{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2020}} {{COI|date=February 2020}} {{Infobox person | image = AshtonNicholsWITF radio.png | birth_name = Brooks Ashton Nichols | birth_date = {{birth date and age|mf=yes|1953|6|7}} | birth_place = [[Washington, D.C.]], U.S. | occupation = Author, professor, naturalist | years_active = 1984–present | spouse = {{marriage|Kimberley A. Nichols|1975}} | children = 4 }}
'''Brooks Ashton Nichols''' (born 1953) is the Walter E. Beach ’56 Distinguished Chair Emeritus in Sustainable Studies and Professor of English Language and Literature Emeritus at [[Dickinson College]]. His interests are in literature, contemporary [[ecocriticism]], [[Romanticism]], and [[nature writing]]. Nichols taught courses in [[Romanticism]], 19th century literature, literature and the environment, and nature writing. He is especially well-known for his study of [[James Joyce]]'s literary concept of "epiphany," his definition of Romantic natural histories, and his coinage of the phrase "Urbanatural roosting," an idea which links urban with natural modes of existence and argues for ways of living more lightly on the earth, for inhabiting our planet the way animals do, by altering our environments without harming those same environments.
== Academic background ==
Nichols graduated from the [[University of Virginia]] with a B.A. with high honors in Philosophy in 1975. As an undergraduate, he received a four-year full academic scholarship as a DuPont Regional Scholar and was elected to [[Phi Beta Kappa]]. He was also selected for an Honors Program in philosophy, a program which allowed him to sit in on any class at the university and work individually with a separate tutor for each of the three semesters: in epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics, and then to write an honors thesis in his final semester. On the advice of [[Cora Diamond]], he attended [[University College London]] from 1973 to 1974 to study philosophy. He served as a staff reporter for the [[Fredericksburg, Virginia]] ''Free Lance-Star'', where he received awards from the [[Associated Press|AP]] and the Virginia Press Association, and as an editor for the [[National Trust for Historic Preservation]], before returning to the University of Virginia for an M.A. and later a Ph.D. in English Literature, specializing in Romantic and Victorian literature. He spent time as a Visiting Researcher at [[Cambridge University]] with [[John Beer]]. His Ph.D. dissertation, supervised by [[Robert Langbaum]] was titled "The Poetics of Epiphany: Nineteenth-Century Origins of the Modern Literary Moment". It was later revised for publication with the same title as his first book.
Nichols's time at Dickinson was punctuated by his membership on the President's Commission on Environmental Sustainability (PCES)--and before that, on the steering committee of the Center for Sustainability Education (CSE)--as a member of the Climate Change Curriculum Task Force, and a recipient of the Willoughby Institute Award for Teaching with Technology;<ref name="blogs.dickinson">{{cite web|url=http://blogs.dickinson.edu/willoughby/about/2008-2010-willoughby-fellows/ |title=The Willoughby Institute for Teaching with Technology |accessdate=July 20, 2014 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20130703180319/http://blogs.dickinson.edu/willoughby/about/2008-2010-willoughby-fellows/ |archivedate=July 3, 2013 }}</ref> he has also served on the Science Advisory Committee and the General Education Committee of the college. In 1994–95, he was a Visiting Lecturer at the [[University of East Anglia]] and Director of the Dickinson Programs in the Humanities and Sciences in [[Norwich]], U.K. He was a member of the selection committee for the Sam Rose '58 and Julie Walters Prize at Dickinson College for Global Environmental Activism,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dickinson.edu/homepage/749/the_sam_rose_58_and_julie_walters_prize_at_dickinson_college_for_global_environmental_activism |title=The Sam Rose '58 and Julie Walters Prize at Dickinson College for Global Environmental Activism |publisher=Dickinson College |date=February 25, 2015 |accessdate=April 11, 2020}}</ref> a $100,000 a year award to a major environmentalist whose impact has been powerful and fully international. Recipients so far have included [[Bill McKibben]] (author and climate activist), [[Lisa P. Jackson]] (Barack Obama's first EPA administrator), [[James Balog]] (video and still photographer of melting glaciers and icecaps), [[Mark Ruffalo]] (actor and river activist), [[Elizabeth Kolbert]] (Pulitzer Prize-winning environmental writer for ''The New Yorker'' and professor at Williams College), Brett Jenks (CEO and president of conservation organization [[Rare (conservation organization)|Rare]]), and [[Our Children's Trust]] (the organization that supports 21 young people—aged 11–22—who have brought suit against the federal U. S. government, claiming that the climate of the earth is being damaged in ways that threaten the youths' rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness); and, in 2019 to the [[Natural Resources Defense Council]] (NRDC). In addition to his joint appointment in Environmental Studies and Sciences, as well as English, Nichols has also served terms as chair of both departments. He also worked a brief stint as Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Dickinson.
