Novelist, poet, and mixed media artist Janet Kauffman, Professor of English at Eastern Michigan University, talks about her farming experience and writing about farms, especially the discrepancy between the romantic ideal of family farms and the reality of modern, industrial farms in rural Michigan. Kauffman talks about her book "Trespassing: Dirt Stories and Field Notes," and reads from "The Fantasy of the Clip Art Farm." Arthur Versluis, Michigan State University Professor and Chair of Religious Studies, reflects on his farming experience in Ionia County. He defends the operations of some factory farms, even though he doesn't endorse many of their methods and suggests that owners and operators can be responsive to neighbors. Wynne Wright from both the MSU Department of Sociology and the MSU Department of Community Sustainability describes her farming experiences then comments on the relationship between agriculture and gender and the relationship between community and the form agriculture eventually takes. Craig Harris from the MSU Department of Sociology, suggests Kauffman's book functions as autobiography, history, empirical description, and as an analytical study of rural agricultural development. He also says, however, that the book is lacking in each area and that "highly generalized claims" actually undercut possible support for the author's positions. Kauffman reacts by saying that she thinks of the book as a "nightmare rant" rather than an academic work. She also says that she tried to make comprehensible the immediacy of the damage being done by farming rather than write a sociological study of farming. The panel answers questions from the audience. The session is convened by MSU Professor of English Ned Watts. Part of the Michigan State University Libraries' Michigan Writers Series.
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