Carolyn Finney, PhD, is a storyteller, author, cultural geographer, and self-described “accidental environmentalist” whose work explores the intersection of identity, privilege, and our natural surroundings.

She's the author of Black Faces White Spaces: Re-Imagining the Relationship of African-Americans to the Great Outdoors. And lately she's been workshopping a performance piece titled The N Word: Nature Revisited in which she interrogates our collective relationship with the land, an interrogation that includes a spirited conversation with the ghost of John Muir.

Carolyn teaches undergraduates at Middlebury as an artist in residence in environmental Affairs, and last summer served on the faculty of the Breadloaf Environmental Writers’ Conference.

In part one of this two-part interview, Carolyn joins host and president of Middlebury, Laurie Patton, to discuss how her upbringing and family history in Westchester County, New York became the foundation of her life’s work. 

And don’t forget to join us next week for part 2 of this engaging and dynamic interview with Carolyn Finney.

16:28: A lot of people I've met who are in the work of placing conservation easement are generally very thoughtful, caring folks who love the land and the landscape and have also been educated similarly to the way I've been educated in the world about how to think about it right now. I think the nuance begins depending on who you are. Like it's going to look different if you live in a certain skin and experience. And having said that, I think there's a lot of not knowing, right? About our past. I also think, and this is just my opinion, you know, look to read and look at stories and what's going on daily in this country and oftentimes, the resistance, and I say it very gently but clearly, to wanting to understand the complexity.

17:41: There's an assumption about that shared American narrative that it was never shared. You know, it depends on who you ask. The opportunity is how we develop the skill set to look at that textured history and where and how we see ourselves.

Our personal experiences are part of a larger story

22:44: We all have our family stories or our personal experiences, but actually, it's part of a larger story. The textural piece is all of ours. And so we are all accountable and responsible for it differently, but what happens if we all become responsible for it? It's amazing.

27:58: We all live a damaging experience as human beings on this earth because part of the legacy of the past is a lot of the hard and painful things that are there for all of us that we all carry. Whether or not we pay attention to it or not is perhaps our individual choice, or, you know, our circumstance. But there is what I would like to say: that brokenness that's always there, along with intense joy, love, and resilience.