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Archived

Elizabeth Jameson

Paul A. Olson Seminar in Great Plains Studies: "The Unsettler's Frontier: The West Through Women's History" Audio download, April 28, 2016

Our Grass Earth panel talk

Paul A. Olson Seminar in Great Plains Studies: "Conserving the Great Plains" Audio download, April 20, 2016

Anthony Schutz and Peter Longo

Paul A. Olson Seminar in Great Plains Studies: "The Nebraska Constitution" Audio download, March 16, 2016

David Jachowski

Paul A. Olson Seminar in Great Plains Studies: "Saving a Great Plains Icon, the Black-Footed Ferret" (note: about 2 minutes was lost in the beginning due to microphone issues, Dr. Jachowski started with the history of the first prairie dogs survey undertaken by researchers - Audio download, March 2, 2016

Elizabeth Fenn

Paul A. Olson Seminar in Great Plains Studies & Stubbendieck Great Plains Book Prize lecture "Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People" - Audio download, Oct. 28, 2015

Walter Echo-Hawk

Scholar-in-residence lecture "Roots: My Journey to Indigenous Nebraska" - Audio download, Oct. 7, 2015

Viktoria Keding

Paul A. Olson Seminar in Great Plains Studies: "Teaching Sustainability in Namibia" - Audio download, Sept. 9, 2015

Ken Winkle

Paul A. Olson Seminar in Great Plains Studies: "The Civil War and the Great Plains" - Audio download, Oct. 22, 2014

Roberto Lenton

Paul A. Olson Seminar in Great Plains Studies: "Storage Systems for Drought Management and Food and Water Security" - Audio download, March 18, 2015

John Anderson and Eric Thompson

Paul A. Olson Seminar in Great Plains Studies: "State Taxes on the Great Plains" - Audio download, Feb. 18, 2015

Bernard Flaman

Paul A. Olson Seminar in Great Plains Studies: "Architecture of Saskatchwan" - Audio download, Oct. 22, 2014

T. Lindsay Baker

Paul A. Olson Seminar in Great Plains Studies: "How the Wind Did Human Work on the Farm" - Audio, Sept. 18, 2014

Melissa Dabakis

September 5, 2014

Dabakis, a professor of Art History and American Studies at Kenyon College, spoke on environmental art during a First Friday at the Great Plains Art Museum. This program was funded in part by Humanities Nebraska and the Nebraska Cultural Endowment.


Wes Jackson

April 26, 2013

The Land Institute President Wes Jackson speaks on ecologically sensitive agriculture and the future of ecosystem-based farming

Watch the video

Conservation Jam

February 1, 2013

Participants were given 3 minutes to explain how to save the Great PlainsWatch the video

Great Books audio series

Thought-provoking radio essays about the rich, unique and varied cultures and poeople of the Great Plains as revealed in some of the greatest books about the region.

See the series

Paul A. Olson Seminars in Great Plains Studies — Spring 2013

January

• Aritfacts and Illuminations: Critical Essays on Loren Eiseley

     Tom Lynch, Associate Professor, Department of English, UNL
     Susan Maher, Dean, College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota Duluth

      **Due to technical difficulties, only 30 minutes of the seminar was recorded.

February

• Engaging Lifelong Learners in Natural History: The Land-Grant Mission of the University of Nebraska
  State  Museum

     Priscilla Grew, Director, University of Nebraska State Museum; Professor, Department of Earth and Atmospheric Science(powerpoint slides)

March

• Welcome to the Elections from the Inside: Exit Polls and Election Projections for the Great Plains

     Allan McCutcheon, Donald O. Clifton Chair of Survey Science; Professor of Statistics, Professor of Survey
     Research and Methodology, and Principle Investigator for the NSF/Census Research Network, UNL-Gallup
     Research Center, UNL

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

September

• Lack of Opportunity on the Plains: How Law and Public Policy Have Shaped Tribal Economic Development

     Lance Morgan, (Winnebago), President and CEO of Ho-Chunk, Inc.
Co-sponsored by the Plains Humanities Alliance

October

• Sustainable Farming and Food Systems in the Great Plains

     Charles Francis, Professor, Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, UNL

November

• The Northern Cheyenne Exodus in History and Memory

     James N. Leiker, Associate Professor, Department of History, Johnson County Community College,
         Overland  Park, KS
     Ramon Powers, former Executive Director, Kansas State Historical Society

          Winner of the 2012 Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize

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