In the summer of 2002, Dr. Schmidt completed a four-month, 2,000-mile solo voyage circling the Chesapeake Bay, following Capt. John Smith's 1608 voyage of discovery. As literary scholar, she examines journals of the early colonists and naturalists, particularly at Roanoke and Jamestown. As naturalist and nature writer, she compares plants, birds, fish, and wildlife to what the early colonists in North Carolina and Virginia found four hundred years ago. As environmental scientist, she compares the relative decline of Virginia and North Carolina's water quality in the last two decades. Incidentally, she traced her own ancestors' homeplaces, followed Quaker founder George Fox's 1673 Chesapeake and coastal Carolina voyage, and visited modern Indian reservations. She has many colorful slide to illustrate her history/natural history talk.

In the Southern Appalachian Mountains where wilderness still abounds, writing is place based--from early naturalist explorers like William Bartram to current poet/novelists such as Robert Morgan and Fred Chappell, to nonfiction writers like Dennis Covington, author of Salvation on Sand Mountain. Southern mountain writers--Chappell, Morgan, Wendell Berry, John Ehle, Wilma Dykeman, Lee Smith, and Annie Dillard--examine place in fiction, poetry and essays. In this presentation, Dr. Schmidt connects literature thematically to natural history, traditional music, folklore, Native American and Euro-American cultures, and religion.

Salty Stories: American Sea Fiction

The sea and sailing ships are as important as the inland frontier in shaping the democratic values and ethics of American culture. Herman Melville's Moby Dick is the masterpiece of this genre. Other well-known literature includes Ernest Hemingway's tales of the gulf stream, Jack London's stories of the Pacific, Peter Matthiessen's Far Tortuga, John Casey's Spartina, and Edgar Allan Poe's Arthur Gordon Pym. In this presentation, Dr. Schmidt shares selected adventure tales that combine natural history about the ocean with the metaphysical inquiries and challenges of the mind.

Requirements for Program: PowerPoint projector or slide projector, screen