“Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, and the Dawn of Modern Science”

“Natural Magic: Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, and the Dawn of Modern Science” by Renée Bergland

Minnesota Atheists - Hybrid Meeting
Free and Open to the Public

In person and via Zoom
Zoom Meeting ID: 856 9893 7389; Passcode: 166449

NEW LOCATION!
(Same place as November 2025 and January 2026 meeting.)
Merriam Park Library
1831 Marshall Ave.
St. Paul, MN 55104
(There is a small library parking lot, but there is also free parking in the neighborhood.)

The room is one floor down in the basement level of the library, then down a hallway. You can get there by stairs or elevator.

1:00-1:30 pm - Library opens. Social Time. Zoom starts.
1:30-1:50 pm - Business Meeting. (Open to the public.) Includes elections for the Minnesota Atheists board of directors.
1:50-2:00 pm - Break
2:00-3:30 pm - Public Meeting: “Natural Magic: Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, and the Dawn of Modern Science” by Renée Bergland”
3:30 pm - Leave for Dinner *

* Longfellow Grill
2990 W. River Pkwy.
Minneapolis, MN 55406
(1.4 miles west of the library, just over the Mississippi River, where Marshall Ave. in St. Paul turns into E. Lake St. in Minneapolis.)

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Our speaker will appear live via Zoom. She will be projected on the library screen or you may watch from home.
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“Natural Magic: Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, and the Dawn of Modern Science” by Renée Bergland

Charles Darwin was born on February 12, 1809. In that month we often have a speaker on evolution. This year we are pleased to feature a merging of science and art. In 2024, Prof. Renée Bergland published her book Natural Magic: Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, and the Dawn of Modern Science.

Emily Dickinson and Charles Darwin were born at a time when the science of studying the natural world was known as natural philosophy, a pastime for poets, priests, and schoolgirls. The world began to change in the 1830s, while Darwin was a young naturalist aboard the Beagle and Dickinson was a student in Amherst, Massachusetts. Poetry and science started to grow apart, and modern thinkers challenged the old orthodoxies, offering thrilling new perspectives that suddenly felt radical – and too dangerous for women.

Natural Magic intertwines the stories of these two luminary nineteenth-century minds whose thought and writings captured the awesome possibilities of the new sciences and at the same time strove to preserve the magic of nature. Just as Darwin’s work was informed by his roots in natural philosophy and his belief in the interconnectedness of all life, Dickinson’s poetry was shaped by her education in botany, astronomy, and chemistry, and by her fascination with the enchanting possibilities of Darwinian science.

Casting their two very different careers in an entirely fresh light, Renée Bergland brings to life a time when ideas about science were rapidly evolving, reshaped by poets, scientists, philosophers, and theologians alike. She paints a colorful portrait of a remarkable century that transformed how we see the natural world.

Prof. Renée Bergland is the Program Director of Literature and Writing in the Department of Humanities at Simmons University in Boston. She has published articles, essays, and reviews for general readers in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Nautilus, and The Boston Globe.

Reviews of the book Natural Magic:

“A New Yorker Best Book We’ve Read This Year”

“Winner of the Hughes Prize, British Society for the History of Science”

“Taking the form of a joint biography, Natural Magic alternates between Darwin and Dickinson…. While Bergland offers comprehensive portraits, building on the extensive work of other biographers and scholars, the book’s own magic shines in the dialogue created between its subjects’ bodies of work.” – Kaitlin Mondello, Science

“A riveting narrative that crisscrosses the Atlantic, Natural Magic tells a story of two figures driven by their wonder at the intricate delicacies of the natural world. It shows Dickinson and Darwin enthralled by surprising proximities that the study of nature lays bare. At its heart, Natural Magic reillumines a time in which scientific thinking is still linked to mystery and a marvelous connectedness.” – Anna Henchman, author of The Starry Sky Within

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