Connected Conversations: Recent Episodes
Idaho Humanities Council
Welcome to the Idaho Humanities Council’s Connected Conversations program! You will find a variety of experts covering topics from John Denver to Godzilla to the center of the universe. Our episodes are also on YouTube; feel free to check them out in the show notes.
Our mission is to connect you with ideas. We hope you can learn something new and spark that sense of intrigue. Feel free to get involved by going to our website: www.idahohumanities.org
The views expressed by our speakers do not represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities or the Idaho Humanities Council.
Russell Meeuf from the University of Idaho joins Johanna this week to talk about his book White Terror: The Horror Film from Obama to Trump. He argues that horror films are a form of social and political critique for both conservatives and liberals and discusses how that was seen in the Obama era and the election of Donald Trump.
Dr. Russel Meeuf is a professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Media and the director of the film and television program at the University of Idaho. He received his doctorate from the University of Oregon and specializes in research on popular media and culture. In particular, his work focuses on celebrity culture, popular cinema, masculinity studies, and disability studies. His writings have appeared in journals. Reflecting these interests, he is the author of several books on media culture, including White Terror: The Horror Film from Obama to Trump (Indiana University Press, 2022), Rebellious Bodies: Stardom Citizenship, and the New Body Politics (University of Texas Press, 2017) as well as John Wayne's World: Transnational Masculinity in the Fifties (University of Texas Press, 2013). He is also the co-editor of several collections on film and popular culture.
Johanna is thrilled to be joined by Dr. Emily Wakild from Boise State University to learn more about one of Idaho’s most beloved governors, and the last Democrat to serve as governor of Idaho, Cecil D. Andrus.
Dr. Wakild is a professor of environmental studies and the Cecil D. Andrus Endowed Chair for the Environment and Public Lands at Boise State University. Raised in eastern Oregon, she earned her B.A. from Willamette University in Salem, Oregon in 1999 and her PhD from the University of Arizona in 2007. Dr. Wakild’s main academic research excavates documents, images, interviews, and fragments of the past to explain why and how large spaces for nature conservation were built throughout the Americas. She is the author of Revolutionary Parks: Conservation, Social Justice and Mexico’s National Parks (Arizona 2011), which received awards from the Conference of Latin American History, the Forest History Society, and the Southeastern Council on Latin American Studies. She has also written extensively about environmental pedagogy, including with Michelle K. Berry, A Primer for Teaching Environmental History, (Duke 2018) and the article "Pedagogy for the Depressed: Empowerment and Hope in the Face of the Apocalypse" in The Routledge Handbook of Environmental History. In 2024, her study of national parks in South America will be published. Her research has been supported by the Fulbright Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Dr. Wakild is currently working on several Idaho-based research projects including essays on "Mispronouncing Idaho" and work celebrating the ways conservation brings Idahoans together. Dr. Wakild is also a scholar for our Inquiring Idaho program and is available as a speaker at no charge. For more information, visit idahohumanities.org.
Johanna interviews Kim Madsen Dill about the veteran’s literature class she teaches at the College of Southern Idaho, that was inspired by her father’s military service.
Kim Madsen Dill has taught in the English Department at the College of Southern Idaho since 2004 and recently retired. She was the Writing Program Administrator for the English Department. Kim oversaw the writing program and was the Faculty Liaison for Dual Credit teachers. She also volunteered teaching English at the CSI Refugee Center.
In March, Boise State sociology professor Dr. Sharon Paterson offered a workshop course about Taylor Swift. Learn about the sociology of a pop star as Johanna discusses the course with Dr. Paterson and students Sophie Pederson and Jazmyne Hartogh.
Dr. Sharon Paterson’s 30-year career has been dedicated to implementing programs that increase college students’ success and learning, mentoring students’ academics, research and leadership, and teaching sociology courses on broad topics such as gender, inequality, work and higher education. Dr. Paterson’s passion is engaging students’ intellectual curiosity and helping them apply concepts to everyday life.
Sophie Pederson is a senior at Boise State University. She majors in Sociology and is also passionate about Anthropology and Psychology. After graduating, she plans to continue her studies in sociology or evolutionary psychology. In her free time she enjoys skiing and camping.
Jazmyne Hartogh is a senior at Boise State University, graduating this upcoming May of 2024. She is graduating with a bachelor’s in integrated media and strategic communications with an emphasis in Integrated Media, as well as earning certificates in Public Relations and Sports, Information, and Culture.
This special episode of Context is dedicated to all of the families who have been impacted by organ donation. Johanna is joined by Heather Platts and Bruce Michael Miller, who perform together as the musical duo Crazy Love.
Heather donated a kidney to Bruce and they produced an album of music to share their story and to give hope to others who are going through the organ donation process.
Heather Platts is a dynamic performer who holds back nothing in her performances and sings with the heart and passion of women like Bonnie Raitt and Grace Potter. She received a BA in Music Composition from the University of Idaho in 1996. Heather has released 2 full length albums of original songs produced and recorded in Nashville.
She has been a featured performer at the Boise Music Festival, Thousand Springs Festival of Art, Sisters in Songwriting Concert Series, and the inaugural “Chick Singer Night” in Boise and tours extensively with her duo “Crazy Love.” Heather teaches voice, piano and songwriting at her studio in Twin Falls.
Bruce Michael Miller is an award-winning songwriter, producer and world class guitarist who has toured and performed with Paul McCartney, Kenny Loggins, Laura Branigan, John Densmore (The DOORS) and many others. He is a professional songwriter who spent 25 years in Nashville, where he’s had over 40 of his songs recorded by performing artists including a number one song internationally with country artist Ashley Puckett. He is a songwriting consultant and music educator who has mentored songwriters on over 14,000 songs as well as having been a songwriting professor at Nashville State College.
Bruce relocated to Idaho in 2017, and immediately fell in love with the unique landscapes and friendly and laid-back residents. Currently the president of the Idaho Songwriters Association, Bruce teaches songwriting workshops as well as working with private clients.
Heather and Bruce travel around the west performing together as CrazyLove and they are also part of our Inquiring Idaho program. If you are interested in having them speak and perform for your organization at no cost, you can find out more on our website at idahohumanities.org.
Dr. Jim Gentry joins Johanna to talk about a little-known story from Twin Falls history that demonstrates the resilience of communities during booming or stressful times.
Dr. Jim Gentry taught history at the College of Southern Idaho between 1969 and 2010. He completed his Ph.D. in History at the University of Utah in 1985. While completing his dissertation he became inspired to research and write local history. Since 2003 he has completed four local histories: In the Middle and on the Edge. The Twin Falls Region of Idaho in 2003, Meeting Needs and Developing Opportunities. A History of the College of Southern Idaho in 2015, Transformations. A History of First Baptist Church of Twin Falls, Idaho in 2020 and, most recently, The 51 Tunnels that Saved Twin Falls: Twin Falls Canal Company’s Bold Solution to a Big Drainage Surprise.
Johanna is joined by Dr. Ashley Kerr to learn about how the Buenos Aires Zoo was used to shape the debates around immigration, women’s rights, and labor unions in Argentina in the early 20th century.
Ashley Kerr is an associate professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies. As an undergraduate, Kerr spent a year living in Chile. After graduation she taught English in Argentine Patagonia as a Fulbright English teaching assistant. She has also taught abroad in Valencia, Spain; Montevideo, Uruguay; and sailed around the Atlantic as a faculty member on Semester at Sea. At the University of Idaho, she teaches upper-level courses on Latin American culture, literature and film. Her research focuses on race and gender in Argentina and Uruguay in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Her first book, Sex, Skulls, and Citizens: Gender and Racial Science in Argentina (1860-1910), was named the 2020 Best Book by the Nineteenth Century Studies section of the Latin American Studies Association.
Randy’L Teton talks to Johanna about her new book It’s Her Story: Sacajawea and her special connection to this incredible heroine in Idaho history.
Randy’L Teton – Randy’L is a member of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes of Fort Hall, Idaho. In 1998, Randy’L was chosen as the Shoshone model for the US Golden Dollar coin aka the Sacajawea dollar coin, Since then, Randy’L has gained wide recognition for her work in tribal history, tribal government, communications, and museum curation. She is proud to serve her family, tribe, state, and Indian Country by helping Tribes tell their story from an Indigenous perspective. She currently lives in southeastern Idaho with her three children and enjoys collecting coins. Randy'L also serves on the board of trustees of the IHC and is a valued colleague and friend of our work.
Dr. Caitlin Cieslik-Miskimen joins Johanna to talk about how valuable student newspapers and yearbooks are to study American history.
Caitlin Cieslik-Miskimen is an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Media. She received her Ph.D. in Mass Communication and History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and joined the University of Idaho faculty in 2019. In addition to media history, she teaches courses in public relations and strategic communications. As a media historian, she explores the cultural role that print products played in communities in the early 20th century. Part of Dr. Cieslik-Miskimen’s research has focused on media coverage of American high schools and the origins of high school journalism. She recently published a book chapter, "A Window into the World of Students: An Analysis of 1920s High School Student Newspapers," and is currently working on a journal article about media coverage of high school student protests in the 1920s.
Sharon Stoll is an award-winning teacher and director of the Center for ETHICS at the University of Idaho. She discusses with Johanna the value of honor and integrity in athletics and how to teach moral reasoning.
