Marianne Patinelli-Dubay
Environmental Philosopher
NFI
5922 State Route 28N
Newcomb, NY 12852
(518) 582-2000
mpatinelli@esf.edu
Teaching
Courses taught at Huntington Wildlife Forest
- EFB 497/797Adirondack Land-Use Ethics
- EFB 497 Eco-Phenomenology
- EFB 497/797 Philosophy of Science
- EFB 797 Social and Environmental Justice
Courses taught at Cranberry Lake Biological Station
- EFB 497 Adirondack Narratives: The Ethics of Environment and Culture
Research Interests
As an environmental philosopher living and working in the Adirondacks, I am devoted to understanding the local and regional intersections of nature, culture, science and ethics.
I’m currently working to understand the Adirondack situation through a philosophical lens with an emphasis on a series of related questions including how the absence of cultural diversity in the Adirondack Park impacts regional conservation initiatives. I’m particularly curious about how broad devotion to one style of wilderness story, primarily those handed down by 19th century philosophers and explorers like Ralph Waldo Emerson and his contemporaries, silences or pushes into the background another more complicated story of African American communities in the North Country. I’m interested in uncovering what nature writing, or the style of narrative that we often associate with these so-called wilderness visionaries, sounds like when it emerges from communities who enter their experience of the natural world with a history of violence inscribed onto their self and community identities. What’s more, how does this kind of backgrounding, together with a history of cultural violence in wild/rural America, influence our modern Adirondack demographic and impede conservation initiatives?
Education
Ph.D. Humanities and Public Policy, Union Institute (ABD)
M.A. Philosophy, Goddard College, 2002
B.A. Philosophy, SUNY at Binghamton, 1995
Dissertation: Transgressing the Blue Line: The Adirondack Park as a Model of Postmodern Wilderness
Advisors: C. Voparil, chair; C. H. Gray, D. Allerdyce
Service
- National Editorial Review Board Member, Philosophical Practice
- Public Library lecture series, 2007 – 2009 & 2011
- Regular contributor to the Adirondack Almanack
- Founder and coordinator of the Adirondack Society for Applied Philosophy
