The Great Plains from Texas to Saskatchewan: Place, Memory, Identity

Description

This seminar will examine the creation of identity and a sense of place by inhabitants and visitors to the Great Plains throughout the history of the U.S. Discussions and lectures will focus on four books: author and historian Walter P. Webb's 1931 "The Great Plains"; author Willa Cather's 1918 "My Antonia"; author N. Scott Momaday's 1969 "The Way to Rainy Mountain"; and author, historian, and environmentalist Wallace Stegner's 1955 autobiography "Wolf Willow: A History, a Story, and a Memory of the Last Plains Frontier."

Contact name
Isern, Tom
Contact email
Registration Deadline
Sponsoring Organization
National Endowment for the Humanities
Phone number
1 701-799-2942
Target Audience
Kindergarten through Twelfth Grade
Start Date
Cost
None ($3,600 stipend)
Course Credit
"Those seminarians desiring to earn graduate credit or continuing education units will be enabled to do so – arrangements in progress." Participants will also receive a certificate indicating participation.
Contact Title
Seminar Director
Duration
Five weeks
End Date

Willa Cather Archive

Image
Annotation

Willa Cather (1873–1947) wrote 12 novels and numerous works of short fiction. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 1923 and is known for her intensive examination of life in the midwestern U.S. This extensive archive is dedicated to her life and work. At its core is a collection of all of her novels, short fiction, journalistic writing, interviews, speeches, and public letters published before 1922. All materials are fully searchable. Notably, both O Pioneers! and My Antonia are accompanied by extensive scholarly notes, historical context, and introductory material. Accompanying her published materials is a collection of 2,054 of Cather's letters (again annotated and fully searchable), more than 600 photographs of Cather and important people and places in her life, audio of Cather's Pulitzer Prize acceptance speech, and a short video clip of Cather. Several scholarly articles and a text analysis tool are also available.