Dr. Sharon Stoll serves as the Director of the Center for ETHICS* at the University of Idaho. She is considered one of the leading authorities in competitive moral education intervention techniques for college-aged students in America. Also, a professor of Physical Education, Dr. Stoll is a Distinguished Faculty Member and winner of many awards. A former public school teacher, coach, and athlete, Dr. Stoll holds a Ph.D. in Sport Philosophy from Kent State University and is the creator and director of one of the few programs in America that is directed toward moral education with competitive populations. Dr. Stoll is well known for her knowledge of teaching and methodology as applied to pedagogy in moral education and character development. She is also the author of 8 books and is an active consultant and lecturer.
John Poole from BYU-Idaho joins Johanna this week to talk about how he became an advocate of social justice in the classroom and how teaching about the Holocaust has inspired him.
John Poole is a professor of English education at BYU-Idaho. Prior to that, he was a teacher and a principal at an alternative high school. He started his career as a high school English teacher. He has been interested in social justice issues since he encountered a white supremacist student in his high school English class. He is a lifetime resident of Idaho.
Johanna is joined by European historian Dr. Alexandria Ruble from the University of Idaho to learn about the surprising history of women’s rights in Germany after World War II.
Dr. Alexandria N. Ruble is an assistant professor of European history at the University of Idaho. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2017. Her research focuses on central Europe, Germany, Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, the Cold War, and women’s and gender history. Her first book, Entangled Emancipation: Women’s Rights in Cold War Germany, was published in December 2023 by University of Toronto Press.
In this episode Johanna is joined by Dr. Matthew Levay from Idaho State University to discuss the history and value of comics and recommends some must-read favorites!
In this episode, our guest is Kári Tulinius, an Icelandic poet and novelist. Join Johanna to learn about the unique literary culture of Iceland that culminates in a book flood every year at Christmas time.
Blake Lingle, founder and owner of Boise Fry Company and author of Fries!, An Illustrated Guide to the World’s Favorite Food teaches us everything we ever wanted to know about French fries! Including, why they are not really French!
Watch the video here.
Johanna and Dr. Rebecca Schwartz talk about a little-known area of World War II history in Idaho that significantly impacted Idaho families.
- The Long Afterlife of Nikkei Wartime Incarceration by Karen Inouye is the correct title of a book referenced in this episode.
Watch the video here.
Johanna is joined by Dr. Russell P. Johnson from the University of Chicago Divinity School to talk about our favorite holiday films.
Watch the video here.
Sir Alfred Hitchcock is arguably the most celebrated and admired film director in history. Dr. Douglas Cunningham joins Johanna to talk about the essential Hitchcock films everyone needs to watch and what we learn about ourselves through his work.
Join us for this episode to learn about the remarkable project co-directed by our guests that is working to preserve wartime stories, experiences, and objects to help communities connect with the history of war.
In this episode, Dr. Sara Dant explains the history of how we use public lands in the West and how federal land management agencies have stewarded those lands for the public. Dr. Dant’s presentation can best be viewed on YouTube and is geared toward students and teachers.
Watch on YouTube here.
Dr. McMillin shares his presentation on the Blue Humanities, which he gave at the IHC Summer Teacher Institute, An Environment of Hope, with our listeners. In this session, participants will be introduced to the “blue humanities,” with particular focus on rivers and literature. There are three main parts: Why Teach Blue Humanities, What to Teach If You Teach Blue Humanities, and How to Teach Blue Humanities. Part one (Why) centers around hope, and the ways that literature fosters hope through “Connecting” (making connections, belonging to the world, participating), “Flowing” (moving connectedly and connectively, changing, adapting), and “Reflecting” (re-viewing, re-seeing, re-thinking). In part two (What), we will explore different ways of using Blue Humanities in the classroom, including examples of semester-long courses (from both scientific and literary perspectives) and shorter units. The final section (How) involves looking at several literary works and thinking about their different approaches to rivers and the concept of “home.”
Watch the video here.
I am blooming from the wound where I once bled. –Rumi
Idaho is fraught rich with stories of loss hope. Stories of failure resilience. Stories of doubt belief in a better future. Some of those stories are often repeated and some have not yet been told. It’s time to revisit our narratives from the past, to revise our stories for the future, to re-story a state and its beings whose destiny relies on what kind of storytellers we raise and what kind of ancestors we are going to become.
In this interactive session that blends story, poetry, traditional ecological knowledge, science, and history, CMarie Fuhrman, Idaho writer in residence resistance will guide you on a journey of re-storyation. She will provide prompts, pedagogies, and poems to mix with imagination and literature to teach hope, resilience, and love and show how the craft of literature can make the stories and beliefs that change the future.
Watch the video here.
Dr. Johann Neemfrom Western Washington University joins Johanna in this episode to talk about the history of American public schools and the wrestle they are facing today about how to teach our nation’s history.
Join Johanna and Rachel Stewart, Vampire Scholar, to talk about the history of vampires in literature, TV, and film. They also discuss how women have played a central role in the fate of vampires in popular media.
Dr. Sydney Freeman, Jr. from the University of Idaho joins Johanna to talk about the Black History Research Lab and the important work he is performing as a memory keeper.
Arlie Sommer makes media art about and for Idahoans, exploring this place and the people who make Idaho unique. She joins us to talk about her latest project, a short documentary about an “Idaho Babe.”
Watch on YouTube here.
Dr. Nick Underwood, a professor of historian modern Jewish and European history from the College of Idaho joins us to talk about the essentials of Jewish history, antisemitism, Idaho’s Jewish history, and the value to all Idahoans of our religious diversity.
Watch on YouTube here.
Dr. Gautam Basu Thakur is the director of the critical theory minor at Boise State University and chair of a new department and major- Humanities and Cultural Studies. He joins us to talk about this new program and the value of applying critical theory to literature.
Watch on YouTube here.
Dr. Ann Campbell, a professor of English Literature from Boise State University, joins us to talk about why Jane Austen is the author of our go-to comfort reading and viewing, despite publishing only 6 novels over 200 years ago.
Watch on YouTube here.
Historian Dr. Ida Meftahi, from Boise State University, joins us in a fascinating conversation about her pioneering work in documenting the history of Iranian Dance and her personal journey as a dancer, scholar, and educator.
Join Marie Stango, Assistant Professor - 18th- and 19th-Century U.S.; Women, Gender, and Sexuality; African American and African Diaspora studies at Idaho State University in a talk about the multiple facets of Abolition in the U.S.
Watch the video here.
Join Marie Stango, Assistant Professor - 18th- and 19th-Century U.S.; Women, Gender, and Sexuality; African American and African Diaspora studies at Idaho State University in a talk about the multiple facets of Abolition in the U.S.
Watch the video here.
Join Susan Anderson, History Curator at the California African American Museum as she walks us through gold rush California. She will look at this time period in California history through the lens of African Americans and their stories.
Watch the video here.
Join Susan Anderson, History Curator at the California African American Museum as she walks us through gold rush California. She will look at this time period in California history through the lens of African Americans and their stories.
Watch the video here.
Join Dr. Becca Scofield as she shares her family's story in Idaho. Throughout the story, Dr. Scofield shines a light on the overlapping experiences a place can hold.
Dr. Scofield's email is rscofield@uidaho.edu
Watch the video here.
Join Dr. Becca Scofield from University of Idaho as she discussed how history is collected, told, and organized. She also explores the pitfalls of these processes, including how to navigate nuances in the tapestry of history.
Dr. Scofields email is rscofield@uidaho.edu
Watch the video here.
A small town weighs the economic compromises of growth in the Rocky Mountain West.
Dr. Ryanne Pilgeram from University of Idaho joins us to discuss her book on Dover, Idaho titled "Pushed Out." What happens to rural communities when their traditional economic base collapses? When new money comes in, who gets left behind? Pushed Out offers a rich portrait of Dover, Idaho, whose transformation from “thriving timber mill town” to “economically depressed small town” to “trendy second-home location” over the past four decades embodies the story and challenges of many other rural communities.
Check out her book at the Book People store in Moscow or Vanderford’s in Sandpoint.
You can also purchase the book online here: https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295748696/pushed-out/ (use discount code WST30 for 30% off!)
Watch the video here.
A small town weighs the economic compromises of growth in the Rocky Mountain West.
Dr. Ryanne Pilgeram from University of Idaho joins us to discuss her book on Dover, Idaho titled "Pushed Out." What happens to rural communities when their traditional economic base collapses? When new money comes in, who gets left behind? Pushed Out offers a rich portrait of Dover, Idaho, whose transformation from “thriving timber mill town” to “economically depressed small town” to “trendy second-home location” over the past four decades embodies the story and challenges of many other rural communities.
Check out her book at the Book People store in Moscow or Vanderford’s in Sandpoint.
You can also purchase the book online here: https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295748696/pushed-out/ (use discount code WST30 for 30% off!)
Watch the video here.
Join Dr. Markie McBrayer from University of Idaho as she discussed the history of third parties in the United States' two-party system.
Watch the video here.
Join Dr. Markie McBrayer as she explores political party systems through US history. This includes shifts in party values, names, and structures.
Watch the video here.
Celebrity historian Raffi Andonian explores the history of the American dream from the founding of the US to present day through people, art, and objects.
watch the video here.
Links to other presentations, books, and more by Raffi Andonian:
- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrax2HFFIdGoET-7nlIqDLA/videos
- https://cliothemuse.tv/watch
- https://www.amazon.com/Raffi-E-Andonian/e/B0847Q9V2F
Celebrity historian Raffi Andonian explores the history of the American dream from the founding of the US to present day through people, art, and objects.
watch the video here.
