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University of Montana

Black Leaves

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

This thesis is a collection of narrative non-fiction essays – some of them more journalistic in nature and others more memoir-ish or ruminating. Readers are asked to travel through my recent years, as I ramble and certain key themes are explored. Those themes are as follows: First, detachment from the natural world and the alienation that stems from it, whether in terms of geography or industry; second, wildness as an energy that humans, sometimes inadvertently, seek to suppress or control, and wildness in the form of nature’s scars and wounds (the two being mirror images of one another). The avatars of wildness in these stories come in various incarnations, i.e. bugs and bison, clear-cuts and chemical spills, and brief but edifying periods of intense psychological turmoil. These things can be found in the border country, the no man’s land between nature and humanity. The places where we find wildness are the places of death and depravity and deterioration, where humans are winning their war against the natural world or nature is retaliating in turn.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Master of Science (MS)
Grantor dc:publisher
University of Montana
Year
2008

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Miller, Nathaniel Ian

Subjects

dc:subject × 6

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Repository record dc:identifier
https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/155
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:scholarworks.umt.edu:etd-1174

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
Montana Technology
Base URL
scholarworks.umt.edu/do/oai/
Last updated
2026-07-24
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Miller, Nathaniel Ian. Black Leaves. University of Montana, 2008. https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/155