In the First Country of Places

Louise Chawla is Associate Professor at Whitney Young College, an interdisciplinary honors college at Kentucky State University. She has written numerous book chapters and articles on environmental autobiography and children's environmental experience.

• PrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. Placing the Past2. Childhood and Nature3. Confrontations: William Bronk and Henry Weinfield4. Reconciliation: David Ignatow5. Connections: Audre Lorde and Marie Ponsot6. Childhood and Nature Reconsidered7. A Recollective PsychologyEpilogueNotesIndex

"I have a great respect for the way in which Dr. Chawla has been able to address and integrate a diverse set of literatures—environmental psychology, developmental psychology, phenomenology, literature and literary criticism, nature studies, and feminist theory. I am not surprised at the breadth of her insights because she has been so clear about her hermeneutic and phenomenological approach to the questions about childhood memories, nature, and developmental psychology—only that she does it so well." — Lynda H. Schneekloth, State University of New York at Buffalo"It is more than an academic book. Because of its topic, and approach, it is a book which will have personal as well as academic appeal." — Kenneth Olwig, Odense University, Denmark"The author's discussion of the gender differences between poets is important. Her advocacy of poetry as a source of understanding is cogent and exciting." — Tom Greeves, Cultural Environmentalist