Western Literature Association
st41 Annual Conference
Feeling Western
25-28 October 2006
The Grove Hotel, Boise, Idaho
Hosted by Boise State University
Wednesday 25 October
1–4 Executive Council Meeting River Fork
4–7 Registration 2nd Floor Landing
5–6:30 Executive Council Dinner Cottonwood Grille
7:15-10 Welcome Evergreen
Tara Penry, WLA President
Silent Film: Back to God’s Country, starring Nell Shipman
Introduction by Tom Trusky, Idaho Film Collection
Original Score Performed by Bijou Orchestrette
Reception
Thursday 26 October
8–3 Registration 2nd Floor Landing
8–5 Book Exhibit Aspen
Thursday 8–9:15 Session One
1A Mary Clearman Blew and Western Feminism Evergreen Chair: O. Alan Weltzien, University of Montana, Western
Sarah Hulme, Utah State University
―Mending Geographies: Mary Clearman Blew‘s Balsamroot‖
Susan Rowe, Boise State University
―Isolation and Identity in All But the Waltz‖
Cassie Hemstrom, Boise State University
―The Rebirth of the Sow in the River: Creating a Narrative of Choice in
Mary Clearman Blew‘s Writing Her Own Life‖
Evelyn I. Funda, Utah State University
―The ‗Threat to the Common Herd‘:
Monsters in Mary Clearman Blew‘s Writing‖
1B Foreign Places in the Heart
Cedar Chair: Nancy Owen Nelson, Yavapai College
Susan Lang, Yavapai College
From Juniper Blue
Nancy Owen Nelson, Yavapai College
From Don’t Stay Too Long: Memoir of an Army Brat
Penelope Reedy, Idaho State University
From Coffee Royal, Pocatello Blend/Rare Beans
Charlotte M. Wright, University of Iowa Press
―Henry‘s Story‖
1C Understanding Animals in the Western Frontier Rapids Chair: Sarah E. McFarland, Northwestern State University
Jennifer J. Clark, University of Southern California
―As Honest as the Horse Between My Knees: Slavery, Horsemanship, and
Stewardship in the Western Novel‖
Tamas Dobozy, Wilfrid Laurier University
― ‗Between You, the Coyotes and the Crickets a Thought Don't Have Much
of a Chance': The Artificial Frontiers of Sam Shepard's True West‖
Lauri Chose, Indiana University of Pennsylvania
―Writing Arctic Animals: Forging the Connection‖
Andrew Wingfield, George Mason University
―Stalking the Mountain Lion‖
1D Demystifying/Remystifying Robinson and Proulx White Chair: Susan Kollin, Montana State University Water
Elizabeth Lester Barnes, Boise State University
―Transcending Boundaries:
The Un-Housing of Bachelard in Marilynne Robinson‘s Housekeeping‖
Catherine Holmes, College of Charleston
― ‗The Remystification of Nearly Everything‘: Another Look at Myth,
Metaphor, and Mobility in Marilynne Robinson‘s Housekeeping‖
Sayzie Koldys, Boise State University
―Reimagining the Emptiest State: Magical Realism in Annie Proulx‘s
Wyoming Stories‖
Stacy Coyle, University of Denver
―Open Places vs. Charged Spaces in Annie Proulx‖
1E Forces of Nature and Community in Cather’s Fiction
River Fork Chair: Anne Kaufman, Milton, Massachusetts
Angela Glover, University of Kansas
―Jim Burden, Lost in Space: How Liminality and Temperament Theory
Work to Produce a Tragic Ending in Willa Cather‘s My Antonia‖
Margaret Doane, California State University, San Bernardino
― ‗Bridled by Caution‘: Community-Enforced Conformity in Willa Cather‘s
Nebraska Novels‖
Mark Hartvigsen, Boise State University
― ‗Geography is a terribly fatal thing sometimes‘:
Determinism in O Pioneers!‖
1F The Trouble with “Black” and “White”
Clearwater Chair: Michael K. Johnson, University of Maine, Farmington
Brian Flota, George Washington University
―Whose Country Is It?
