Paul A. Olson Seminars in Great Plains Studies — Spring 2012

  • January

    • Buffalo Bill's Great Plains, 1846-1879

         Douglas Seefeldt, Assistant Professor, Department of History, UNL

  • February

    • The Great Sioux Uprising - 1862

         Hugh Reilly, Associate Professor, School of Communication, UNO

  • March

    • Nineteenth-Century Fort Peck Assiniboine Cultural Persistence

         Dennis J. Smith, Associate Professor of History and Native American Studies, UNO

  • April

    • Reflections on the Morrill Act and the Man for Whom It's Named

         F. Edwin Harvey, Director, Justin Smith Morrill Scholars Program; Professor, Hydrologic Sciences ,UNL

Paul A. Olson Seminars in Great Plains Studies — Spring/Fall 2011

  • January

    • A Partnership Model for Sustainable Threatened and Endangered Species Conservation in Nebraska:
     The Tern and Plover Conservation Partnership

         Mary Bomberger Brown, Program Coordinator, Tern and Plover Conservation Partnership,
         School of Natural Resources, UNL

  • February

    • Avians & Indians: Feathered Folk on the Plains

         Thomas C. Gannon, Associate Professor, English and Ethnic Studies, UNL

  • March

    • Importance of Elders for Culture Continuity and Sovereignty

         Wynne Summers, Assistant Professor of English, Southern Utah University

  • April

    • Railroads, the Making of Modern of Modern American and the Shaping of the Great Plains

         William G. Thomas, III, Chair, Department of History, John and Catherine Angle Chair in the Humanities
         and Professor of History, UNL

  • September

    • Healing a Nation: Native Americans Respond to 9/11

         Barbara K. Robins, Associate Professor of English and Native American Studies, UNO

  • October

    • Reclaiming Deficiency: There's a There There

         Frances W. Kaye, Professor of English and Great Plains Studies, UNL

  • November

    • Creating the Atlas of the Great Plains

         J. Clark Archer, Professor, Department of Geography, UNL and Fred M. Shelley, Professor of Geography,
         University of Oklahoma

Paul A. Olson Seminars in Great Plains Studies — Spring/Fall 2010

  • January

    • Mud Springs and Rush Creek: Civil War Era Combat in the North Platte Valley

         Peter A. Bleed, Professor, and Douglas D. Scott, Adjunct Professor, Department of Anthropology, UNL

  • February

    • Searching for a Climate Change Signal Amidst the Noise of Climate Variability

         Kenneth F. Dewey, Professor of Applied Climate Science, School of Natural Resources, UNL

  • March

    • Immigration to the Great Plains, 1865-1914: War, Politics, Technology and Economic Development

         Bruce M. Garver, Professor, Department of History, UNO

  • April

    • Searching for Snakes on the Great Plains: A Herpetologist's Quest to Obtain Crucial Information on
      Nebraska's Amphibians, Turtles, and Reptiles

         Dennis M. Ferraro, Extension Associate Professor, School of Natural Resources, UNL

  • September

    • Great Plains: America's Lingering Wild

         Michael Forsberg, Conservation Photographer, Lincoln, Nebraska
         Winner of the 5th Annual Great PlainsDistinguished Book Prize

  • October

    • Unmasking Nebraska's "Desert in Disguise"

         David Loope, Schultz Chair in Stratigraphy, Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, UNL

  • November

    • Colonizing the Senses: New Sensory Regimes in Boarding Schools for Indigenous Children
      on the Great Plains and in Australia, 1880-1940

         Margaret Jacobs, Professor, Department of History, Director, Women's and Gender Studies, UNL

Paul A. Olson Seminars in Great Plains Studies — Spring/Fall 2009

  • January

    • A Crash Course in Infrastructure: Expensive but Essential Components for Rural (and Urban) Nebraska's Future

         Sandra Scofield, Director, University of Nebraska Rural Initiative

  • February

    • The Fossil Record and the Fact of Evolution

         George F. Englemann, Professor of Geology and Biology, Department of Geography and Geology, UNO

  • March

    • Historic Presence of Trees Along Rivers in the Great Plains

         Greg Ruark, Director, USDA National Agroforestry Center

  • April

    • Youth Select Baseball in the Midwest: The Shape of Things to Come

         David Ogden, Associate Professor, School of Communication, UNO

  • September

    • Plains Regional Fiction and the National Market: The Case of Bess Streeter Aldrich's A Lantern in Her Hand