== Recognition ==
Nichols was awarded the Ganoe Award for Inspirational Teaching<ref name="archives.dickinson">{{cite web|url=http://archives.dickinson.edu/lists-rosters/ganoe-award-inspirational-teaching |title=Ganoe Award for Inspirational Teaching |publisher=Dickinson College |date= |accessdate=June 24, 2014}}</ref> (1993-1994). Speaking to his ability to reach students, this award is described as the "highest honor the college bestows on a member of the faculty for excellence in teaching"; it is given by members of the senior class and awarded each year at Commencement. He has also won the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching<ref name="dickinson">{{cite web|url=http://www.dickinson.edu/academics/programs/english/Faculty/ |title=English Faculty |publisher=Dickinson College |accessdate=July 20, 2014 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20131006135309/http://www.dickinson.edu/academics/programs/english/Faculty/ |archivedate=October 6, 2013 }}</ref> (1992-1993); selected by fellow faculty members, it recognizes superior educators in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia. His most recent book, ''Beyond Romantic Ecocriticism: Toward Urbanatural Roosting''<ref>{{cite web |url=http://us.macmillan.com/beyondromanticecocriticism/AshtonNichols |title=Beyond Romantic Ecocriticism |publisher=Macmillan Publishers |access-date=July 20, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140728203048/http://us.macmillan.com/beyondromanticecocriticism/AshtonNichols |archive-date=July 28, 2014 |url-status=dead }}</ref> has been widely praised, from ''Choice'': "Combining literary, anecdotal, and philosophical perspectives, this invaluable book crossbreeds political, spiritual, scientific, and aesthetic elements within the outworn dichotomy of town and country. Summing Up: Essential"<ref name="blogs.dickinson.edu">{{cite web|url=http://blogs.dickinson.edu/romnat/2011/07/20/new-york-times-review/ |title=Reviews of Works by Ashton Nichols | Romantic Natural History |publisher=Dickinson College |date= |accessdate=April 11, 2020}}</ref> to the ''Sierra'' Club Magazine: "Both critically and artfully, Nichols explores how our conceptions of nature have derived from Enlightenment-era ideas (humans and nature are separate) and Romantic poetry (humans and nature are connected). Relying heavily on poetic examples, Nichols also envisions an 'urbanatural' future in which we see ourselves as part of the earth.";<ref name="blogs.dickinson.edu"/> the book was released in paperback in 2012. Nichols is now at work on a follow-up to ''Urbanatural Roosting'', titled ''Humanature: 21st-Century Challenges to ''Homo sapiens'' in a World of Plants and Animals''.
[[The Teaching Company]] selected Nichols as one of the approximately 100 professors chosen to video and audio tape (also download) as part of their ''[[The Great Courses|Great Courses]]'' Program; he has so far produced 24 lectures on "Emerson, Thoreau and American [[Transcendentalism]]." He was included in ''Who's Who in America'' in 2000 and ''Who's in the World'' in 2002. In recent years, he has delivered keynote speeches and lectures in countries around the world: in England, Ireland, Puerto Rico, Portugal, France, Italy, Morocco, Cameroon, India, China, and Japan.