Ishmael Reed and Percival Everett‘s African American West‖
Katie Rawson, University of Mississippi
―Roping Uncle Sam‘s Canon: Narrative Voice and the American Myth of the
West in The Life and Adventures of Nat Love‖
Amber Leonard, Leeward Community College
―A Place in Paradise:
Perceiving (In)authenticity in Tara Bray Smith‘s West of Then‖
John Escobedo, Rice University
―The Racial Logic of White U.S. Mestizaje in Maria Amparo Ruiz de
Burton‘s Who Would Have Thought It? and The Squatter and the Don‖
1G Reading Western Fiction by Genre
Ivy Chair: Jill Heney, Boise State University
John Donahue, Concordia University
―Zane Grey‘s Idaho, The Border Legion, and Deadwood‖
Paul Varner, Oklahoma Christian University
―Twenty-first Century Paperback Westerns‖
William Katerberg, Calvin College
―At Home in Utopia: Time and Place in Utopian Science Fiction set in the
American West‖
John C. Davies, Bishop Grosseteste College & Portland State University
―Western Feeling, Feeling Western: The Novels of Molly Gloss‖
1H Making Home In A Restless World:
Suite 214 Perception, Representation, Preservation
Chair: Liz Stephens, Utah State University
Brandon R. Schrand, University of Idaho
―Curating Memory: Seeing Home as a Tourist‖
Rob Kunz, Utah State University
―Growing Pains:
The Battle Over Land and Family in the Shadow of the Tetons‖
Liz Stephens, Utah State University
―American West Heritage Center:
The Selling of a Lifestyle, The Commodification of a Dream‖
Denice Turner, University of Nevada, Reno
―Flying Home: Finding a Place in the Space of the West”
Thursday 9–10 Coffee Break
Aspen
Thursday 9:30–10:45 Session Two
2A Emotion in the Western Classroom: Workshop and Conversation Evergreen Co-chairs: Tara Penry, Boise State University
Michelle Payne, Boise State University
2B Idaho Poetry: Charles Potts
Rapids Introduction by John Crawford, West End Press
2C Fiction Reading: Daniel Orozco and Joy Passanante
White Introduction by Mary Clearman Blew, University of Idaho
Water
2D Sacajawea’s Story: A Lemhi Shoshone Perspective
River Fork Rozina George (Lemhi Shoshone), Great-grandniece of Sacajawea
2E Willa Cather and War
Clearwater Chair: Mary R. Ryder, South Dakota State University
Steven Trout, Fort Hays State University
―Willa Cather and War: An Overview‖
Ann Romines, George Washington University
―Willa Cather‘s Civil War: A Long Engagement‖
Michael Gorman, Independent Scholar
―Jim Burden and the White Man‘s Burden:
My Antonia and the Plains Indian Wars‖
Richard Harris, The Webb Institute
―One Little Feller‘s Quest for ‗Something Splendid‘:
Another Look at Cather‘s Claude Wheeler‖
2F Encountering Western Landscapes:
Suite 214 Writing, Living, and Feeling One’s Way
Chair: Alex Hunt, West Texas A&M University
SueEllen Campbell, Colorado State University
―Things That Happen in Deserts‖
Alex Hunt, West Texas A&M University
―Annie Proulx‘s Exploration Narrative: That Old Ace in the Hole and James
William Abert‘s Expedition to the Southwest‖
Barbara J. Cook, Mount Aloysius College
―Life Changes in an Instant:
Changing Relationships with Western Landscapes‖
Nina Björnsson, Eastern New Mexico University
―Gender/Migration/The West: Going TransAmerica‖
Thursday 11–12:15 Session Three
3A Embodying Social and Environmental Justice
Rapids Chair: Steve Tatum, University of Utah
John Streamas, Washington State University
―The Diminishing Significance of Genre in the Literature of Wartime
Japanese America‖
Kyoko Matsunaga, Hiroshima University
―Meats, the Female Body, and Toxicity: Environmental Justice in Ruth L.