Links to other presentations, books, and more by Raffi Andonian:
- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrax2HFFIdGoET-7nlIqDLA/videos
- https://cliothemuse.tv/watch
- https://www.amazon.com/Raffi-E-Andonian/e/B0847Q9V2F
Kyle T Mays, Assistant Professor of African American Studies, American Indian Studies, and History at UCLA, joins us to provide context on Afro-Indigenous History of the United States with a focus on the Black Power and Red Power movements.
Purchase “An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States” here.
Watch the video here.
Kyle T Mays, Assistant Professor of African American Studies, American Indian Studies, and History at UCLA, joins us to provide context on Afro-Indigenous History of the United States with a focus on the Black Power and Red Power movements.
Purchase “An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States” here.
Watch the video here.
Adam Sowards, Professor Emeritus at the University of Idaho, joins us to provide context on the American Landscape through four laws, two places, and two people.
Watch the video here.
Adam Sowards, Professor Emeritus at the University of Idaho, joins us to provide context on the American Landscape through four laws, two places, and two people.
Watch the video here.
Some changed have been made to our Connected Conversations program thanks to the feedback of our listeners. We feel Context better reflects the goal, mission, and purpose of this program. We hope you enjoy, and don't forget to follow and give us a five-star rating wherever you listen! Feel free to learn more out Context and the Idaho Humanities Council here.
This three-part series presented by Dr. Liz Redd of Idaho State University will help listeners:
1) articulate pervasive myths and stereotypes of native American peoples often perpetuated in mainstream education/society
2) reframe discussions to dispel common misconceptions about Native American peoples, their histories, and their persistence & resistance
3) describe the unique sovereign political status of Native American Tribes in the United States as informed by history and policy
4) explore ways to incorporate diverse voices and perspectives throughout curriculum and programs
Key concepts include representation, U.S. Native American Law & Policy, erasure, resistance, and sovereignty.
Watch the video here.
This three-part series presented by Dr. Liz Redd of Idaho State University will help listeners:
1) articulate pervasive myths and stereotypes of native American peoples often perpetuated in mainstream education/society
2) reframe discussions to dispel common misconceptions about Native American peoples, their histories, and their persistence & resistance
3) describe the unique sovereign political status of Native American Tribes in the United States as informed by history and policy
4) explore ways to incorporate diverse voices and perspectives throughout curriculum and programs
Key concepts include representation, U.S. Native American Law & Policy, erasure, resistance, and sovereignty.
Watch the video here.
This three-part series presented by Dr. Liz Redd of Idaho State University will help listeners:
1) articulate pervasive myths and stereotypes of native American peoples often perpetuated in mainstream education/society
2) reframe discussions to dispel common misconceptions about Native American peoples, their histories, and their persistence & resistance
3) describe the unique sovereign political status of Native American Tribes in the United States as informed by history and policy
4) explore ways to incorporate diverse voices and perspectives throughout curriculum and programs
Key concepts include representation, U.S. Native American Law & Policy, erasure, resistance, and sovereignty.
Watch the video here.
This panel discussion focuses on the impacts, stories, and legacies of Minidoka through the lens of survivors and descendants from the camp. The panel includes the following panelists:
Paul Tomita, Survivor (Sansei)
Mary Abo, Survivor (Nisei)
Karen Hirai Olen, Survivor (Sansei)
Wendy Tokuda, Descendant (Sansei)
Stephen Kitajo, Descendant (Yonsei)
Watch the video here.
Dr. Donna Nagata from the University of Michigan discusses multi-generational trauma and the psychosocial consequences of the World War II incarceration and historical trauma on Japanese Americans with Robyn Achilles.
Watch the video here.
Listen to Kurt Ikeda, Director of Interpretation and Education, Minidoka national Historic Site briefly discus the impact and the history of the Minidoka Site in Idaho. This is the first episode in a three part series created in partnership with the Friends of Minidoka.
Speakers:
Kurt Ikeda Director of Interpretation and Education, Minidoka National Historic Site
Robyn Achilles Executive Director, Friends of Minidoka
Watch the video here.
In the age of information, why is so hard to be a well-informed citizen? Developing our news literacy can help us navigate the media landscape, and that means more than checking facts and spotting hoaxes. Yes, facts are important, but we also need a broader understanding of how news and information are produced and consumed in the digital age. What’s happening to real news, and how is it constructed? Are you in a filter bubble, and how can you break out? Are you the customer or the product in the attention economy, and how can citizens reclaim their power? Drawing on history, psychology, sociology, and politics, this conversation can help you increase your news literacy and teach others to do the same.
Learn more by reading "News Literacy and Democracy,” available from Amazon and Routledge.
Watch the video here.
The Panel will be discussing how both local media and journalism are currently changing & evolving in the 21st century.
This panel will be moderated by Bill Manny of Idaho Public Television and the IHC Board of Directors, and introduced by Margaret Johnson, Chair of IHC Board of Directors and Professor of English; Director of Composition at Idaho State University.
These panel discussions were made possible with funding from the Mellon Foundation and the Federation of State Humanities Councils.
Watch the video here.
El Panel discutirá cómo los medios locales como y el periodismo se hancambiado y evolucionando en el siglo XXI.
Este panel será moderado por Bill Manny de Idaho Public Television y miembro del IHC, y presentado por Margaret Johnson, Profesora de Inglés y Director de Composición en Idaho State University y miembro del IHC.
Estos paneles de discusión fueron posibles gracias a los fondos de la Fundación Mellon y la National Endowment for Humanities.
Mira el video aquí.
Join IHC for a panel discussion with prominent journalists Maria Hinojosa and Mark Trahant. They discuss why we view media as so polarizing, and the role journalism plays in our democracy.
This panel was moderated by Bill Manny of Idaho Public Television and the IHC Board of Directors, and introduced by Monique Michel of IHC’s Board of Directors and director of Ballet Folklorico Mexico Lindo .
These panel discussions were made possible with funding from the Mellon Foundation and the Federation of State Humanities Councils.
Watch the video here.
Copyright Maria Hinojosa, 2022. All Rights Reserved.
Únase a IHC para una mesa redonda con periodistas prominentes Maria Hinojosa y Mark Trahant. Hablarán sobre los medios y porque los consideramos tan polarizantes y la función del periodismo en nuestra democracia.
Este panel será moderado por Bill Manny de Idaho Public Television y miembro del IHC, y será presentado por Monique Michel del IHC y la Directora de Ballet Folklorico Mexico Lindo.
Estos paneles de discusión fueron posibles gracias al financiamiento de la Fundación Mellon y la Federación de Consejos Estatales de Humanidades.
Mira el video aquí.
Copyright Maria Hinojosa, 2022. All Rights Reserved.
The United States has been around for more than 250 years, and the mechanisms for the way people vote has changed as the US matures. Many people wonder what voting can look like in the future. Voting on an app? Voting being done without paper? A national holiday for the presidential election? This panel will discuss path towards new voting means, and the issues preventing them.
This program is funded by the 'Why It Matters: Civic and Electoral Participation' initiative, administered by the Federation of State Humanities Councils and funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Watch the video here.
The electoral college has been part of the US voting systems for more than two centuries. Debate on why it is still in use rather than the popular vote is very present from the general population. Comments such as “outdated,” “anti-democratic,” and “arbitrary” fly around as critiques against the institution. Join us as we discuss the history of the electoral college, if it should remain, and the mechanics behind the scenes.
This program is funded by the 'Why It Matters: Civic and Electoral Participation' initiative, administered by the Federation of State Humanities Councils and funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Watch the video here.
What makes voters want to vote? What makes them want to be engaged in a certain election versus another? Dr. Caroline Heldman from Occidental College in Los Angeles and Dr. David Adler from the Alturas Institute will explore the impacts of voter apathy in smaller states and those deemed “safe” in the presidential election, such as Idaho. The discussion will also touch on the different ways various groups feel disenfranchised to vote, even on local ballots.
This program is funded by the 'Why It Matters: Civic and Electoral Participation' initiative, administered by the Federation of State Humanities Councils and funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Watch the video here.
3 political science professors from Boise State University to discuss issues facing Idaho voters, both on the local and national level. Topics for discussion include voter apathy and voting patterns and each panelist will bring their own specialty to this timely discussion.
This program is funded by the 'Why It Matters: Civic and Electoral Participation' initiative, administered by the Federation of State Humanities Councils and funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Watch the video here.
What does it mean to be a citizen? What are the obligations of citizenship in a Democracy? What responsibilities are intertwined with civic duty? Dr. David Gray Adler, Dr. Caroline Heldman, and Dr. Lara Brown share insights and answer questions from the audience in a timely special discussion.
This program is funded by the 'Why It Matters: Civic and Electoral Participation' initiative, administered by the Federation of State Humanities Councils and funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Watch the video here.
Good sources mentioned:
Memeorandum
NPR
Politico
Up First
This conversation will explore the role of the judiciary in the history of American’s struggle to form a more perfect union. A Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge, a United States Bankruptcy Judge and a law clerk for the District of Idaho will discuss the role that the judiciary has played in history in either serving this effort or preventing it with a specific focus on cases in Idaho that have impacted our efforts as a nation to secure liberty, justice, and equal protection of the law for all citizens.
Watch the video here.
Hello listeners!
