{"id":21252,"date":"2021-06-15T10:45:09","date_gmt":"2021-06-15T15:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/?p=21252"},"modified":"2021-08-31T09:11:11","modified_gmt":"2021-08-31T14:11:11","slug":"dr-timothy-goodwin-explores-his-place-in-the-world-through-new-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/2021\/06\/15\/dr-timothy-goodwin-explores-his-place-in-the-world-through-new-book\/","title":{"rendered":"Professor Goes “Within These Woods” to Explore His Place in the World"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dr.<\/a>
Dr. Timothy Goodwin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

What does it mean to live in a place, and how does where you live impact your own identity and sense of self? Dr. Timothy Goodwin<\/a>, assistant professor of professional education at Bemidji State University, uses the natural beauty of the Northwoods as a vehicle to explore these questions in his new book, “Within These Woods.”<\/p>\n

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“This book is about discovering your ecological identity,” Goodwin said. “That means going further than environmental literacy, so I understand where I live and I understand my impact on the environment. What does it mean to live in a place?”<\/p>\n

The book is a thematic collection of Goodwin’s poems, essays and artwork meant to provide Goodwin’s answer to the broad question of how he, as a human being and a member of a globally interconnected ecosystem, ought to live in the world. On his path to that answer, he reflects on the elegance of evolution and the interconnectedness of all living things.<\/p>\n

“My family has had a cabin since I was 12 or so in northern Wisconsin,” he said. “I wanted to explore that place and the people who live in that place. I decided to do that by exploring one species at a time. Each chapter looks at a specific organism and tells a bit about its natural history, how it evolved, how it lives, and what connections it might have to the people who have lived in the area.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Goodwin’s poems on SoundCloud<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
• The Bullfrog<\/i><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
• The Large-Leafed Trillium<\/i><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
• Untitled (Life Feels Itself)<\/i><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

As an example, in a chapter about beavers Goodwin explores the creation story of how the beaver got its flat tail, as told by the Ojibwe people, and the relationships that formed as a result of connections between beavers, the Ojibwe and French fur trappers. He also relates a story of his first visit to northern Minnesota as an undergraduate student, and how frozen beaver corpses obtained from a local trapper played a role in an outdoor research project.<\/p>\n

“So there’s a memoir component to the book as well,” he said. “Starting from the organism and its natural history, what are the lessons I can take from this? How does this define who I am in these woods?”<\/p>\n

While reveling in the complex relationships found in the ecosystem around us, Goodwin also explores difficult questions about stewardship, spirituality and sustainability that he says can only be answered by examining our own personal connection with nature.<\/p>\n