Ozeki‘s My Year of Meats‖
Hilary Hawley, Washington State University
―Cultural Activism as Environmental Justice in Castillo‘s So Far From God‖
Dora Ramirez-Dhoore, Boise State University
―Third World Women and Ecological Matters in Tomás Rivera‘s …y no se lo
trago la tierra and Helena Maria Viramontes‘s Under the Feet of Jesus‖
3B Domestic Violence in the West
White Chair: Lillian Schlissel, Brooklyn College Water
Lillian Schlissel, Brooklyn College
―The Literary History of Secrets‖
Barbara Richard, Sequim, Washington
―Walking Wounded‖
Mary Clearman Blew, University of Idaho
Judy Blunt, University of Montana
Jeanette Weaskus, Northwest Indian College
3C Sex, Gender, and Social Critique in Plains Literature
River Fork Chair: Doug Werden, West Texas A&M University
Amy T. Hamilton, University of Arizona
― ‗A Constant Move‘:
Adventure and Social Critique in Sarah Wakefield‘s Captivity Narrative‖
Peter L. Bayers, Fairfield University
―Charles Alexander Eastman's From the Deep Woods to Civilization and
the Shaping of Native Manhood‖
Matt Evertson, Chadron State College
―Feeling Western Bodies:
Sex and Settlement in the Narratives of Mari Sandoz‖
Kim Palmore, University of California at Riverside
―My ‗Queer‘ Àntonia‖
3D Knowing Western Rivers
Clearwater Chair: T. S. McMillin, Oberlin College
Laurie McMillin, Oberlin College
― ‗Ragged, Rugged, Dark-Complected‘:
Race, Reflection, and Twain‘s Mississippi‖
Mary Keller, University of Wyoming
―Native Ways of Knowing Rivers in the Rocky Mountain Region:
From Creek Mary’s Blood to the Native Waters Curriculum‖
T. S. McMillin, Oberlin College
―Into the Great Unknown: Powell‘s Colorado River‖
Nick Petzak, Case Western Reserve University
―Selling the Middle Fork‖
3E Cashing In?
Ivy Money & Politics in the Production of West Coast Music
Chair: Brock Dethier, Utah State University
David Fenimore, University of Nevada, Reno
―Songs for Sale: Woody Guthrie‘s Columbia River Compromise‖
Karl Germeck, Utah State University
―The White Guy from Santa Monica: Ry Cooder and Chavez Ravine‖
Brock Dethier, Utah State University
―The Cost of Artistic Independence‖
3F Tales of Disaster: A Gathering of Creative Readings Suite 214 Chair: Ann Putnam, University of Puget Sound
Beverly Conner, University of Puget Sound
―Hearing Voices‖
Ann Putnam, University of Puget Sound
―Lights Go Out‖
Sarah Jane Sloane, Colorado State University
―The Lifeguard,‖ from The Antler Diaries
Beth Kalikoff, University of Washington, Tacoma
―Café du Monde‖
3G Judge Holden: The Mythic Trickster Rides the West Suite 320 in Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian
Chair: Jerry D. Mathes II, University of Idaho
Jerry D. Mathes II, University of Idaho
―Classical Tricksters and Judge Holden‘s Malevolent Power‖
Steven Coughlin, University of Idaho
―Landscape of the Tricksters‖
Joshua Cilley, University of Idaho
―Trickster Fools in Blood Meridian‖
Sean Prentiss, University of Idaho
―Convergence and Divergence of Tricksters in Blood Meridian and Winter
in the Blood‖
3H The Academic Library of the Future: Cedar What's In It for the Literary Scholar?
