Distinguished Professor, Adirondacks Expert to Speak at SUNY Plattsburgh

PLATTSBURGH, NY (03/10/2009)(readMedia)-- Dr. Philip Terrie, professor emeritus of American culture studies and environmental studies at Bowling Green State University in Ohio and a renowned expert on the environmental history of the Adirondacks, will give a public lecture at SUNY Plattsburgh in late March.

The lecture titled "The Adirondacks and the (Re)Invention of American Wilderness," is geared for a general audience and the North Country community at large. It will be held on March 31 at 7 p.m. in the Cardinal Lounge of the Angell College Center on the SUNY Plattsburgh campus. This event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Jim Rice at 518-524-2835 or ricejd@plattsburgh.edu.

Terrie has been selected by the SUNY Plattsburgh history department as the latest McLellan Distinguished Visiting Professor of North Country history and culture. Funded by a generous gift from the estate of the McLellan family of Clinton County, this professorship has been held in the recent past by individuals such as the Abenaki storyteller and anthropologist Marge Bruchac, novelist Russell Banks and historians Colin Calloway and Allan Greer.

According to History Professor Jim Rice, Terrie has collaborated with the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake and with other major cultural institutions in the North Country.

"He is a very popular speaker, drawing good crowds to summertime lectures onnature and people in the Adirondacks," Rice said.

Terrie has written three books and numerous articles on Adirondack environmental history, literature and politics. His most recent publication is "Contested Terrain: A New History of Nature and People in the Adirondacks," published in 2008 by Syracuse University Press.

A regular contributor to the Adirondack Explorer, Terrie is an enthusiastic hiker whose heart has been in the Adirondacks ever since he worked at a camp on Long Lake in the late 1960s.