The First Online Thoreau Conference, if briefly presented, could be described as a collaborative effort between students, scholars, and educators based in Brazil, who are dedicated to the study and outreach of Henry David Thoreau’s work. However, such a description wouldn’t do much justice to the interconnectedness of readers of Thoreau across the globe. It would be borderline impossible for me to explain how the Online Thoreau Conference came to be in July 2024, without explaining how I got into reading and studying Transcendentalism in the first place.

I started reading Walden at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and felt completely enthralled not only by the book itself, but by Thoreau and his broader contexts, which made me decide to read a Ph.D. thesis centered on exploring the ways in which Thoreau can be studied as a moral philosopher. In order to get there, the scholar who wrote it, Professor Eduardo Vicentini de Medeiros, based in Southern Brazil, analyzed the influence of Unitarianism in Thoreau’s formal education and overall upbringing. 

While simultaneously reading both Walden and the thesis, I eventually found unique resources that influenced the processes that converged into this year’s event. That was when I discovered that Medeiros and a team of scholars had organized a bicentennial event, held in person, recorded, and posted on YouTube. It was an enterprise of the Philosophy Department of the Federal University of Santa Maria. A Thoreau-themed magazine was also published in partnership with Unisinos (Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos/University of the Sinos River Valley). It was an event centered around philosophy, and it enormously helped my own process of slowly starting to grasp Transcendentalism, Thoreau, and his circle of intellectual ancestors, as well as American history and philosophy. 

Years passed since I first encountered materials on Thoreau in Portuguese, and by late May of  2024, I reached out to Professor Medeiros and, while we talked about possibilities for outreach and sharing the processes of our research, he suggested we should work on an online conference centered around Thoreau in July, when readers remember his birthday and the Thoreau Society holds its Annual Gathering. 

Since scholars are scattered across the country, the main objective was to be able to offer easily available resources. And while funding an in-person conference isn’t always sustainable or even viable, we decided it would be an online only event, at least for now. It was a way of simplifying our work, but also of adding layers to the diversity in Thoreau scholarship in Brazil and beyond. For weeks, we reached out to our own scholarly networks and worked on publicity through social media, in order to curate a selection of contributions that ended up encompassing Thoreau and literature, religion, the history of New England, translation, decoloniality, and civil disobedience. All twelve programs are available on YouTube, through the channel “Departamento de Filosofia da UFSM”. Two of them are in English, since they were delivered by American scholars. YouTube.com/@DepartamentoFilosofiaUFSM

Our most watched program to date is a conversation with Denise Bottmann, translator of Walden, where she explored a myriad of subtleties of the translation process. Also popular is Marcio Serpa’s talk on Thoreau and decolonial thought, grounding his reflection in botanical observations of Thoreau himself and scholars like Paraná-based Klaus Eggensperger. Igor Nascimento, on the other hand, explored parallels between The Iliad and Walden, mediated by his reading of Stanley Cavell. 

Courtesy of the author

In my lecture, I deliberately didn’t take the time to dismantle what I call the “Laundry Gate”, but rather explained some of the religious and political background of Thoreau’s life and influences that shaped his work and personal stances, first learned from Thoreau’s own journal, Medeiros’ thesis and the work of Philip Gura. One of my arguments was that indirect nods to Concord are not completely foreign to popular culture and mainstream media in Brazil, but they’re hardly ever woven into a cohesive web of literary references. As I mention in my presentation, lots of people from different generations have read Little Women or The Scarlet Letter in Portuguese, but they’ll rarely realize the connection between Louisa May Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau. I trust that by connecting the dots, Transcendentalism might feel more inviting and palatable for people in general, especially those whose interests and pursuits aren’t necessarily scholarly ones.

While the Thoreauvian community in Brazil may not be expressive in numbers, at least in our conference, it gathers people who are committed to unraveling both primary and secondary sources. Though most of us can read and speak English, we aimed to create relatable and accessible resources for Portuguese speaking people.

I would dare to say that in Brazil, Thoreau would currently lean toward a niche interest rather than total obscurity. In fact, despite an abyss of differences, and the often-claimed premise of American exceptionality, both Brazil and the U.S. share similarities in history and even culture. Thoreau’s abolitionist writings and his nature observations, for instance, can still be relatable to non-U.S. based audiences, and there lies a huge potential in terms of scholarship. 

There’s a sense of anticipation that this event, and more specifically, the fact that it was live-streamed to YouTube, may serve as a useful resource to other people in the future; no matter if they are dipping their feet in the subject out of sheer curiosity or are seasoned scholars studying the reception of Thoreau, and that we can more easily foster a community of readers and scholars in general.

One of our lecturers, Tiago Ribas, who is currently translating A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers to Portuguese, once mentioned that in Brazil, Thoreau’s work is akin to an exuberant cypress. May it be so, and may we make it so. 

For more information, visit Sites.google.com/view/thoreau- webinar/home?authuser=0.