The Christian Humanist Podcast, Episode #94: The Forest

General Introduction
– Grubbs is back!
– Old English
– Snow
– Listener feedback

Etymology
– Not promising
– Madness and wood

Biblical Forests
– The Epic of Gilgamesh
– Wildernesses and deserts
– Man-eating forests
– Trees clapping their hands
– Joseph the stonemason

Classical Forests
– Forests and mountains
– Centaurs
– Categories of dryads
– Satyrs and the wildness of the forest
– Dionysus’s origin story
– Not just another biome

Medieval Forests
– Nothing changes
– A place for adventures
– No clear borderline
– Wandering without navigation
– The king’s ownership

Renaissance Forests
– The dark wood of error
– Spenser’s catalogue of trees
– The demythologized forest
– Flexibility of identity
– Allusions and illusions

American Forests
– The errand to the wilderness
– Manifest destiny
– Site of deliberate living
– Woods vs. civilization
– The closing of the frontier
– Wild at heart

Conservation and Ecology
– How are our notions changing?
– Ward of the human race
– The role of photography
– Specimen to ecosystem
– Anthropocentrism
– East vs. West
– The forest at war

Theological Turn
– Loss of awe
– Outliving civilizations
– God’s woods