Description
Book SynopsisUnearthing new ways of thinking about place, pedagogy, and the environment, this meditative text reveals that place is inherently unstable.
Trade ReviewChair of the English Department Dr. Erin Sadlack described Conlogue’s work as “engaging and relevant.” She said she used a passage from his book in her Digital Shakespeare course that started a discussion in the class. “I think that one of the really fantastic things about Bill’s writing in particular is that he is able to take these really complex ideas and make them accessible,” she said. “I think that’s also really important because it helps people understand that the work that we do in the humanities is really relevant to their lives.” She encouraged everyone to read Conlogue’s book.
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The Wood WordAs much as by chronology or theme, his book proceeds via metaphors, myths, and the literature he reads, studies, and teaches. He works such motifs as the "undermining" of his title and the "measures" of his subtitle — a reference to seams of anthracite — to consider what the region’s history of mining reveals about human folly and endeavor.
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The Chronicle of Higher EducationSurrounded by anti-intellectualism, poverty, and the environmental degradation that inevitably attended the burst of extractive capitalism that swept through and then abandoned so much of the United States, Conlogue articulately makes a calm but passionate plea for keeping the humanities central to a curriculum that legislators and college administrators relentlessly want to divert toward vocationalism.
—Philip G. Terrie, Bowling Green State University,
Journal of American HistoryTable of ContentsPreface
Acknowledgments
Timeline
1. Campus as Question
2. Wood
3. Fire
4. In the Gaps
5. Body Language
6. On Broken Ground
7. Burying Books
Conclusion
Works Cited
Index
