Center of the American West Event Podcast

Join the University of Colorado's Center of the American West, the Center for Western Civilization and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science as they bring history alive through a series of interviews between Patty Limerick and the historic figures of Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt portrayed by actor Clay Jenkinson.

Anders Halverson, professor of ecology at the University of Colorado at Boulder, talks with Bloomberg's Lewis Lapham about his book, "An Entirely Synthetic Fish: How Rainbow Trout Beguiled America and Overran the World."

Join us as we celebrate the release of our newest book, Remedies for a New West: Healing Landscapes, Histories, and Cultures. Published by the University of Arizona Press, this exciting new collaborative volume, edited by Patty Limerick, Andrew Cowell, and Sharon Collinge, offers a kaleidoscope of viewpoints from engineers, biologists, linguists, musicians, lawyers, and others - on strategies for restoration, repair, and remediation in response to historical injuries to the people and landscapes of the West. The books editors, and some of the contributors, will be on hand to read and talk about this project. Books will be for sale after the event.

"Immigration and the Practical Majority?" will be followed by an open dialogue with the audience. This event is one in a series of programs organized by CHA in connection with its theme for 2009-2010, "Migration." The program will take place on Thursday, November 5, 2009 at 4:00 p.m. in the British Studies room on the 5th floor of Norlin Library on the CU Campus. The event is free and open to the public.

Once a year, members of the oil shale industry from around the world gather together at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden for the Oil Shale Symposium hosted by the school's Colorado Energy Research Institute. This year, Patty Limerick was invited to address the opening day plenary session. Her talk set out a number of key issues for participants to consider during the conference that followed.

Zuni farmer, museum director, and interrupted artist Jim Enote spoke at the University of Colorado at Boulder September 17 as part of the Center of the American West's Modern Indian Identity series.

One of the foremost experts on the environmental history of fire, Stephen Pyne discussed fire in America addressing the issues that it raises about the interface of wild lands and urban development. Noted for his highly entertaining and accessible approach to academic topics, Stephen Pyne is currently a Regents Professor at Arizona State University, has received a distinguished MacArthur Fellowship and is the author of many books including Year of Fires, Smokechasing, and Tending Fire. Don't miss an opportunity to hear one of the leading minds in the field address an topic so pertinent to our lives along the Front Range.

The Center is proud to welcome David Treuer as the sixth guest in our Modern Indian Identity Series. This series features contemporary Indian speakers telling their stories in ways that shatter misconceptions on what it means to be a "Real Indian." Mr. Treuer is an Ojibwe Indian from Leech Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota. He is the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship to Canada, a Pushcart Prize, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He is the author of the novel The Translation of Dr. Apelles and the essay collection Native American Fiction: A User's Manual.

More than simply an exploration of personal loss, Trespass is an elegy for a dying world, for the ruin of one of our most beloved and unique desert landscapes and for our vanishing connection to it. This special evening, Amy Irvine read from her book Trespass. This event was co-sponsored by the Wilderness Society.

Spend an engaging evening with noted Western author Tom McGuane, as The Center of the American West presents him with our prestigious 2009 Wallace Stegner Award. Each year, the Center celebrates the life and achievements of an individual that has made a sustained contribution to the cultural identity of the West through Literature, art, history, lore, or an understanding of the West. Tom McGuane, long considered on of the West's most important literary figures, exemplifies the spirit of this award through his many works including the books Panama, The Cadence of Grass, Gallatin Canyon, and the National Book Award nominee Ninety-two in the Shade.

On the heels of one of the longest presidential campaigns in history, one that has turned up the heat on this topic, the Center shifted the focus back from positions to people. This special evening celebrated the literature of immigration, rather than the policies of immigration. Listen as community members, politicians, public servants, professors, and a host of others read selections from a literature that has played a crucial role in the formation of the narrative of the West.

This lecture was a joint program between Patty and Erin Hogan. Patty provided an understanding of the American West, the idea of Manifest Destiny, and the legacy of westward expansion, followed by Erin's segment, based on her book Spiral Jetta. Chicago Humanities Festival Artistic Director Ren Weschler then moderated audience questions.

Patty Limerick speaks at a Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation event entitled Surface Use for Mineral Development in the New West. The conference was held in Westminster, Colorado February 7 and 8, 2008.

Patty Limerick moderates a discussion about the changes in consumption and demand of fossil fuels in the American west.

The Center presents Dr. Eva Maria Garroutte in this fall's Modern Indian Identity Lecture. Professor Garroutte is the author of Real Indians: Identity, Community, and the Survival of Native America. In this talk, Professor Garroutte blends her father's stories of growing up in the Cherokee Nation of the 1930's with her own recent experiences as a tribal citizen working in the field of American Indian health. Reception to follow. This event is made possible by the generosity of Nancy and Gary Carlston.

KTNU interviews Patty Limerick and Ivan Doig. Ivan Doig received the Wallace Stegner award from The Center of the American West for his western-American writing, and most recent book House of Sky.

Patty Limerick is the featured interview on the show and she speaks about her earlier prediction about the west. Years earlier she had predicted that the West's reliance on mining, logging and ranching would change, and the new west would be dominated by people who would both recreate in and preserve the western environment.

Patty Limerick was the keynote speaker for a conference at the University of Oregon on September, 13, 2007.