Lecture: Who owns the American West?

Date/Time:	Sunday, 08 Feb 2009 at 7:00 pm
Location:	Sun Room/South Ballroom, Memorial Union
Cost:	Free
Contact:
Phone:	515-294-9934
Channel:	Lecture Series
Categories:	Lectures
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"Who Owns the American West?" A reading and conversation with author William Kittredge. Kittredge has been a prominent voice in the literature of the American West, with writings that explore the theme of sustainability and its relationship to culture, history, and human nature. The conversation will be moderated by Benjamin Percy, ISU English. Part of the Symposium on Wildness, Wilderness, and the Creative Imagination.

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William Kittredge's relationship to the spare, often unforgiving western landscape of his childhood is fraught with contradictions. Having grown up on a cattle ranch in Oregon, he has an intimate connection to the vast landscape that was once vital to his family's trade. He has also witnessed, over many decades, the depletion of the West's natural resources due to overuse. A University of Montana Emeritus Regents Professor of English, William Kittredge is the author of numerous books, including Hole in the Sky: A Memoir; Owning it All: Essays; The Next Rodeo: New & Selected Essays, The Nature of Generosity, and Who Owns the West? Kittredge is also the author of short story collections including We Are Not in the Together, and a novel, The Willow Field.

Kittredge received the Montana Governor's Award for the Arts, was co-winner of the Montana Governor's Award for Humanities and co-winner of the National Endowment for the Humanities' Charles Frankel Award for service to the humanities, awarded by President Clinton. In 2006 he was given the Chiles Award for Service to the Great Basin, and in 2007 the Robert Kirsch Lifetime Achievement Award from the Los Angeles Times. In 2008, he received a Lifetime Achievement award from the Western Literature Association.