Over the next few weeks, we will be posting a curated collection of episodes focusing on themes surrounding Democracy. In this special series, expect to learn about voter apathy, media literacy, the electoral college, and the changing face of media. These episodes were funded in part by the Federation of State Humanities Councils through a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Additional funding has also been provided by US Bank.
Hope to get you connected!
Look at a map of the United States and you'll see the familiar cluster of states in North America, plus Hawai'i and Alaska in boxes off to the side. But what about Puerto Rico? What about American Samoa? The country has held overseas territory--lands containing millions of U.S. nationals--for the bulk of its history. They don't appear often in textbooks, but the outposts and colonies of the United States have been central to its history. This talk explores what U.S. history would look like if it weren't just the history of the continental states but of all U.S. land: the Greater United States.
Bio: Daniel Immerwahr (pronounced IM-mer-var, he/him pronouns) is a professor of history at Northwestern University, where he teaches global history and U.S. foreign relations His first book, Thinking Small (Harvard 2015), a history of U.S. grassroots antipoverty strategies, won the Organization of American Historians' Merle Curti Award for best work of U.S. intellectual history. His second, How to Hide an Empire, a retelling of U.S. history with the overseas parts of the country included in the story, was a national bestseller and won the Robert Ferrell book prize from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. Immerwahr is currently working on two research projects, one focusing on the pop culture of U.S. global hegemony, the other a book about nineteenth-century urban catastrophes. Immerwahr's writings have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, Slate, The Nation, and The New Republic.
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During the twentieth century, hundreds of communities in the American West disappeared, and no one seemed to care. River development projects – massive dams built for irrigation, hydroelectricity, and flood control – displaced or destroyed towns, tribal communities, farmsteads, and ranches on the Snake, Colorado, Columbia, and other rivers. Recovering these lost histories is the mission of The Atlas of Drowned Towns, a multimedia and multi-platform public history project (drownedtowns.com). This talk with introduce and explain the objectives and vision of The Atlas of Drowned Towns, exploring some of the questions lurking under the surface of reservoirs: How did these displaced communities respond to their removal – with enthusiasm, acquiescence, or/and resistance? Why did they respond in those ways? What was it like to live in and have to leave these places? And what can we in the 21st century learn from the history of displacement, as we face a future that threatens more such displacement?
Bio: Bob H. Reinhardt is an associate professor in the Department of History at Boise State University, where he teaches, researches, and writes about the history of the American West, environmental history, public history, and the history of public health. Bob is the author of the The End of a Global Pox: America and the Eradication of Smallpox in the Cold War Era (University of North Carolina Press) and Struggle on the North Santiam: Power and Community on the Margins of the American West (Oregon State University). His professional experience includes serving as the Executive Director of the Willamette Heritage Center museum in Salem, Oregon, a postdoctoral fellowship at Carnegie Mellon University, and teaching positions at Western Oregon University and Willamette University. Bob is also the founder and director of the Working History Center at Boise State University.
Do you know of other such displaced communities? Do you know more about these places? Were these communities not actually drowned by river development projects? Share your knowledge with The Atlas of Drowned Towns before or after the event at drownedtown.com.
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An overview of Sacajawea from 1805-106 and the Lewis and Clark Expedition's time in Lemhi County, Idaho. Jumping back to today, a look at the different portrayals and representations of Sacajawea throughout the 20th and 21st century and the establishment and mission of the Sacajawea Center today.
Bios: Suzy Avey, Director of the Sacagawea Interpretive, Cultural, and Educational Center, Salmon, ID
Mike Crosby, Historian and Author
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In 1847, Presbyterian missionary Henry Spalding acquired handmade Nez Perce artifacts and sent them from north-central Idaho to his friend and supporter, Dudley Allen, in Ohio in exchange for commodities. This was the fate of many early Native American materials, to be appropriated by non-Natives and removed from the hands and lands that created them. The shirts, dresses, baskets, horse regalia, and more—called the Wetxuuwíitin’ (formerly Spalding-Allen) Collection—would not return to their rightful home until they were purchased by the tribe from the Ohio Historical Society in 1996 for $608,100. On November 23rd, 2021, the Ohio History Connection (formerly the Ohio Historical Society) returned $608,100 to the Nez Perce Tribe. Burt Logan of the OHC stated that if the collection was “in the possession of the Ohio History Connection today, we would freely return these items to their rightful home.” The reclamation of these Nez Perce artifacts is the subject of a new WSU Press book, “Coming Home to Nez Perce Country,” published in June 2021.
Bios: Nakia Williamson-Cloud, Director Nez Perce Tribe Culture Resource Program
Trevor Bond, Associate Dean WSU Libraries and Director of the WSU Center for Arts and Humanities
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The Berlin Wall, Polish Solidarity, Tiananmen Square, the dissolution of the Soviet Union: the end of the Cold War created cultural and political reverberations around the globe. Americans celebrated the United States’ triumph over the Soviet Union, having “won” a conflict that had dominated international affairs for half a century. Yet the end of the Cold War wrought changes in American culture that are sometimes difficult to trace, especially in comparison to the waves of revolution and mass demonstration that characterized other parts of the world between 1989 and 1991. This talk will explore some of the subtle ways that the end of the Cold War influenced American culture, many aspects of which have only become apparent in the three decades since. I contend that the experience of the 1980s and 1990s not only helps us understand American culture in the era since September 11, 2001, but also lends insight into the lasting influence of these decades in American culture today, from pop culture to politics.
Bio: Dr. Sarah Robey is Assistant Professor of History at Idaho State University, where she teaches courses in American history, the history of the Cold War, the history of science and technology, and the history of energy. Her research focuses on the intersection of American culture and public life and the history of nuclear science and technology. Her first book, Atomic Americans: Citizens in a Nuclear State, will be published with Cornell University Press in early 2022. She also has a forthcoming chapter in Energy Cinema (West Virginia University Press, 2022), which explores how popular entertainment served as public nuclear education in the early Cold War. Robey holds a PhD in History from Temple University and has held past fellowships at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, the Miller Center for Public Affairs at the University of Virginia, and the Philadelphia History Museum.
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In this talk, Riché Richardson reflects on the life, activism and continuing significance of civil rights leader Rosa Parks. Richardson draws on the leader’s legacy and work with children to reflect on her own life path, mentors, and early community service work as a student at the historic St. Jude Educational Institute in Montgomery, Alabama that established foundations for her current work as a university professor and artist who has continued to engage Rosa Parks in both writing and art. Richardson discusses her most recent book, Emancipation’s Daughters: Reimagining Black Femininity and the National Body, which includes a chapter on Parks, along with Richardson's body of art quilts featured in solo shows at the Rosa Parks Museum in Montgomery in 2008 and 2015.
Bio: Riché Richardson is professor of African American literature in Cornell University’s Africana Studies and Research Center who was born and raised in Montgomery, Alabama. In 2001, she received a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship. Her interviews have been highlighted in news media such as NBC’s The Today Show and Nightly News, CNN, Al Jazeera’s Newshour, and the New York Times. Her Op-Eds have appeared in the New York Times, Public Books and Huff Post. She has published nearly 40 essays in journals and edited collections. Her first book, Black Masculinity and the U.S. South: From Uncle Tom to Gangsta (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2007), was highlighted by Choice Books among the "Outstanding Academic Titles of 2008." Her new book, Emancipation's Daughters: Reimagining Black Femininity and the National Body, was published in 2021 by Duke University Press. She is the editor of the New Southern Studies book series at the University of Georgia Press. She is also a visual artist whose art quilts have been featured in several solo and national exhibitions.
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John Denver is one of America’s greatest country-folk singer/songwriters. With over 30 albums in his discography, Denver was more than just a performer. He was an actor, environmentalist, and humanitarian whose efforts continue to be celebrated. He had a raw talent and unique ability to capture the essence of everyday issues through music that seemed to flow from him with deep conviction, especially through the song, Take me Home, Country Roads which is one of the four state anthems of West Virginia.
Bio: Robert Santelli was named Executive Director of the GRAMMY Museum® in Los Angeles in 2006. Under his leadership, the Museum opened new museums in three domestic markets, curated over 65 exhibits, many of which traveled internationally; produced over 600 public programs; and formed educational partnerships with the White House and The Kennedy Center. Santelli is a noted blues and rock historian, contributing to Rolling Stone and The New York Times, smong other periodicals, as well as the author of more than a dozen books on American music, including Greetings From E Street and The Bob Dylan Scrapbook, both New York Times bestsellers. Santelli was one of the original curators of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, moving to Cleaveland in 1995 to become the museum's first Director of Education and Vice President of Public Programs. In 2000, he bacame CEO of the Experience Music Project (now MoPOP) in Seattle, the first-ever interactive music museum. Santelli also developed the UK's first pop music museum, the British Music Experience. In 2012, Santelli co-produced Woody At 100: The Woody Guthrie Centennial Collection, which earned him a GRAMMY® nomination for Best Historical Album. Following the Merger of the GRAMMY museum and the GRAMMY Foundation in 2017, Santelli wa named Founding Executive Director and currently oversees the Museum's outside projects and traveling exhibits.
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While the fall of the Alamo on March 6, 1836, has become an iconic moment in Texas--and due to the influence of Hollywood in American history--it was only one event in a chain that began decades earlier in Mexico's struggle for independence from Spain and stretched through the American Civil War. The siege and battle of the Alamo is a good way, then, to examine how ethnic, racial, political, economic, and social tensions in the westering of the United States worked themselves out in the face of Mexican and indigenous interests in what was to become the American Southwest.