== Research ==
His ongoing writing and research includes a website that organizes and analyzes sources of ecocriticism and natural history to explore the definition of nature.<ref name="blogs.dickinson_a">{{cite web|url=http://blogs.dickinson.edu/romnat |title=Romantic Natural History | A survey of relationships between literary works & natural history in the century before Charles Darwin's ''On the Origin of Species'' (1859) |publisher=Dickinson College |date= |accessdate=June 24, 2014}}</ref> Sarah Freierman, of ''The New York Times'', says of the project:
:''A Romantic Natural History, maintained by Dr. Ashton Nichols, a professor of English at Dickinson College, examines the way artists, writers and scientists viewed nature in the century before Charles Darwin published ''On the Origin of Species'' in 1859. The timeline offers wonderful juxtapositions, like the publication of Jane Austen’s "Sense and Sensibility" and the "New Idea of the Anatomy of the Brain," a paper by Charles Bell, in 1811; and the 1832 posthumous publication of "Faust, Part II," by Goethe, followed by an 1834 entry noting the invention of the first computer, an "analytical engine" by Charles Babbage.<ref name="nytimes">{{cite news|first=Shelly |last=Freierman |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/21/technology/news-watch-views-of-nature-before-darwin-jumped-into-the-debate.html |title=NEWS WATCH; Views of Nature Before Darwin Jumped Into the Debate |work=The New York Times |date=September 21, 2000 |accessdate=June 24, 2014}}</ref>'' The multidisciplinary application of Nichols' research has been praised not only by literary critics and environmentalists but also by urban planners and architects such as [[Charles Morris Anderson]]. This link between "urbanature" and architecture is evident in urban design projects such as The Olympic Sculpture Park<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.worldbuildingsdirectory.com/project.cfm?id=801 |title=Olympic Sculpture Park, Seattle Art Museum |publisher=World Buildings Directory |accessdate=June 24, 2014 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20141217034444/http://www.worldbuildingsdirectory.com/project.cfm?id=801 |archivedate=December 17, 2014 }}</ref> in Seattle, WA and Project Phoenix,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.archdaily.com/327179/world-class-soccer-stadium-underway-in-haiti/ |title=World-Class Soccer Stadium Underway in Haiti |publisher=ArchDaily |date= February 2, 2013|accessdate=June 24, 2014}}</ref> a soccer stadium in Haiti.
Most recently, Nichols has established a blog on urbanatural roosting.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://blogs.dickinson.edu/urbanaturalroosting/ |title=Urbanatural Roosting |date=August 2, 2018 |publisher=Dickinson College}}</ref> This site offers practical applications and descriptions of urbanatural roosting in cities ([[Boston]], [[New York City]], and [[Baltimore]], for example) as well as in natural areas (The [[Adirondacks]], [[Cape Cod]], the [[Chesapeake Bay]], and the like). These examples show how modern cities have naturalized themselves to produce sustainable forms of energy (sunlight electricity, wind energy, hydroelectric power), to grow food (greenroofs, greenwalls), and to increase the size of natural environment in urban spaces ([[Central Park]], [[Boston Common]], the [[Baltimore Inner Harbor]], etc.). Likewise, the site shows how human culture and urban ideas have helped to make natural spaces more livable: strict architectural regulations in the Adirondacks and in national and state parks, careful use of roads and trails throughout natural areas nationwide, and detailed rules for living with nonhuman species in wild and wilderness areas (hunting and trapping regulations, catch-and-release fishing streams, and strict protections for even the wildest species: rattlesnakes, wolves, and grizzly bears). In addition to other nature writing—currently for the Thoreau Farm blog "The Roost" in Concord, Massachusetts<ref>{{cite web |url=http://thoreaufarm.org/?s=ashton+nichols |title=Search Results for: ashton nichols |publisher=Thoreau Farm}}</ref>—Nichols has also published poetry and short fiction.
