Jim Proctor

My work in environmental theory focuses on key concepts such as nature, place, science, spirituality, and sustainability.

I call them Big Words, as they are often invoked in a broad-brush way to understand and act in the world.
But many times they don’t provide the helpful guidance we need today—thus my search for Better Big Words.

My EcoTypes initiative is one way I help students reflect on the Big Words that move them.

The Words site has some related posts, and a summary of selected publications.
In time I’ll post commentaries on key publications as well.

Go to Words Site

My day job is as Professor and Director of the Environmental Studies (ENVS) Program at Lewis & Clark College.
There are two related online resources I’d like to share with the wider world.

In ENVS, we help students do innovative environmental scholarship, and apply it to the world to make a “different difference.”
Some of the approaches we take are available on an ENVS resources site.

Go to ENVS Resources Site

Also, from 2012 to 2017, I authored a variety of sites, many on the now-decommissioned ds.lclark.edu,
to support Lewis & Clark digital scholarship. We have archived thirteen of these sites
to preserve some of their content and suggest the possibilities for digital scholarship in the liberal arts.

Browse Site Archives

I’m a professor at Lewis & Clark College and Director of the Environmental Studies Program,
with broad interests in environmental theory.

I’m also the proud daddy of Joy and Elise; a singer-songwriter [site coming back soon…];
founded an educational nonprofit, Alder Creek Community Forest,
on my land in southern Oregon;
and a few other things.

See here for more details about me, here for social media, and here for selected publications.

Go to Songs Site Browse Slideshows

Three Classic Environmentalism Metaframeworks

Image source: NIDTA Classic environmental thought How does one do critique in environmental theory? Our ENVS 350 class has been asking this question every week as they do an “isms critique” of one relevant chapter from Companion to Environmental Studies (Castree, Hulme, and Proctor 2018). And we have introduced the two notions of inclusivity and […]

Big Green Words as Keywords

This post builds on Approaching Environmental Theory and Environmental Theory Around Us, as well as a resource page on doing interdisciplinarity, and is part of a series of weekly reading posts intended for my students in ENVS 350 (Environmental Theory), fall semester 2019, Lewis & Clark College. I focus here on preparing students for particular […]

Environmental Theory Around Us

This post builds on Approaching Environmental Theory, and is part of a series of weekly reading posts intended for my students in ENVS 350 (Environmental Theory), fall semester 2019, Lewis & Clark College. I focus here only on readings we will do for this coming week; many important citations are not woven into the below. Featured […]

Approaching Environmental Theory

—Image courtesy Wikipedia Theory as thinking about thinking; theory as a vehicle What is environmental theory? If not done carefully, it can quickly get meta, and for good reason. Let’s define environmental scholarship as thinking about environmental issues; if so, then environmental theory involves thinking about thinking about environmental issues! Don’t give up: thinking about […]

Thinking Through an EcoTypes Book

Finally, books! It’s been a long time since I’ve posted: 2018-19 has been a year of attending to medical health, and I’m recovering well but needed to give it full attention in fall/winter/spring. Now that summer is coming up, I’m looking forward to getting back to writing (and doing very well health-wise, thank you.) When […]

What is Environmental Analysis?: Take Climate Change, For Instance

First: what sorts of thoughts and feelings does the above image conjure in you? Taken from a recent New York Times article, it says far more than just the facts of global warming, no? This reminds us, from the outset, that environmental analysis is about facts and values, description and prescription, is and ought…which makes […]

Looking Up at Canyon Mountain, Southern Oregon

Words

EcoTypes

ENVS Resources

ACCF

About JDP

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