Bio: Jesús F. “Frank” de la Teja is Regents’ Professor Emeritus and University Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History at Texas State University in San Marcos. He obtained the Ph.D. in Latin American history from the University of Texas at Austin, and between 1985 and 1991 he worked in the Archives and Records Division of the Texas General Land Office. In 2018-2020 he served as Chief Executive Officer of the Texas State Historical Association.
He has published extensively on Spanish, Mexican, and Republic-era Texas, including the award-winning San Antonio de Béxar: A Community on New Spain’s Northern Frontier, and most recently Faces of Béxar: Writings on Early San Antonio and Texas. He served as book review editor for the Southwestern Historical Quarterly from 1997 to 2014 and as managing editor of Catholic Southwest: A Journal of History and Culture from 1991 to 2005.
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Ritualized festivals in Francophone Belgium (Wallonia) are focal points of civic pride and serve as vehicles for local expressions of historical commemoration. Numerous saint-military marches received UNESCO recognition as examples of “Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity” in 2012. The annual processionals involve hundreds of marchers from local communities dressed in Napoleonic-era military uniforms, carrying authentic muskets and escorting a saint statue. Many of these marchers trace family involvement back multiple generations. The small town of Binche became renowned for its Carnival festivities, which included les Gilles – local men dressed in masks with enormous ostrich plume headdresses. In the cities of Mons and Ath, saint processionals transformed into large-scale ritualized celebrations which strayed from their roots as disciplined and formal manifestations of piety into carnivalesque celebrations centering on giant statues, (Ath) and mock combat with a dragon (Mons). These three festivals have also received UNESCO recognition: the Carnival of Binche in 2003 and Le Doudou of Mons and La Ducasse of Ath in 2005. All of these ritualized festivals, which date to the late-medieval and early modern eras, ceased during the French revolutionary regime. Commemoration only revived during the mid-19th century and multiple factors influenced the reconstruction of these festivals. This talk explores the 19th-century reinvention of Wallonian folkloric traditions, their evolution through the 20thcentury, and how these little-known local festivals became the cultural centerpieces of these communities in the present-day.
Bio: Dr. Erik Hadley received his BA in History from the University of Montana and MA and PhD in History from University at Buffalo, with specializations in Early Modern Europe and the Atlantic World. He is a lecturer in the History Department at Boise State University, where he teaches classes on medieval and early modern Europe and oceanic histories of the Atlantic and Pacific Worlds. His research interests center on cultural history, particularly folkloric rituals, identity and popular commemoration, in both Western Europe and indigenous peoples in the Americas and Hawai’i. Dr. Hadley is the recipient of 2019-2020 Fulbright Research U.S. Scholar grant to Belgium to study the historical evolution, commemoration and public memory of UNESCO-recognized folkloric ritual festivals dating back the late Middle Ages and has authored numerous articles on historic cultural identity in French-speaking Belgium.
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The Fremont cultures of the northeastern Great Basin and northern Colorado Plateau are understood as the northernmost maize agriculturalists in the North American Southwest. Because of the relatively recent timing of the Fremont foraging-farming transition (AD 300-1300), we can learn a great deal about the subtle interplay between climatic conditions and social decisions leading to the intensification of farming, the formation of early agricultural villages, and the development of complex societies. The Cub Creek reach of Dinosaur National Monument in northeastern Utah is a case study in the socio-ecological dynamics of Fremont culture.
Bio: Judson Finley is Associate Professor of Anthropology and is Department Head of Sociology and Anthropology at Utah State University. Judson has spent his life and career living and working in western Wyoming, southern Idaho, and northern Utah. He specializes in the intersection of archaeology and earth sciences and it relates to the region’s cultural and natural history.
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From 2008 to 2014 a team of archaeologists conducted a series of excavations in the north Idaho town of Sandpoint. Ultimately, the project proved to be one of the largest projects in the state’s history recovering several hundred thousand artifacts. There are multiple themes that came out of this project. In this talk Dr. Warner will talk about two of their findings: a broad question of Sandpoint’s early economic connections to the world and a local question that many don’t think about - namely the economics of prostitution in Sandpoint. Underlying this talk is a goal of sharing how archaeology of the recent past can contribute in unexpected ways to understanding (and sharing) the past.
Bio: Mark Warner is an historical archaeologist with over thirty years of experience in archaeology. He has worked in many parts of the U.S. and conducted major excavations in Maryland, Oklahoma, and in the Inland Northwest. Recent work in the region included the Sandpoint Archaeology Project (the largest CRM project in the state’s history), and multiple public archaeology projects in Boise and Moscow, ID which were visited by approximately 3500 people. A native of Michigan, Warner did his Master’s work at the University of Maryland and his Ph.D. at the University of Virginia. He has been teaching at the University of Idaho since 1998. While at Idaho, he has authored or edited four books, two thematic journal issues, multiple articles and generated over $900,000 in funding. He is the immediate past president of the Society for Historical Archaeology.
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Stonewall National Monument is a new national park unit located in Christopher Park, part of New York City's Historic Greenwich Village. It is a park in progress with limited services, and in the coming years services will be added to the park in cooperation with our partners. The monument sits across the street from The Stonewall Inn, a National Historic Landmark known for its involvement in the beginning of the modern struggle for civil rights of gay and lesbian Americans. The Stonewall Innexists as a private establishment and working bar.
Stonewall was a milestone for LGBTQ civil rights that provided momentum for a movement. In the early hours of June 28, 1969, a police raid on the Stonewall Inn provoked a spontaneous act of resistance that earned a place alongside landmarks in American self-determination such as Seneca Falls Convention for women’s rights (1848) and the Selma to Montgomery Marchfor African American voting rights (1965). Demonstrations continued over the next several nights at Christopher Park across from the Stonewall Inn and in the surrounding neighborhood. When asked to describe the difference that Stonewall had made, journalist Eric Marcus observed that before Stonewall, “For most people, there was no out, there was just in.”
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Since Godzilla's first appearance nearly 70 years ago in the classic Gojira, the King of the Monsters has become a cinematic icon and a globally recognized symbol of Japan. But what can a giant, fire-breathing movie monster tell us about Japanese culture and Japan's national experience from the mushroom clouds of 1945 through the current global pandemic? This talk will explore how the 33 Godzilla films can help us understand Japan’s resilience in the face of disasters, the global popularity of Japanese creature features, and the ways we all address our fears of invisible threats, radioactive or viral.
Bios: Bill Tsutsui is a specialist in the economic, environmental, and cultural history of modern Japan. Educated at Harvard, Oxford, and Princeton Universities, he is the author or editor of eight books, including Manufacturing Ideology: Scientific Management in Twentieth-Century Japan, Banking Policy in Japan, and Japanese Popular Culture and Globalization. His 2004 book Godzilla on My Mind: Fifty Years of the King of Monsters was called a “cult classic” by the New York Times and a Japanese translation was published by Chūkō sōsho. He has received Fulbright, ACLS, and Marshall Fellowships, and was awarded the John Whitney Hall Prize of the Association for Asian Studies in 2000 and the William Rockhill Nelson Prize for Non-Fiction in 2005. He currently serves on the boards of directors of the Association for Asian Studies, the US-Japan Council, and the Federation of State Humanities Councils, and was appointed to the Japan-United States Friendship Commission in 2020.
Tsutsui taught for seventeen years at the University of Kansas before becoming Dean of Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences at Southern Methodist University in 2010. From 2014 to 2019 he served as President of Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas, where he is currently Professor Emeritus of History. His ongoing research focuses on the environmental and business history of the Japanese fishing industry and on Japanese popular culture.
Professor Lisa M. Brady joined Boise State University’s History faculty in fall 2003. She teaches courses in global, Asian, and environmental history and historical methodology. Her research examines the ways military activities—during peace time and in times of conflict—shape and are shaped by the natural environment. Her first book, War upon the Land: Military Strategy and the Transformation of Southern Landscapes during the American Civil War, was published by the University of Georgia Press in 2012. She is currently working on a volume on global war and environment for the Very Short Introduction series by Oxford University Press and on a book exploring the environmental history of the Korean War. Brady served as the editor-in-chief for the scholarly journal Environmental History from 2013 through 2019 and will be the History Department chair beginning Fall 2021.
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This presentation will explore the circumstances that allowed for the development of women’s clubs in the United States between the early 1800s and early 1900s and the underlying ideologies and sentiments that spurred the growth of activism and organizing during Progressive Era. With this foundation the presentation will then explore the emergence of women’s clubs in Idaho, the specific work of these clubs, and the impact that these clubs had in their communities. The work of club women at the turn of the century supported various facets of the community, including health, education, the arts and humanities, and political and civic engagement. The presentation will end with an exploration of how some of these clubs adapted and continued to serve their community well into the 20th and 21st centuries, and how, thanks to the record keeping of these organizations, we (with the help of historians) can learn from the women leaders of the past.
Bio: HannaLore graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in History and Ethnic Studies from the University of Colorado, Boulder and received a Western American Studies certificate from the Center of the American West. She has a M.A. in Applied Historical Research from Boise State University.
HannaLore has served on the Boise State Alumni Association Board of Directors since May 2016 and is also heavily involved with The Junior League of Boise, Inc. She has served on the Tango Boise, Inc. Board of Directors and currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Center of the American West.