== Personal ==
Nichols has been married since 1975 (to the calligrapher Kimberley Anne Smith), with whom he has four daughters (born 1979, 1981, 1982, 1984), three granddaughters and three grandsons.
== Published works ==
* ''Beyond Romantic Ecocriticism: Toward Urbanatural Roosting''<ref name="AshtonNichols">Ashton Nichols. ''Beyond Romantic Ecocriticism: Toward Urbanatural Roosting''. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. {{ISBN|978-1137033994}}</ref> * ''Romantic Natural Histories: William Wordsworth, Charles Darwin and Others''<ref name="Wordsworth">Wordsworth, W., Darwin, C., & Nichols, A. (2003). A. Nichols (Ed.), ''Romantic Natural Histories''. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. {{ISBN|978-0618317677}}</ref> * ''The Revolutionary "I": Wordsworth and the Politics of Self-Presentation''<ref name="AshtonNichols_a">Ashton Nichols. ''The Revolutionary "I": Wordsworth and the Politics of Self-Presentation.'' New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. {{ISBN|978-0312211653}}</ref> * ''The Poetics of Epiphany: Nineteenth-Century Origins of the Modern Literary Moment.'' Tuscaloosa : University of Alabama Press, 1987. * "Natural History," in ''Cambridge Critical Concepts: Nature and Literary Study''. Ed. Peter Remien and Scott Slovic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. * Alan Richardson and Sonia Hofkosh (eds.)'' Romanticism, Race, & Imperial Culture'' Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 1996 (essay contribution: "Mumbo Jumbo: Mungo Park and the Rhetoric of Romantic Africa") * "Fostered by Fear: Affect and Environment in Romantic Nature Writing," '' Wordsworth and the Green Romantics: Affect and Ecology in the Nineteenth Century''. Ed. Lisa Ottum and Seth T. Reno. Durham, N. H.: University of New Hampshire Press, 2016. * "‘Humanist Joy’: Urbanature in the Poetry of Seamus Heaney," ''Festschrift'' for Robert Langbaum, Ed. Michael Pickard. ''The Wordsworth Circle'' (TWC), 2016. * "Celebration or Longing: Robert Browning and the Nonhuman World," ''Victorian Writers and the Environment: Ecocritical Perspectives''. Ed. Larry Mazzeno and Ronald D. Morrison. London: Ashgate Press, 2017. * "Ecocriticism and Environmental Approaches," ''Victorian Literature in the 21st Century: A Guide to Pedagogy''. Ed. Jen Cadwallader and Laurence Mazzeno. New York & London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.
== References == {{Reflist}}
== External links == * [http://www.thegreatcourses.com/professors/ashton-nichols/ ''Great Courses Biography'' and course description and reviews] * [http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/reviews/nichols.html ''Victorian Web'' Reprint of ''Review 19'' review by Samantha Harvey of ''Beyond Romantic Ecocriticism: Toward Urbanatural Roosting''] * [https://web.archive.org/web/20150501080622/http://www.amphilsoc.org/sites/default/files/proceedings/490302.pdf "Roaring Alligators and Burning Tygers:Poetry and Science from William Bartram to Charles Darwin," a lecture delivered at the ''American Philosophical Society'' in Philadelphia, PA, USA, 22 April 2004, as part of the symposium "Science, Art, and Knowledge: Practicing Natural History from the Enlightenment to the Twenty-first Century." Published in ''Proceedings'' 149:3 (3 September 2005): 304-15] * [http://thoreaufarm.org/?s=Ashton+Nichols Nature writing postings at ''The Roost'', invited blog of the ''Thoreau Farm: Birthplace of Henry David Thoreau'' historic site outside of Concord, MA]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Nichols, Ashton}} [[Category:1953 births]] [[Category:Living people]] [[Category:American academics of English literature]] [[Category:Dickinson College faculty]] [[Category:University of Virginia alumni]] [[Category:Alumni of University College London]] [[Category:American social scientists]] [[Category:Educators from Washington, D.C.]]