Dartmouth Events

Professor Geoffrey Kirsch will give a lecture "Nature's Attorney: Thoreau, the Concord River, and Environmental Personhood" in the Wren Room (104) of Sanborn House on Thursday, October 2 at 4:30 p.m. This lecture examines Henry David Threau’s advocacy for the legal and moral rights of nature, placing his writings in the context of a decadeslong legal battle over the best use of the Concord River. Email english.department@dartmouth.edu with questions or access needs. 

Geoffrey Kirsch is a cultural historian of the nineteenth-century United States. He graduated from Dartmouth in 2009 with a degree in English and as the valedictorian of his class. His research interests lie at the intersection of American literature and legal, economic, and political history. He currently holds a Junior Research Fellowship in English at Trinity College, University of Cambridge. He earned a Ph.D. in English from Harvard University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School, and worked as a lawyer for several years before returning to academia. Kirsch will join the Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education at the University of Florida as Assistant Professor of Humanities in academic year 2026-2027.