Dr. Kathryn H. Warren

Sometimes a book finds you at the right time. That’s what happened to me with Walden. Thoreau wrote to wake his neighbors up, to jolt them out of their ruts of routine and conformity. Though I’d read Walden before, it wasn’t until I was teaching it at UTA that Thoreau truly reached me. His voice was the tonic I needed at a time I was struggling to find my place at an institution and in a discipline. Thoreau, who never traveled far from his native Concord, reminded me that the most genuine discoveries come not from seeking novelty for its own sake, but from adjusting one’s perspective. We can and we must wander beyond the limits of our daily experience – not by traveling farther, but by altering the way we apprehend the world.