Chair: Thomas Peele, Boise State University
Donald Barclay, University of California, Merced
Alan Virta, Boise State University
Denise Shorey, Northwestern University
Larry Kincaid, Boise State University
3I Basque Block Tour
Grove Preregistration required. Cost: $5. Also offered Wed 10/25—1:30 pm.
Lobby Meet at Grove Hotel lobby and walk across Capitol Blvd to Basque Block.
This tour will only appear in the final program if a sufficient number of
members have preregistered for it. Space limited.
Thursday 12:15–2 Past President’s Address & Luncheon
Evergreen
12:15 Luncheon
1–1:45 Address: William Handley, University of Southern California
Open seating will be available at 1 pm for those who wish to hear the
address only. All WLA registrants are welcome to attend at this time.
Thursday 2–3:15 Session Four
4A Feeling Western on/under the Skin
Rapids Chair: Krista Comer, Rice University
Elizabeth J. Wright, Pennsylvania State University, Hazelton
―An ‗Unexpected Visitor‘:
Disability and Family Politics in the Fiction of Laura Ingalls Wilder‖
Linda Lizut Helstern, North Dakota State University
―Written on the Skin: Ableism and the Native Subject‖
Krista Comer, Rice University
―Feeling Western/Feeling White‖
Bruce Ballenger, Boise State University
Title pending
4B Stock-Taking in the Literary Northwest
White Chair: Peter Donahue, Birmingham Southern College Water
John Trombold, Independent Scholar, Oregon
―Reading Portland: Toward a Place-Based Pedagogy of Politics‖
Peter Donahue, Birmingham-Southern College
―Taking Stock of the Stock-Takers:
Regional Identity and the 1946 Writers‘ Conference on the Northwest‖
Michael Strelow, Willamette University
―Lost and Found: Authors, Editors, and Publishers in the Northwest‖
Philip Heldrich, University of Washington, Tacoma
―The Absence and Presence of Mount Rainier:
Ansel Adams, Martha Hardy, and the Mountain‖
4C Women’s Collaborations and Relationships in Willa Cather’s River Fork Fiction and Career
Chair: Ann Romines, George Washington University
Michael Schueth, Creighton University
― ‗Her Masterful Will‘:
Mary Baker G. Eddy, Celebrity Biography, and Cather‘s Canon‖
Pat Brennan, Clarkson College
―The Sister Narratives of Willa Cather‖
Mary R. Ryder, South Dakota State University
―That D---d Mob of Women Performers:
Women Artists as Rivals in Cather‘s Fiction‖
Janis P. Stout, Texas A & M University
―Curious Connections: Cather, Silko, and Randall in the Southwest‖
4D Wild Encounters
Clearwater Chair: Charles Crow, Bowling Green State University
Michael L. Johnson, University of Kansas
―Wildfire: A Taste of Authenticity‖
Bob Lyon, Bellevue, Washington
―Blowups: Fact and Fiction in Firefighting‖
Christopher McGill, Boise State University
―Wildness Wherever: Social Subversion and the Wilderness Experience of
Charles Bowden‘s Blood Orchid‖
Susan J. Tyburski, Colorado School of Mines
―Seduced by the Wild:
Audrey Schulman‘s Journey into the Arctic Heart of Wilderness‖
4E Proto-Westerns and Early Westerns
Ivy Chair: Lawrence I. Berkove, University of Michigan, Dearborn
Nicolas Witschi, University of Western Michigan
― ‗I do not like newspaper notoriety‘: Billy the Kid, Wyatt Earp, The
James Gang, and the Op-Ed Autobiography‖
Jefferson D. Slagle, St. Bonaventure University
―The Heirs of Buffalo Bill: Performing Authenticity in the Dime Western‖
Seth Bovey, Louisiana State University, Alexandria
―Pulp Fiction, Gangster Films, and the Beginnings of the Noir Western‖
4F Reading and Teaching Intermountain Western Women Suite 214 Chair: Pamela Steinle, California State University, Fullerton