Scott Slovic
Biography
Scott Slovic grew up in Eugene, Oregon, where he spent his youth hiking in the Cascades and training for competition as a long distance runner. He received his B.A. in English at Stanford University, and earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in English and American Literature at Brown University. Before moving to Nevada in 1995, he taught for four years in the English Department at Southwest Texas State University. Scott spent 1986-87 studying the writings of Alexander von Humboldt as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Bonn in West Germany; in 1993-94, another Fulbright brought him to Tokyo, Japan, where he taught American environmental literature at the University of Tokyo, Sophia University, and Rikkyo University. He spent 2001-02 on sabbatical at Rice University and the University of Queensland (Australia), and he served as a visiting professor at National Taiwan Normal University in 2004. Currently he is professor of literature and environment at Nevada. In addition, he has been a visiting professor at Rice University, the University of Queensland (Australia), and National Taiwan Normal University. He directed the Center for Environmental Arts and Humanities at Nevada from 1995 to 2002 before helping to merge the CEAH with the Center for Environmental Sciences and Engineering to form the Academy for the Environment.
Research and Teaching Interests
Scott’s primary field is American and comparative environmental literature, in particular the work of such recent and contemporary writers as Loren Eiseley, Edward Abbey, Annie Dillard, Wendell Berry, Barry Lopez, Terry Tempest Williams, John Daniel, Rick Bass, Gary Paul Nabhan, and Alison Hawthorne Deming. He teaches such courses as Major Nature Writers, American Literature in the Nuclear Age, American Nature Poetry, The Literature of Population, Emerson and Thoreau (with Mike Branch), Ecocriticism and Theory, Expressing Social Values Through Literature, Environmental Literature of the Pacific Rim, Native American Literature, Environmental Literature South of the Border, and The Literature of Sustainability (with atmospheric chemist John Sagebiel.)
His current work focuses on the psychological, philosophical, and rhetorical aspects of environmental literature, extending the work of his first book, Seeking Awareness in American Nature Writing (U of Utah P, 1992). He recently completed Going Away To Think: Engagement, Retreat, and Ecocritical Responsibility (U of Nevada P, 2008), as well as a book on Yucca Mountain (the proposed nuclear waste repository in southern Nevada) as a place and as a cultural phenomenon. His current books projects include Thinking Like Yucca Mountain: Taking to Heart the Literature of Sustainability, Writing the Cause: Testimonies of Literary Engagement, and Numbers and Nerves: Information and Meaning in a World of Data (with Paul Slovic).
He and Great Basin National Park Ranger Roberta Moore recently co-edited Wild Nevada: Testimony on Behalf of the Desert (U of Nevada P, 2005). Earlier edited and co-edited publications include What’s Nature Worth? Narrative Expressions of Environmental Values (U of Utah P, 2004, with Terre Satterfield), Literature and the Environment (Greenwood, 2004, with George Hart), The ISLE Reader: Ecocriticism, 1993-2003 (U of Georgia P, 2003, with Mike Branch), and Getting Over the Color Green: Contemporary Environmental Literature of the Southwest (U of Arizona P, 2001), among many others.
Scott was the editor of The American Nature Writing Newsletter from 1992 to 1995, and he has served as the editor of ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment since 1995. He has also edited The Credo Series for Milkweed Editions and the Environmental Arts and Humanities Series for the University of Nevada Press.
In his 1974 novel The Memory of Old Jack, Wendell Berry’s main character says to a young neighbor, “If you’re going to talk to me, Mat, you’ll have to walk.” Likewise, Scott has been known to say to students and colleagues, “If you want to have a meeting, let’s head outside for a hike.” Brainstorming for seminar papers, discussion of comp exam reading lists, and strategizing for job searches are as likely to happen on trails in the mountains surrounding Reno as they are in the hectic confines of Scott’s office in the Frandsen Humanities Building.
For more information about Scott or the programs with which he is involved,
please feel free to email him at slovic@unr.edu.