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Podcast: New Books in Literary Studies
Episode: Boria Sax, "Enchanted Forests: The Poetic Construction of a World Before Time" (Reaktion Books, 2023)
Description: Linking literature, philosophy, art, and personal experience, a moving exploration of the wooded landscape’s power.In 1985 Boria Sax inherited an area of forest in New York State, which had been purchased by his Russian, Jewish, and Communist grandparents as a buffer against what they felt was a hostile world. For Sax, in the years following, the woodland came to represent a link with those who currently live and had lived there, including Native Americans, settlers, bears, deer, turtles, and migrating birds. In this personal and eloquent account, Sax explores the meanings and cultural history of forests fr...