Clemson’s J. Drew Lanham named Thoreau Prize winner while working on play, operetta
In 2023, J. Drew Lanham ’88, M ’90, Ph.D. ’97 was a speaker at the Annual Gathering of the Thoreau Society. While in Concord, Massachusetts, Lanham got a chance to meet with the recipient of the Henry David Thoreau Prize for Literary Excellence in Nature Writing.
Little did the Clemson University Alumni Distinguished Professor of Wildlife Ecology know that a year later, he would be named the 2024 Thoreau Prize winner. The award came as a pleasant surprise for Lanham, who, in October 2022, was named a MacArthur Fellow by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
“It means that words matter,” Lanham said. “It means that what I write and what people read matters. Even more than that, for me, it means that one’s words can be the work of an activist. That’s who Henry David Thoreau was, and that’s how I see myself.”
As an ornithologist, naturalist, writer and poet, Lanham has been able to weave his expertise with personal, historical and cultural narratives of nature. And like Thoreau, his nature writing often leads down paths of activism.
“When we look at the state of the world from a conservation standpoint and an environmental standpoint, we can look at climate change,” Lanham said. “We can look at all of those things and see that, in many ways, nature is being imperiled, and our place in it is suspect in that we’ve created so many of these problems that we are now not just bound to try to repair but morally bound to repair. There’s a moral imperative there.
“Head and heart are that sort of connection I try to make, and I think the connection that we ultimately make between head and heart is our voice. And we have to speak out in some sort of way.”
J. Drew Lanham ’88, M ’90, Ph.D. ’97
“The other hotwire is social justice. With so much inequality, with all of the issues of racism and misogyny, of just the state of the world where we are constantly at odds with each other because of issues of identity. To sit between those two very hot wires of conservation and social justice means I get to sort of short-circuit the two. I get to arc between the two. I like to think that, in doing that, I also get to arc people’s thinking with their feeling. Head and heart are that sort of connection I try to make, and I think the connection that we ultimately make between head and heart is our voice. And we have to speak out in some sort of way.”
The Thoreau Prize is just one of several honors bestowed upon Lanham in recent years. In 2022, The Root, an online publication and newsletter, included Lanham on its The Root 100, which is the publication’s list of the 100 most influential African Americans.
And then there’s the MacArthur Fellow, also known as “genius grants.” Each fellow receives an $800,000 stipend bestowed quarterly over five years, with no conditions.
“In many ways, I feel fortunate,” Lanham said. “I feel blessed in this way that I have a platform. A large part of that platform has been built, obviously, by those who’ve come before me in conservation and social activism. But then I also think part of my purpose has been to build a platform that others can stand on that come after me.”
The MacArthur Fellow has allowed Lanham to expand on projects he was working on. He went from working on one book to being currently under contract for four books. Lanham is also wrapping up a play that he’s co-writing with longtime friend John Lane. And if that isn’t enough, he’s also working on an operetta and consulting with several museums on exhibitions about conservation.
The play is a collaboration with Lane, a retired environmental studies professor from Wofford College. It’s a Lowcountry story written around a historical narrative of bondage and choice. It brings together the stories of a father and daughter and the choices they have to make to save a life and/or be free.
“I’ve told John that I want us to be fully prepared and to go ahead and buy our black ties for the Emmy Award when we get to walk the red carpet,” Lanham said. “I think it’s that good. I really do.”
The operetta is based upon Lanham’s work history as an ornithologist and as someone who studied John James Audubon, one of the most famous bird watchers and wildlife artists.
“The operetta is actually being adopted from a novella that I’m writing,” Lanham said. “It’s to bring into question that people used to excuse bad people of another time to say, ‘He or she was just a man or woman of their time. We can’t blame them for that.’ But we can. We can hold people responsible for what they did. It’s a way for me to have us remember a history so we don’t doom ourselves into repeating it.”
Lanham is working on the operetta with Gabriela Lena Frank, a world-renowned composer from Northern California, and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. They will be in workshop in April.
Lanham has been fortunate to enjoy all his accomplishments while working at his alma mater and living in his home state of South Carolina. It’s something that hasn’t gone unnoticed.
In fact, Lanham believes it’s fitting.
“I tell people that the change that is going to come in this world has to come from the places that have hurt the most in some ways,” he said. “I think a lot of the solutions, especially for Americans, have to come out of the South. And they have to come from places that have experienced bitterness. That’s what I want to do. I want to show people that out of the ashes, a phoenix can rise.”
By Marlon W. Morgan