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Humanity struggled to contain infectious diseases long before the concept of microscopic germs emerged. The histories of smallpox, polio, and covid-19 illustrate how vaccine development has changed—and in some ways, not changed—in the last 300 years.
Bio: Laura Jenski is a retired university professor and vice-president for research. She received her PhD in oncology and postdoctoral training in immunology from the University of Wisconsin and bachelor's and master's degrees in biology from Northern Illinois University After decades of authoring original scientific research articles, Laura now writes what she loves to read—serious mysteries and farces—for her independent publishing company, Snowbound Stories LLC.
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This talk follows the cultural, economic, social and political impediments under which the Weimar Republic in Germany was born in 1918 and how the nearly constant assault of the conservative right wing upon a form of government it never accepted created opportunities for the extremist Nazi Party to take advantage of political paralysis, economic chaos, social panic and cultural despair to use democratic structures to come to power, establish a dictatorship, and increase popular support among Germans for the Nazi agenda. It will focus on Nazi use of traditional, conservative, populist and nostalgic themes to present a palatable program for non-Nazi members of the upper and middle classes that cut across traditional cultural cleavages in Germany, including religion, region, social class, gender, age, the rural-urban divide and the military-civilian divide. Key issues include revision of the post-World War I treaty system, destruction of the perceived leftist threat to Germany, stabilization of the economy, and restoration of self-esteem and solid German values to social and cultural life. Finally, it explores the Nazi presentation of WWII in terms that made it possible for non-Nazis to participate willingly in perpetrating Nazi crimes.
Bio: Dr. Peter Black was the Senior Historian and Director of the Division of the Senior Historian at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum from 1997 until his retirement from federal service in January 2016. Previously, from 1978 until 1997, he served as a staff historian and (after 1986) as Chief Historian for the Office of Special Investigations (OSI), Criminal Division of the United States Department of Justice. Since January 2016, he has been active as an independent historian/consultant, whose most important client is the USHMM, in particular the Division of the Reference Historian.
Educated at the University of Wisconsin (BA: 1972) and Columbia University (Ph.D in 1981), Dr. Black has held various teaching positions at George Mason University, Catholic University, American University and Columbia University.
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It is no secret that rural lands are vanishing within the Treasure Valley and elsewhere across the Gem State. This land use change can have a range of impacts on the individuals, households and communities in Idaho. Join Dr. Jodi Brandt & Dr. Rebecca Som Castellano, both from Boise State University, for a discussion and Q & A on the ways this change is measured, the implications of this, and the social effects disappearing farmland can have on impacted communities.
Bios: Jodi joined the Human-Environment Systems Research Center at Boise State University in 2015. The goal of her research is to better understand how human societies and healthy ecosystems can thrive, on a rapidly changing planet. She focuses on quantifying human-environment interactions and whether they create sustainable environmental trajectories. She works with a wide range of people, including economists, ecologists and anthropologists, farmers, hunters and tribal communities.
Rebecca L. Som Castellano is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Boise State University. She earned her Ph.D. in Rural Sociology at The Ohio State University, her M.A. in Sociology from the University of Kentucky and her B.A. in interdisciplinary studies from Fairhaven College at Western Washington University. Previous research projects have included examination of the actors and interests involved in the construction and development of National School Lunch Program policy; inequalities within sustainable agriculture initiatives; food insecurity in both urban and rural contexts; and climate change adaptation. Frequently working in interdisciplinary collaborations, her current work focuses on the experiences of Latina farm workers in Southern Idaho, and land use change, including concern with the development of farm land and sagebrush steppe in Idaho. She is also currently working to develop research focused on how COVID has shaped local food consumption. For her work, she has been awarded several national awards, including a USDA National Needs Fellowship. Her research has been funded through a range of grants, including the American Sociological Association, the United States Department of Agriculture, and Mountain West CTR-IN Program for Clinical and Translational Research.
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This presentation will give a glimpse into the unique history of the Basques from the late 19th century to current day, their immigration throughout the world and their impact on their communities, especially in Idaho. You will get a preview of Spain and France prior to so many Basques leaving the area as well as the incredible tourist destination it has become. You will also learn about the hardships Basques faced throughout the entire immigration process as well as their perseverance as they established themselves in the many communities in the western United States. Finally, attendees will learn about the Basque’s impact on local communities and how one can be part of the Basque community in Idaho and beyond.
The Basque Museum & Cultural Center shares the story of the Basques in the Basque Country and their immigration and their establishment in the West in an effort to empower people of all backgrounds to explore points of connection and reflect on the common dignity of the human experience.
Bio: A fourth generation Basque-American, Annie was born and raised on a cattle ranch in the small northern Nevada town of Paradise Valley. She attended a small three-room grade school until 9th grade when she was bussed into Winnemucca for the remainder of High School. As a participant in Student Council and High School Athletics, Annie found that her time was always spent working with many other people. She carried that habit to Boise where she attended Boise State University and graduated with a degree in Spanish with minors in Basque Studies and Business. She also joined the Oinkari Basque Dancers and served as a board member, dance director and liaison for 10 years. Her connections with Oinkaris and the wonderful Basque community in Boise opened great opportunities for study and travel in the Basque Country as well as job opportunities on the Basque Block. Annie has worked in some form of education since college, and was hired at the Education Program Specialist for the Basque Museum & Cultural Center in the summer of 2013. In 2016, she was asked to lead the organization as the Executive Director to continue the success of preserving, promoting and perpetuating Basque history and culture for generations.
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This talk explores the historical perspective of Native Hawaiians with regard to struggles over land, sovereignty and community empowerment over the past 50 years, and how it fits within, and should be considered a part of, a greater theme of indigenous civil rights movements in the United States. Native Hawaiian activists tapped into the American Indian movement and in the process, became part of a wider movement for the rights of indigenous peoples impacted by American settler-colonial dispossession and marginalization. As the Native Hawaiian movement took shape, not only did it gain inspiration, momentum and support from mainland indigenous Americans, but, over time reciprocated the same. Native American and Native Hawaiian protests over land and sovereignty demonstrated growing indications of indigenous solidarity; Native Hawaiian activists joined the Standing Rock protests in 2016, viewing the Dakota Access Pipeline as a desecration of land belonging to indigenous Americans. Likewise, Native American activists provided support for the Mauna Kea protests in 2018-2019, some even staging protests on the mainland.
Bio: Dr. Erik Hadley received his BA in History from the University of Montana and MA and PhD in History from University at Buffalo, with specializations in Early Modern Europe and the Atlantic World. He is a lecturer in the History Department at Boise State University, where he teaches classes on medieval and early modern Europe and oceanic histories of the Atlantic and Pacific Worlds. His research interests center on cultural history, particularly folkloric rituals, identity and popular commemoration, in both Western Europe and indigenous peoples in the Americas and Hawai’i. Dr. Hadley is the recipient of 2019-2020 Fulbright Research U.S. Scholar grant to Belgium to study the historical evolution, commemoration and public memory of UNESCO-recognized folkloric ritual festivals dating back the late Middle Ages and has authored numerous articles on historic cultural identity in French-speaking Belgium.
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Although the US constitution dedicates relatively little space to the executive branch, it is specific about the Oath a president must take. Over the last two centuries, the inaugural ceremony accompanying the formal oath of office has varied quite a lot. From people who were inebriated and rambled through the speech, to people who spoke so long they became ill; I will discuss some interesting and politically important inaugurations. In addition, I will discuss who typically gets an invitation to inaugurations and how this impacts Idahoans.
Bio: Matthew Miles is a professor of Political Science at BYU-Idaho where he teaches undergraduate courses on the Executive Branch and a longtime member of the Presidents and Executive Politics section of the American Political Science Association. He has authored a book and more than a dozen peer-reviewed articles. His research on the Executive Branch has been published in Public Administration Review, Policy Studies Journal, The International Journal of Press/Politics, and Presidential Studies Quarterly.
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The history of the Silver Valley, Shoshone County Idaho reads like a dime novel with MURDER, MINING, MAYHEM, MEN, MONEY AND PROSTITUTION! Many of the Mining Laws of 1972 were written from the court cases filed in the Coeur d’Alene Mining District.
The military highway through the South fork of the Coeur d’Alenes opened the territory to prospectors and adventurers. Wallace and the Silver Valley are mining camps, the railroads came because of the money to be earned shipping ore concentrated to the smelters. The industry has evolved with the changing times, environmental regulations and the communities are ready to continue their sustainability with changes as well.
Shauna moved to Wallace in 1980, because the wind does not blow here! Wallace is the best small mountain town where a person could reside. It is on the Interstate 90 corridor, near to Spokane, Washington, and Missoula, Montana. (If one must go to the city.) It is in the middle of mountains, rivers, hiking trails and outdoors sports.
She finds the history of the Coeur d’Alene Mining District, Shoshone County and the railroad transportation fascinating and surprisingly modern. She is curious and an avid reader, of all kinds of topics.
It is a pleasure to reside and work in Wallace as we define ourselves as a mining camp, a tourist destination, a trailhead on crown jewel bicycle path, and a hometown.
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The life of American Western artist Archie Boyd Teater is recorded through his art, the construction of his studio/home, and in the extensive collection of archival material and artifacts left after the death of he and his wife, Patricia.
