular and otherwise remarkable books from the mid-1940s to the early 1970s about observing nature in Chicago. When I made contact with Dubkin's daughter, who lives in Chicago and gave me unfettered access to many of her personal papers, I knew I had an extraordinary chance to research and write about a forgotten author, with access to drafts, letters, and other papers. I was able to capitalize on this work by publishing the first scholarly treatment of Dubkin's work in the leading journal of ecocriticism, Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature 17
and Environment. Secondly, during what became an intensely focused period of Dubkin research, I made substantial progress in creating the bibliographic and conceptual foundation for the Mapping the Urban Wilderness book. But an unexpected, yet perhaps most important outcome, of the shift in research focus enabled by my 2007 leave was the inspiration it provided me to offer an experimental course in urban sustainability in the spring semester of 2009. This innovative Chicago-focused interdisciplinary seminar not only led to another peer-reviewed publication (Bryson and Zimring, "Creating the Sustainable City") but also provided the foundation of the new Sustainability Studies undergraduate major at RU in the 2009-2010 academic year -- a program at the forefront of the university's overall sustainability efforts and now home to 55+ majors. 18
Page 1 and 2: Faculty Research Leave Application
Page 3 and 4: Such a "re-visioning" of Chicago --
Page 5 and 6: movements in the 1960s, Watts close
Page 7 and 8: In addition to this research and wr
Page 9 and 10: Tentative Timeline* for Project Res
Page 11 and 12: "From Wide Open Spaces to Metropoli
Page 13 and 14: productions within the context of C
Page 15: Appendix A: Outcome of Previous Res
Page 19 and 20: Dixon, Terrell, ed. City Wilds: Ess

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