BiblioVault - Books about Rothenberg, David

Is It Painful To Think

Conversations with Arne Naess

David Rothenberg

University of Minnesota Press, 1992

Nightingales in Berlin

Searching for the Perfect Sound

David Rothenberg

University of Chicago Press, 2019

A celebrated figure in myth, song, and story, the nightingale has captivated the imagination for millennia, its complex song evoking a prism of human emotions,—from melancholy to joy, from the fear of death to the immortality of art.
But have you ever listened closely to a nightingale’s song? It’s a strange and unsettling sort of composition—an eclectic assortment of chirps, whirs, trills, clicks, whistles, twitters, and gurgles. At times it is mellifluous, at others downright guttural. It is a rhythmic assault, always eluding capture. What happens if you decide to join in?
As philosopher and musician David Rothenberg shows in this searching and personal new book, the nightingale’s song is so peculiar in part because it reflects our own cacophony back at us. As vocal learners, nightingales acquire their music through the world around them, singing amidst the sounds of humanity in all its contradictions of noise and beauty, hard machinery and soft melody. Rather than try to capture a sound not made for us to understand, Rothenberg seeks these musical creatures out, clarinet in tow, and makes a new sound with them. He takes us to the urban landscape of Berlin—longtime home to nightingale colonies where the birds sing ever louder in order to be heard—and invites us to listen in on their remarkable collaboration as birds and instruments riff off of each other’s sounds. Through dialogue, travel records, sonograms, tours of Berlin’s city parks, and musings on the place animal music occupies in our collective imagination, Rothenberg takes us on a quest for a new sonic alchemy, a music impossible for any one species to make alone. In the tradition of The Hidden Life of Trees and The Invention of Nature, Rothenberg has written a provocative and accessible book to attune us ever closer to the natural environment around us.

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Wild Ideas

David Rothenberg

University of Minnesota Press, 1995

A new view of what’s “wild,” and a new path for environmentalism.

At the very heart of American respect for nature, historically and philosophically, is the notion of the wild. This notion comes under scrutiny in Wild Ideas, a collection of essays that bring a fresh and refreshing perspective to the wilderness paradoxically at the center of our civilization.

Blending well-known and new voices, the volume surveys classical and romantic concepts of wilderness, from the scary to the sublime, and shows why neither serves us anymore. Instead, the authors argue for a “wild culture,” in which nature is not opposed to humanity, a mere matter of resources and consumers. A cogent reassessment of the ideas that drive the conservation movement, Wild Ideas points out a new direction for future environmentalism.Among the topics discussed are the confluence of wilderness, empire, and race in the United States; the way the ecology movement uses language; gendered views of the wilderness; maps and topology, and how they affect our view of the wild; healing by the wilderness experience; and the idea of an urban wilderness. Contributors: David Abram; Douglas Buege, U of Wisconsin; Denis Cosgrove, U of London; Robert Greenway, Sonoma State U; Ed Grumbine, Sierra Institute; Marvin Henberg, Linfield College; Irene Klaver, Montana State U; Andrew Light, U of Alberta; Lois Lorentzen, U of San Francisco; Max Oelschlaeger, U of North Texas; R. Murray Schafer; Tom Wolf.

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Wisdom In The Open Air

The Norwegian Roots of Deep Ecology

Peter Reed

University of Minnesota Press, 1992

Wisdom in the Open Air traces the Norwegian roots of the strain of thinking called “deep ecology”—the search for the solutions to environmental problems by examining the fundamental tenets of our culture. Although Arne Naess coined the term in the 1970s, the insights of deep ecology actually reflect a tradition of thought that can be seen in the history of Norwegian culture, from ancient mountain myths to the radical ecoactivism of today.

Beginning with an introduction to Norway’s emphasis on nature and the wild, Reed and Rothenberg explore the birth of the environmental movement in the 1960s and 1970s. What follows is a collection of writings by prominent Norwegian thinkers on humanity and nature, most never before published in English. From Peter Wessel Zapffe, a twentieth-century Kierkegaardian figure, the list goes on to include Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess, activist-critic-artist Sigmund Kvaloy, wilderness educator Nils Faarland, novelist Finn Alneas, sociologist Johan Galtung, and social reformer Erik Dammann. Their fascinating points of view offer thoughts on the significance of modern life and what it means to be human in the face of the deteriorating global environment of the twentieth century. Wisdom in the Open Air asks and answers a fundamental question concerning the ecomovement: what is the role of deep, often abstract, thinking in the attempt to avert a very real ecological crisis?

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The World and the Wild

Expanding Wilderness Conservation Beyond its American Roots

Edited by David Rothenberg and Marta Ulvaeus

University of Arizona Press, 2001

Can nature be restored to a pristine state through deliberate action? Must the preservation of wilderness always subordinate the interests of humans to those of other species? Can indigenous peoples be entrusted with the guardianship of their own wild resources? This collection of international writings tackles tough questions like these as it expands wilderness conservation beyond its American roots. One of the first anthologies to consider wilderness as a global issue, it takes a stand against the notion that wilderness is a northern colonialist conceit and is irrelevant to the plans of third world countries. Contributions from all over the planet— Nepal, Borneo, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, Kenya, South Africa, India, and the United States— show instead that wilderness has an important place in the environmental thought and policy of any nation, industrial or developing. The World and the Wild boldly advances the idea that our concept of wilderness must expand to take in new vistas. It breaks fresh ground in global environmentalism and is essential reading for anyone concerned with development issues related to conservation. Contents
Foreword: Whither World Wilderness? / Vance G. Martin
Introduction: Wilderness in the Rest of the World / David Rothenberg
How Can Four Trees Make a Jungle? / Pramod Parajuli
The Unpaintable West / Zeese Papanikolas
Restoring Wilderness or Reclaiming Forests? / Sahotra Sarkar
For Indian Wilderness / Philip Cafaro and Monish Verma
In the Dust of Kilimanjaro / David Western
Why Conservation in the Tropics Is Failing / John Terborgh
"Trouble in Paradise": An Exchange / David Western and John Terborgh
Zulu History / Ian Player
Bruno Manser and the Penan / William W. Bevis
Roads Where There Have Long Been Trails / Kathleen Harrison
Volcano Dreams / Tom Vanderbilt
Recycled Rain Forest Myths / Antonio Carlos Diegues
The Park of Ten Thousand Waterfalls / Dan Imhoff
Mapping the Wild / Edward A. Whitesell
Earth Jazz / Evan Eisenberg
They Trampled on Our Taboos / Damien Arabagali

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