Does Thoreau belong to the past or to the future? Instead of canonizing him as a celebrant of "pure" nature apart from the corruption of civilization, the essays in "Thoreauvian Modernities" reveal edgier facets of his work--how Thoreau is able to unsettle as well as inspire and how he is able to focus on both the timeless and the timely. Contributors from the United States and Europe explore Thoreau's modernity and give a much-needed reassessment of his work in a global context.
The first of three sections, "Thoreau and (Non)Modernity," views Thoreau as a social thinker who set himself against the "modern" currents of his day even while contributing to the emergence of a new era. By questioning the place of humans in the social, economic, natural, and metaphysical order, he ushered in a rethinking of humanity's role in the natural world that nurtured the environmental movement. The second section, "Thoreau and Philosophy," examines Thoreau's writings in light of the philosophy of his time as well as current philosophical debates. Section three, "Thoreau, Language, and the Wild," centers on his relationship to wild nature in its philosophical, scientific, linguistic, and literary dimensions. Together, these sixteen essays reveal Thoreau's relevance to a number of fields, including science, philosophy, aesthetics, environmental ethics, political science, and animal studies.
"Thoreauvian Modernities" posits that it is the germinating power of Thoreau's thought--the challenge it poses to our own thinking and its capacity to address pressing issues in a new way--that defines his enduring relevance and his modernity.
Contributors: Kristen Case, Randall Conrad, David Dowling, Michel Granger, Michel Imbert, Michael Jonik, Christian Maul, Bruno Monfort, Henrik Otterberg, Tom Pughe, David M. Robinson, William Rossi, Dieter Schulz, Francois Specq, Joseph Urbas, Laura Dassow Walls.

AIMS AND ORGANISATION OF THE PRESENT REPORT This document is a report on the state of Cognitive Science research in the European Economic Community. Since Cognitive Science is a young discipline, we have taken part of our task to be an exposition of its goals, methods and progress, and of its significance for technology. Subsequent to this exposition we survey the intellectual resources devoted to Cognitive Science research within member nations of the EEC. Specific proposals for the advancement of the discipline in Europe are also formulated. In more detail, the six chapters comprising the report may be summarized as follows. -Chapter 1 (What is Cognitive Science?) is an overview of the major research themes that define contemporary Cognitive Science. The relation of these themes to current technological issues Is also briefly discussed. -Chapter 2 (Survey of cognitive competencies) treats four principal axes of Cognitive Science research In more detail. Our discussion Is at once theoretical and applied Inasmuch as we describe potential app lications of basic research to technological and societal issues. -Chapter 3 (Biological perspective on Cognitive Science) is a discussion of neuroscience approaches to Cognitive Science. This chapter is intended to under line the distinction between Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence. -Chapter 4 (Cognitive ergonomics) highlights the study of man-machine interaction. It may be usefully accompanied by FAST series N" 9: "Mismatch between machine representations and human concepts."