Born in Boise in 1901, Teater became a prolific impressionist painter. With a popular studio in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Teater found success painting western scenes, commissioned portraits, and the Teton Range. His art funded trips around the world, and in the 1950s, a studio/home in Idaho designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The only Frank Lloyd Wright designed structure in Idaho, Teater's Knoll still overlooks the Snake River.
Teater's legacy reaches across disciplines and generations, still touching the lives of people who knew and study him. This conversation will explore Teater's life and ongoing impact through the many sources that recorded his story.
Henry Whiting, owner of Teater's Knoll in Hagerman, Idaho. Henry is an expert on Frank Lloyd Wright and he has written two books about his home in Hagerman.
Lester Taylor is a former economics professor who wrote the book on Archie Boyd Teater. His book, The Life and Art of Archie Boyd Teater, was published in 2016. He owns hundreds of Teater paintings and met Archie when he was alive.
Employed by the Idaho State Historical Society, Chelsee (she/her) is a public historian with a background in archives and museums. She earned her MA from Boise State in 2017.
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How do the Renaissance and Reformation look different when viewed through the lens of gender? Join us for an exploration of women as both the subjects and creators of art. We’ll explore popular themes in art, such as Mary Magdalene and the Virgin Mary, and the great works of artists such as Artemisia Gentileschi, Caravaggio, Leonardo da Vinci, Barbara Longhi, Fra’ Fillipo Lippi, and Judith Leyster.
Lisa McClain is a Professor of History and Gender Studies at Boise State University. She specializes in the history of Christianity during the Reformation era and the intersections of gender, religion, and popular culture. She is the author of the books Divided Loyalties? Pushing the Boundaries of Gender and Lay Roles in the Catholic Church, 1534-1829 (Palgrave MacMillan, 2018) and Lest We Be Damned: Practical Innovation and Lived Experience among Catholics in Protestant England 1559-1642 (Routledge, 2004), as well as numerous book chapters and journal articles. She is a past Idaho Humanities Council Research Fellow.
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Idaho novelist Vardis Fisher served as state director of the Federal Writers’ Project, a national New Deal program designed to put writers to work during the Great Depression. Meregaglia will discuss Vardis Fisher's Boise, a never-before-published manuscript written by Fisher. Finished in 1939, Fisher never found a sponsor for this guidebook to Boise,so it sat forgotten in the Library of Congress for 80 years. Through Meregaglia’s research on Caxton Printers, he located the manuscript, edited the text, and brought it to publication earlier this year through Rediscovered Books.
Meregaglia will talk about the process of finding the manuscript as well as explaining Fisher’s larger role as Idaho state director of the Federal Writers’ Project.
Alex Meregaglia is an archivist and assistant professor at Boise State University’s Albertsons Library, where he has worked since 2016. He holds a Master of Arts in history, with a focus on 20th century American history, and a Master of Library Science, specializing in archives and records management, from Indiana University. Vardis Fisher’s Boise is part of a larger research project on Caxton Printers of Caldwell, Idaho. His research is supported, in part, with grants from the Idaho Humanities Council, Boise State’s Osher Institute, and the Bibliographical Society of America.
Watch the video here.
Since 1993, October has been designated National Arts & Humanities Month to encourage Americans to explore new facets of the arts and humanities in their lives, and to begin a lifelong habit of participation in the arts and humanities. Join Michael Faison, Executive Director of the Idaho Commission on the Arts (ICA) and David Pettyjohn, Executive Director of the Idaho Humanities Council (IHC) as they discuss the essential roles the arts & humanities play in Idaho. They will also provide information on how their state-wide organizations enhance the social, economic, and cultural lives of Idahoans through programming, grants, and opportunities to engage.
Michael Faison is the executive director of the Idaho Commission on the Arts. Faison previously served as the director of the Arts in Education Division of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the assistant director of the Oregon Arts Commission, and the executive director of the Center for Arts Management and Technology at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He served as an information technology consultant for Pittsburgh’s Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild and was a high school art teacher in the Austin Independent School District, Austin, Texas. Faison is a member of the boards of the Western States Arts Federation, National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, Heinz College, Carnegie Mellon University Alumni Association, and the Boise Sunrise Rotary Club. He holds a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from the University of Texas at Austin, a master’s degree in arts management from Carnegie Mellon University, and multiple Texas teaching certifications.
Watch the video here.
A brief survey of how the American wildland fire scene has evolved, beginning with the 1880 census map of forest fires to the present day. Topics will include the Big Blowup of 1910, the CCC, the cold war on fire, the fire revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, the mashup of institutions and policies that characterizes today’s scene, and the quickening of threats that is leading us into a new fire age.
Steve Pyne is an emeritus professor at Arizona State University, mostly a fire historian, and the author recently of Between Two Fires: A Fire History of Contemporary America, Year of the Fires: The Story of the Great Fires of 1910, and To the Last Smoke, a 9-book series of regional fire surveys.
Between Two Fires: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/between-two-fires-stephen-j-pyne/1121747173?ean=9780816532148
The Northern Rockies: A Fire Survey, Vol. 3, To the Last Smoke: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-northern-rockies-stephen-j-pyne/1123744491?ean=9780816533510
Year of the Fires: The Story of the Great Fires of 1910: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/year-of-the-fire-stephen-j-pyne/1131076528?ean=9780878425440
Watch the video here.
Carole talks about the term “Independent Film” and what it means. She shares some things about a few of her favorite independent filmmakers as well as some of her memorable movie-going experiences.
She loves watching and talking about movies and looks forward to questions and thoughts from the audience.
Carole was born at Ft. Lewis, Washington and was raised in the Army, moving every two years throughout her childhood. Army posts usually had a roller rink, a bowling alley and a movie theater so Carole became an avid movie - goer all her life (she can also bowl and skate).
Carole earned a B.A. in English Literature at the University of Washington (as well as the money it took to attend by working full time).
Carole and husband Rick opened their independent theater, The Flicks, near downtown Boise in 1984. Rick is full of ideas, many of them good ones! Carole books the movies that play at The Flicks and still enjoys doing so. She has so much more help there than she did in the early years. The staff is a wonderful and caring group of people and The Flicks continues to succeed because of them.
Carole and Rick hope independent theaters throughout Idaho (and the entire US) will survive this pandemic.
Watch the video here.
In the 1920s and 1930s, fascist dictator Benito Mussolini celebrated a number of ancient Roman centennials, coopting Roman imagery and symbolism to inaugurate his own “rebirth” of the Roman Empire. But did these symbols mean the same thing to the ancient Romans that they did to Mussolini? Where did these symbols come from, and what role did they play in the Roman Republic? By tracing the evolution of the Roman triumphal parade in the Roman Republic, this presentation will demonstrate why the triumph was so important in Roman society, explain how it came to underscore and shed light on why this ancient military and religious procession continues to resonate into the modern world.
Alyson Roy is an assistant professor of ancient history at the University of Idaho. Her research focuses on the Roman Republic, ancient military history, material culture and numismatics. Her forthcoming book project, Circulating Triumph: Conquest Imagery and its Reception in the Roman Republic, explores the use of triumphal imagery in the provinces to extend and reinforce conquest. She holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Washington.
Watch the video here.
In this talk, Dr. Hunter will be examining the question of how best to approach the US Constitution. Among other things, he takes on the position of Chief Justice Roberts who argues that justices should approach the Constitution as neutral umpires calling balls and strikes.
Dr. Hunter began teaching at The College of Idaho in 1988 and was named the Idaho Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement in Teaching in 2008. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Washington.
Hunter teaches political philosophy and constitutional law and holds a biannual Mock Supreme Court course in which nine students are selected to play the role of a current justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. For this course, the students study cases currently before the Court, hear oral arguments on the cases presented by attorneys in the area, and write opinions as if they were sitting on the Court. Students find this course particularly challenging and rewarding. Past participants include a Rhodes, Marshall, and Truman Scholar.
Watch the video here.
In the age of information, why is so hard to be a well-informed citizen? Developing our news literacy can help us navigate the media landscape, and that means more than checking facts and spotting hoaxes. Yes, facts are important, but we also need a broader understanding of how news and information are produced and consumed in the digital age. What’s happening to real news, and how is it constructed? Are you in a filter bubble, and how can you break out? Are you the customer or the product in the attention economy, and how can citizens reclaim their power? Drawing on history, psychology, sociology, and politics, this conversation can help you increase your news literacy and teach others to do the same.
Seth Ashley, PhD, is associate professor of journalism and media studies at Boise State University, where he also serves as faculty advisor for student media. He is the author of "News Literacy and Democracy," and his research on media literacy, media sociology and communication policy has been published in a range of peer-reviewed journals. Ashley received his PhD and MA from the University of Missouri School of Journalism. He has worked as a writer and editor for newspapers and magazines and as a designer and technician for film and theater.
Learn more by reading "News Literacy and Democracy,” available from Amazon and Routledge.
https://www.amazon.com/News-Literacy-Democracy-Seth-Ashley-dp-113862506X/dp/113862506X/
https://www.routledge.com/News-Literacy-and-Democracy/Ashley/p/book/9781138625068
Watch the video here.
While Idaho was an women’s suffrage state, it was one of the last to ratify the 19th amendment. Idaho’s Senator William Borah played a major role both in 1896 and in 1920. This presentation will discuss the politics surround both women’s suffrage episodes, the women activists and their tactics that were crucial for both campaigns, and Borah’s complicated position. Katherine G. Aiken is professor of history emerita at the University of Idaho where she also served as College of Letters, Arts & Social Sciences Dean and Interim Provost and Executive Vice President. She was a member of the State Department of Education Professional Standards Committee for six years; she is committed to K-12 curriculum development and has led numerous professional development workshops. Aiken was chair of the Idaho Humanities Council, served on the Council for seven years, and has been lead scholar for the Council’s Teacher Institute. She is a Latah County Historical Society board member and is on the University of Idaho Library Advisory Board.
