The 2004 Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE) regional symposium will be held on June 4-6, 2004 in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Located at the top of Crawford Notch in the heart of the Northern Forest, and surrounded by some of the Northeast’s highest mountains, the symposium venue has been a starting point for mountain explorers since the early 1800s. As such, it is an ideal place in which to being a contemporary exploration the forces that shape the region’s cultural and environmental identity. The symposium, cooperatively sponsored by ASLE, the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC), and a number of regional non-profit organizations, seeks to implement an interdisciplinary approach to Northern Forest Studies and foster dialogue among scholars, educators, forestry and recreation professionals, artists, writers, activists and non-profit organizations from the Northern Forest region. Proposals for papers, panels, and field session are invited.

The symposium invites proposals on a variety of topics including, but not limited to, the following:

• Settlement History
• Early Exploration of Northern New England and the Canadian Maritimes
• Preservation vs. Conservation
• Tourism
• Regionalism
• Teaching Regional Issues
• Native American History and Culture
• The Northern Forest Economy
• Literature and Art of the Northeastern U.S. and Southeastern Canada
• Representations of the Northern Forest
• Sustainability and Wise-Use
• Forestry Practices and Forest Products
• Wilderness vs. Wildness

Featured presenters and field-session leaders include:

• John Elder, author of Reading the Mountains of Home and Frog Run
• Clare Walker Leslie, author of Keeping a Nature Journal, Into the Field, and A Naturalist’s Sketchbook
• Tom Wessles, author of Reading the Forested Landscape and The Granite Landscape
• Kent Ryden, author of Landscape with Figures: Nature and Culture in New England and Mapping the Invisible Landscape
• Ian Marshall, author of Story Line: Exploring the Literature of the Appalachian Trail and Peak Experiences
• Rob Sanford, author of Stonewalls and Cellarholes: A guide for landowners on historic features and landscapes in Vermont’s forests