WORDS TAKING PLACE

Studies in Place, Literature, & Culture

 

English Department            University of Nebraska-Lincoln


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  E. N. THOMPSON FORUM on World Issues—2007-2008: CHANGING NATURE

All programs at the Lied Center for Performance Arts (tickets free); speakers/topics most relevant to "PLACE" include . . .

* Thursday, Sept. 13th, 7:00 pm: Joel Sartore, National Geographic Photographer–"Grounded: A Reflection on the Use of Life and Land"

* Monday, Nov. 12th, 7:00 pm: Sunita Narain, Director, Centre for Science and Environment, Delhi, India–"Changing Nature in an Unequal World"

Full schedule at E.N. Thompson Forum

 


 

  UNL English Department's Place-Conscious and Ecocritical Studies focus group present—

Dr. Jay Johnson, UNL Dept. of Anthropology, speaking on—

Place-Based Learning and Knowing: Critical Pedagogies Grounded in Indigeneity

Monday, Oct. 8, 3:30 pm: Bailey Library (228 Andrews Hall)

 


 

  UNL English Department: The ROBERT KNOLL LECTURE

Featuring leading eco-scholar Dr. Lawrence Buell, Powell M. Cabot Professor of American Literature at Harvard University, speaking on—

"Environmental Memory and Planetary Survival"

Thursday, Nov. 1st, 7:30 pm: Great Plains Art Museum (1115 Q Street)

 


 


OLD ANNOUNCEMENTS (2007)


  The Wachiska Audubon Society presents the 3rd annualWachiska Winterfest: "On the Land"

Featuring—

* Joel Sartore: Award-winning National Geographic photographer
presenting "On the Land"

* Twyla Hansen: Poet, author of award-winning book "Potato Soup"

* Paul Johnsgard: Renowned ornithologist, author, and illustrator
presenting "Prairie Suite"

Refreshments served
Books available for sale and signing

Saturday, Feb. 17
7:00
Only $5 /person
Trinity United Methodist Church
1345 S. 16th St.

For more information contact Wachiska Audubon Society: 486-4846


  Call for Papers: "Constructing Virtue, Making Place:
        Regional Creation in a National Context"

    Second Annual James A. Rawley Graduate Conference in the Humanities
* Saturday, April 7, 2007—University of Nebraska-Lincoln
* Keynote Speaker: Peter S. Onuf, Thomas Jefferson Foundation Professor
    in the Corcoran Department of History, University of Virginia
—Organized by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln History Graduate Student Association

This conference seeks to explore the ways that regions have been constructed, imagined, contested, and reaffirmed. Providing pride of place and promoting individual virtue within the larger national community can be cited as the best functions of regionalism. The nation-state offers the potential for uniting diverse and disparate identities into a homogenous polity, yet beneath the surface extra-local associations remain in the form of regional and sectional identities.  In American history, the South serves as an example of a region whose peculiar characteristics proved essential to the nation’s formation, yet simultaneously threatened the existence of the nation. The issues surrounding regionalism’s relationship to the nation state are hardly unique to the United States and are essential to the construction and interpretation of national identities worldwide. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln History Graduate Student Association invites proposals from graduate and undergraduate scholars in the humanities whose work engages regionalism. 

The best graduate and undergraduate papers will receive awards of $150 and $100, respectively. To be considered for an award, students must submit a final draft of paper (10-12 pages) by March 23 to HGSA@unlnotes.unl.edu. To be considered for the conference, a 250-word abstract of paper is due by February 16.

The HGSA encourages papers that interpret regionalism broadly. Possible topics might include, but are not limited to:

  • The Politics of Regional Identity
  • Literature and Regionalism
  • Immigration
  • Sectionalism and Regionalism
  • Industry, Agriculture, and Transportation
  • Race and Ethnicity
  • International Regionalism
  • Colonialism and Imperialism
  • Linguistics and Regional Dialects
  • Agrarian Virtue/Urban Vice
  • Religion

Interested scholars should send a 250-word abstract and one page curriculum vitae to: HGSA@unlnotes.unl.edu

The extended submission deadline is February 16, 2007.


  Dr. Thomas Dean—April 9th and 10th
Events include . . .
* Dinner with the Place Studies faculty: April 9th
* Informal conversation with grad students/faculty: April 10th, 10:30 (Dudley Bailey Library, 2nd-floor Andrews Hall)
* Public lecture: April 10th, 3:30 (Bailey Library)

Dr. Thomas Dean is Director of the Iowa Project on Place Studies (IPOPS), serving as a Special Assistant to the President of the University of Iowa. As Director and Founder of the Iowa Project on Place Studies, Professor Dean has developed an interdisciplinary program for place studies that combines undergraduate curricula, research symposia, and community outreach events. Recently, the Iowa Project on Place has sponsored the WILD IOWA Essay Project, the Symposia on Place, the Celebration of Wild Iowa, and the Irving Weber Chautauqua Series; in Spring 2006, the Iowa Project on Place sponsored the 2nd Iowa Conference on the Wild ("Live Well, Live Wild: A Community Concourse on Undomesticating and Rewilding") and the "Irving Weber Days: Spotlight on Local History." He has published over 25 academic articles, reviews, and creative pieces in the areas of American literature, Midwestern literature, environmental studies, and place studies. Two of his books will be just published at the time of his visit to Lincoln: The Grace of Grass and Water: Essays in Memory of Paul Gruchow (2006), and Under a Midland Sky (forthcoming 2007).


  LOREN EISELEY CENTENNIAL 1907-2007—Sept. 7th and 8th

Featuring Keynote Speaker Dr. Scott Slovic (Professor of Literature and Environment and Noted Ecocritical Scholar, University of Nevada-Reno)

Events include . . .
* Friday, Sept. 7th, 10:00 am: Open discussion with Dr. Scott Slovic (organized by Dr. Tom Lynch, UNL English Dept.) at the Bailey Library, Andrews Hall, UNL City Campus
* Saturday, Sept. 8th, 1:30 pm: Loren Eiseley Centennial Program, Sheldon Art Gallery, 12th and R Street, Lincoln, including . . .
    1:30 pm: Reflections of a Bonehunter (NETV documentary), Sheldon Auditorium
    2:30 pm: Panel Discussion, Sheldon Auditorium
    3:30 pm: Keynote Address, Dr. Scott Slovic, Sheldon Auditorium–"From the Ice Age to the Space Age, to the Age of Climate-Change Consciousness: Loren Eiseley as Writer, Activist, and Role Model"

Full info, as pdf: Loren Eiseley Centennial


  WILLIAM CRONON Visit

Thursday, Sept. 27, 7:30 pm: Nebraska Union (14th & R) auditorium
Plains Humanities Alliance & Center for Great Plains Studies present--
A Research & Region Lecture:
"The Portage: How to Read a Landscape"
William Cronon, Professor of History, Geography, & Enviornmental Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Friday, Sept. 28th, 1:30 pm: Great Plains Art Museum (1115 Q Street)
Plains Humanities Alliance, Center for Great Plains Studies, et al., present--
A Colloquium:
"Exploring A Sense of Place in the Humanities: A Conversation with William Cronon"
Panelists: William Cronon / Andrew Graybill (UNL History Dept.) / Thomas Lynch (UNL English Dept.)

 

[—a vacant lot under construction—]