         Melissa Homestead, Associate Professor, Department of English, UNL

  • November

    • Imperial Layers: How an Indigenous Empire Changed the Course of American History

         Pekka Hamalainen, Associate Professor, Department of History, University of California, Santa Barbara
         Winner of the 4th Annual Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize

Paul A. Olson Seminars in Great Plains Studies — Spring/Fall 2008

  • January

    • Formulating Policies for Future Water Use on the Great Plains

         Ann Bleed, Former Director, Nebraska Department of Natural Resources

  • February

    • Permanence and Transmission: Willa Cather's Entropology

         Guy Reynolds, Professor of English and Director, Cather Project, UNL

  • March

    • Taking the Court Public

         James Hewitt, Attorney and Adjunct Professor of History, Nebraska Wesleyan University

  • April

    • Causes of Drought in the Great Plains

         Robert Oglesby, Professor of Climate Modeling, Department of Geosciences and School of
         Natural Resources, UNL

  • October

    • Plain Speaking & Straight Shooting: Documentary Art in Flyover Country

         Michael Farrell, Photographer and TV Production Manager, NET Television; Adjunct Faculty, College
         of Journalism and Mass Communication, UNL

  • November

    • From Fire to Ice: A Geological Perspective on One Billion Years of Landscape Evolution in Eastern Nebraska

         Matt Joeckel, Associate Professor, Conservation and Survey Division, School of Natural Resources
         and Department of Geosciences, UNL

Paul A. Olson Seminars in Great Plains Studies — Fall 2007

  • September

    • From Cooperation to Conflict: Indian and Emigrant Relations Along the Overland Trails, 1840-1865

         Michael Tate, Professor of History and Native American Studies, and the Charles and Mary Martin Chair
         of Western History, University of Nebraska at Omaha
         Winner of the 2006 Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize

  • October

    • Global Treasures: The Origins of Plants that Sustain Life

         P. Stephen Baenziger, Eugene W. Price Distinguished Professor, Department of Agronomy and
         Horticulture, UNL

  • November

    • What kinds of farms and ranches can survive in urbanizing areas? Hobby and/or commericial? Temporary and/or lasting?

         J. Dixon Esseks, Visiting Scholar, Center for Great Plains Studies, UNL, and Emeritus Professor of
         Public Administration, Northern Illinois University

2011 Symposium
Diverse Faces, Shared Histories: Immigrants on the Great Plains

  • March 4, 2011

    • Welcome & Opening Remarks

         Chancellor Harvey Perlman, Amelia Maria de la Luz Montes

  • A Panel Presentation: Shared Histories - Native, Latino, and African American


    • Immigration as Cultural Imperialism: An Indian Boarding School Experience
        Thomas C. Gannon, Associate Professor, English and Ethnic Studies, UNL

    • Corazon y Tierra / Heart and Land: Latinas Writing on the Great Plains
        Amelia Maria de la Luz Montes, Associate Professor, English and Ethnic Studies, UNL

  • • Pursuing the Dream: An Immigrant's Story

        Sergio Wals, Assistant Professor, Political Science and Ethnic Studies, UNL

  • • Arizona: A Problematic Road Map for Nebraska and Other States

        Nicole M. Guidotti-Hernandez, Associate Professor, Gender and Women Studies, University of Arizona

  • • The Middle of Everywhere: Fostering Compassion in Challenging Times

        Mary Pipher, Author of The Middle of Everywhere: Helping Refugees Enter the American Community (2002)

Plains Humanities Alliance Research and Region Event — Fall 2011

  • October 5, 2011

    • Braided Channels
         An Interdisciplinary Symposium on Environmental Art, Science, and Humanities in the Australian Outback
         and the American Great Plains

    Featured Speakers:
         Mandy Martin, Australian Artist
         Landscape Studies: Environmental Art and the Impulse to Converse

         Guy Fitzhardinge, Cattleman, Conservationist
         Production Lands, Philanthropy, and Biodiversity

    Interdisciplinary Panel:
         Dana Fritz, Jeff Thompson, Robert Brooke, Cheryl Burkhart-Kriesel, Mark Burbach, Martin Massengale,
         Donna Woudenberg, Teresa Franta, and Larkin Powell

Grassland Conservation & Sustainable Communities Lecture

  • March 2008

    • Wildlfe & Sustainable Rural Development in Namibia: Are There Applications to the Northern Great Plains?

         Chris Weaver, Managing Director of the United States based World Wildlife Fund in Nambia