Nichols, Ashton, 1953-

Brooks Ashton Nichols (born 1953) is the Walter E. Beach ’56 Distinguished Chair Emeritus in Sustainable Studies and Professor of English Language and Literature Emeritus at Dickinson College. His interests are in literature, contemporary ecocriticism, Romanticism, and nature writing. Nichols taught courses in Romanticism, 19th century literature, literature and the environment, and nature writing. He is especially well-known for his study of James Joyce's literary concept of "epiphany," his definition of Romantic natural histories, and his coinage of the phrase "Urbanatural roosting," an idea which links urban with natural modes of existence and argues for ways of living more lightly on the earth, for inhabiting our planet the way animals do, by altering our environments without harming those same environments.