Wofford

The Long Haul

John Lane — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 09:48:28 -0400

On Saturday I paddled my canoe above the dam at Glendale. It was a warm late summer day, and yellow-bellied and painted turtles were basking on debris along the old mill pond's far shore. It couldn't have been more beautiful, and I couldn't have been more happy.

What is College Really For?

John Lane — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 10:42:09 -0400

Today I'll begin teaching a humanities class for Wofford first-year students called "Into the Wild." We'll read a number of stories and essays about approaching wildness, books like John Krakauer's "Into the Wild," the story of Chris McCandless and his retreat from civilization and tragic death in wilds of Alaska.

Environmental Studies 101

John Lane — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 06:59:28 -0400

Last week I changed jobs. For twenty years I've taught in the English department at Wofford College. Now I'm director of Wofford's Glendale Shoals Environmental Studies Center and half-time teacher in the college's new environmental studies program.

ASLE Comes to Spartanburg

John Lane — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 09:28:50 -0400

The summer of 1997 I traveled west to Missoula, Montana to take part in a panel on "Southern Nature Writing" at a biennial conference of an emerging academic group called ASLE (The Association for the Study of Literature and Environment). When I received the invitation the group was new to me, but a little research showed ASLE had met once, two summers before, in Fort Collins, Colorado.

South Different, but Still Kicken'

John Lane — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 16:32:41 -0500

DAVID LAUDERDALE, Island Packet columnist, Hilton Head Island, SC
Published Sunday, January 21, 2007

DAUFUSKIE ISLAND — The "Cornbread and Sushi" tour nibbled its way through the Lowcountry last week, turning every mossy stone for an answer to that bottomless postmodern question: "Has the South done up and died?"

Students Search for the Real South

John Lane — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 16:29:10 -0500

By Matt Deegan, The Daily Progress, Charlottesville, VA

mdeegan@dailyprogress.com

Saturday, January 13, 2007

The sweet tea at Michie Tavern rated "fair" on Betsi Taylor's scale of Southern authenticity.

Sprawl Southern Style

John Lane — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 18:46:27 -0500

We set out on our Cornbread and Sushi road trip to look for the changing South, and driving through Charlotte, Chapel Hill, Roanoke, and Charlottesville we found it-towns changed to edge-cities, farmland changed to suburbs, two-lanes changed to four-lanes, small-scale farming changed to corporate agriculture, mom-and-pop businesses changed to chain stores.

Cornbread & Sushi on the Road Again

John Lane — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 07:47:09 -0500

When you read this I'll be in the middle of driving around the upper South for ten days with my colleague Deno Trakas and 12 students in two rental vans. At Wofford we call January "Interim," and it's a chance to be innovative, a chance to focus, to explore one subject in depth for an entire month.

Like a Fox on the Run

John Lane — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 06:01:12 -0500

Last week Richard Rankin visited our Rural South class at Wofford. Richard's a headmaster of a private school up in Gastonia, but much of his passion and pleasure is found in the subject of hunting in the South. He's got a PhD from the University of North Carolina in history, has edited an anthology of North Carolina nature writers, and compiled a history of a vast hunt club on Hilton Head Island that survived until vacation development became the chief industry of the island and sport hunting was pushed elsewhere. He's probably thought longer and deeper about hunting than anyone I know.

Knee-Deep in Learning on Lawson's Fork

John Lane — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 08:31:43 -0400

I'm a Wofford College English professor, and most of my classes are traditional, me in the front of the room, or at the head of a seminar table, writing on a blackboard, with students in rows of desks taking notes. The discussion is about books, and the issues rise from reading sentences, paragraphs, pages.