The Boise State Arts and Humanities Institute will present a new public lecture series this spring. “Interdisciplinary Explorations – The Idea of Nature” will bring three distinguished speakers to campus to examine how ideas of nature are expressed in literature, art, philosophy, music and other humanities disciplines.

The goal of the series is to promote interdisciplinary inquiry and to foster dialogue across the campus and community, based on the premise that big questions need interdisciplinary answers.

The lectures are free and open to the public and will be followed by a reception with a cash bar and appetizers. The lectures will be held from 6-7 p.m. in the Boise State Student Union Simplot A/B Ballroom.

On Feb. 17, Rochelle Johnson, professor of English and environmental studies at the College of Idaho, will present “On Metaphor and Progress: Nature in Literature and Landscape Painting in 19th-Century America.” Johnson will examine how artists and writers in the mid-19th century consciously worked together to express the power of the natural landscapes comprising their young nation, the United States.

Johnson is the author of several books, including “Passions for Nature: Nineteenth-Century America’s Aesthetics of Alienation,” and groundbreaking scholarship and editorial work on Susan Fenimore Cooper, the daughter of early environmental visionary James Fenimore Cooper. Johnson is the former president of the Association for the Study of Literature & Environment and currently holds posts with the Thoreau Society and the James Fenimore Cooper Society. In 2010, she was named the Idaho Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation and was awarded fellowships by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Idaho Humanities Council.

The lecture series continues March 15. Professor James Engell from Harvard University will present “Henry David Thoreau and Health in Nature.” On April 30, Professor Kevin Hutchings from the University of Northern British Columbia will give a lecture on “Romanticism, William Blake, and the Politics of Nature.”

The public lecture series is supported by the Boise State Arts and Humanities Institute, the Idaho Humanities Council, The Osher Institute, the College of Idaho and the following Boise State units: Extended Studies, College of Arts and Sciences, Hemingway Western Studies Center, Department of English and the Environmental Studies Program.

Tickets for the receptions are limited. Contact Samantha Harvey at samanthaharvey@boisestate.edu or visit www.boisestate.edu/research/ahi for more information.