Aiken’s American history scholarly areas of interest include social and cultural history, labor history, women’s history, mining, and the environment. She is the author of four books and many articles dealing with those topics--often with an Idaho focus. She participated in the Idaho Public Television production “Idaho’s Trial of the Century” and in the Idaho Experience series.
Watch the video here.
The refugee resettlement process is a long and taxing process, not one for the faint hearted. Salome takes us on a truncated journey through the process from fleeing one’s home, adjustments in the host country, until one is finally resettled in a third country.
Salome Mwangi is a resident of Idaho’s Treasure Valley since 2004. She was born and raised in Kenya and relocated to the United States as a refugee with her daughter and the daughter’s father, who had fled his native Ethiopia, seeking refuge in Kenya, where they met, got married and started a family. As the Refugee Speakers Bureau coordinator at the Idaho Office for Refugees, she supports former refugees in crafting and sharing their stories in culturally appropriate ways in communities around the Treasure Valley and beyond.
Watch the video here.
In 1908, Idaho’s first state park was created by an Act of Congress. It was named for Sen. Weldon B. Heyburn, who famously said “[state parks] are always a subject of political embarrassment.” This presentation traces the roots of the system from the Harriman Alaska Expedition in 1899, through the war years of the Farragut Naval Training Station, to the brilliant gift deed Gov. Robert E. Smylie arranged with Roland and Averell Harriman to create a dedicated park agency resulting in today’s system of 30 state parks.
Rick Just worked for the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation for 29 years. Among other duties he was the agency historian. Rick has written two books on Idaho’s state parks and several more on other Idaho subjects. He writes a daily history blog called “Speaking of Idaho” which has about 9,000 followers. He founded the non-profit organization Friends of Idaho State Parks in 2013 and currently serves as the organization’s president.
Watch the video here.
In this presentation, we'll look at some writings of American Indian women who encountered the colonial, domestic education propagated by federal Indian schools and white women reformers who lived and worked in Indian communities throughout North America. We'll see how these Indian women writers altered the course laid out for them by these reformers and teachers, for in learning to practice the rituals of domesticity they also learned to write about those domestic rituals and sentimental values in syncretic ways.
Dr. Amanda Zink is Associate Professor of English at Idaho State University where she teaches courses in ethnicity, indigeneity, sexuality, gender, and intersectionality in literature. Her research and teaching focuses on American literatures from the margins, with particular emphasis on American Indian literature from the late-19th century to the present. Her first monograph came out in 2018 from the University of New Mexico Press and is titled Fictions of Western American Domesticity: Indian, Mexican, and Anglo Women in Print Culture, 1850-1950. With the support of an IHC Research Grant, she is currently compiling an anthology of literature written by students at the Indian boarding schools in Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon.
Watch the video here.
Minidoka: An American Concentration Camp tells the story of Japanese Americans, most of them American citizens, who were forcibly removed from their Pacific Northwest homes during Word War II. They were held in squalid conditions in temporary detention centers, and then put on trains to a concentration camp in the desert of southern Idaho. Innocent of any crime, many of them would remain imprisoned at Minidoka for over three years. In the compelling voices of survivors of the camp, the film explores the unconstitutional suspension of the civil rights of these Americans and the long-lasting impact of the incarceration on their community. Minidoka examines what happens when a group of Americans are imprisoned solely on the basis of race, and examines the relevance of this story today.
Hanako Wakatsuki is the Chief of Interpretation and Education at the Minidoka National Historic Site and the Liaison for Honouliuli National Historic Site. She has approximately 12 years of experience in the museum and public history field. In the past she has worked for the Idaho State Historical Society, Tule Lake National Monument, and the U.S. Navy Seabee Museum.
Watch the video here.
The future of nuclear energy in the US is changing and Idaho National Laboratory, recently designated by Congress as the National Reactor Innovation Center, is leading the way. Coupled with cutting edge research the lab and its partners are moving forward with plans to build and demonstrate advanced reactor designs including small modular reactors and micro reactors.
Ryan Weeks has over a decade of experience in providing engaging tours that bridge technical content with common language and interesting historical facts. Weeks has been with tours team at INL providing visitors with unique access to INL facilities and in-depth understanding the lab's capabilities. He says the best part of his job is showing off the cool things INL does. He has been in his current role for five years, prior to joining INL he spent eight years in the tourism industry working with scenic railroads in Alaska and Colorado.
Weeks is an Idaho native and graduate from Brigham Young University- Idaho with a degree in Communications. Ryan has a busy home in Teton with three energetic daughters.
Watch the video here.
Post-World War II Idaho politics were unpredictable, intraparty challenges were common, partisanship, often exemplified by newspaper treatment of candidates, was extreme and anti-Communism, a defining theme of the period, was often an emotional, divisive and decisive issue. The turmoil produced some notable political characters, brought to an end the colorful and controversial career of perhaps the most liberal politician ever elected in Idaho, Democratic Senator Glen Hearst Taylor, and remarkably, particularly considering Idaho’s partisan make-up today, helped launched the unlikely political career of Senator Frank Church. Marc Johnson, a political historian and former chief of staff to Idaho’s longest serving governor, Cecil D. Andrus, speaks about Glen Taylor’s colorful and controversial political career and his influence on Idaho and the nation. Johnson is the author of Political Hell-Raiser: The Life and Times of Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana, published in 2019 by the University of Oklahoma Press. He is a former board member and chair of the Idaho Humanities Council. Johnson’s writing on politics and history have appeared in Montana The Magazine of Western History, The Blue Review, The California Journal of Politics and Policy, the New York Times and many Idaho and regional newspapers.
Johnson’s next book – Tuesday Night Massacre: Four Senate Elections and the Radicalization of the Republican Party – is the story of how independent expenditure campaigns began and how those campaigns upend politics beginning with Senate contests in 1980. The University of Oklahoma Press will publish that book in 2021.
Watch the video here.
The Idaho Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial is the only Anne Frank memorial in the United States, is one of the few places in the world in which the entire text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is on public display, and is recognized as an international Site of Conscience. Constructed in the heart of Idaho’s capital city, how did it happen and what is its import to the community and state today?
Dr. Dan Prinzing is the executive director of the Wassmuth Center for Human Rights, builder and home of the Idaho Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial. The Center’s mission is “to promote respect for human dignity and diversity through education and to foster individual responsibility to work for peace and justice.”
Watch the video here.
Terry and Kam will discuss the contemporary Black experience in Idaho. Ranging from growing up and living in Idaho, gender, queerness, and other life experiences, they both will highlight how all these play into the intersectionality that is not only the Black experience but also the human experience.
United States Navy Veteran, Graduate School of Social Work at Boise State Alum Terrence (Terry) Scraggins (He/Him), LSW is from Boise, ID. He recently graduated from Boise State University with a BA in Social Work with a minor in Family Studies. Terry is an Idaho foster alumnus as well as US Navy Veteran. Upon graduation, he joined the mere 3% of foster alumni who have the privilege to graduate with a postsecondary degree. He is also the first individual in his family to graduate with a degree.
Terry successfully completed an internship with Family and Children Services and is employed with a governmental agency. Terry sits on the Board of Directors for a local non-profit organization in the Boise area. He continues to help advocate for the LGBTQ+ community by successfully publishing a policy report that was addressed to Congress in Washington D.C. with Senator Wyden [OR] and the Senate Finance Committee throughout the summer of 2018. Terry also presented on how to support and empower LGBTQ+ foster youth in February 2020 for the University of Oklahoma. He is currently in the process of creating a podcast focused on social justice matters.
Aspiring to return to D.C. one day, Terry has plans to obtain his Master’s degree either in Social Work or Public Policy (or both,) and continue to advocate for social justice matters.
Kam Diaz (They/Them) is a GLAAD campus ambassador and recipient of the Boise State Inclusive Excellence award.
Watch the video here.
From the 1955 incident of the Boys of Boise to the recent Supreme Court decision that protects LGBTQ rights in the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Idaho's LGBTQIA+ community has had a long journey seeking equal rights. Cheryl and Gabrielle will discuss historic and current activities that have affected the LGBTQIA+ the community.
Cheryl Oestreicher is the Head of Special Collections and Archives/Associate Professor at Boise State University. Cheryl curates, preserves, and promotes access to archival collections that document the history of Boise State University, Boise, and Southwest Idaho, including topics such as politics, environment, Basque culture, religion, filmmaking, literature, performing arts, ethnicity, gender, and many others. She has a PhD in Modern History and Literature from Drew University and an MLIS from Dominican University.
Gabrielle Davis is a respiratory therapist and her current role is COPD Educator and Nicotine Cessation Coordinator for St. Luke's in Boise Idaho. Gabrielle has earned a master's degree in public health and a master of arts degree in counseling. Outside of the healthcare field, Gabrielle is an adjunct professor at Boise State University and is the facilitator for a local LGBTQIA+ youth group where she gets to be constantly reminded why kids are better than adults. In her free time (what's that) Gabrielle enjoys reminding people that Black Queer and Trans Lives are included when saying 'Black Lives Matter', dispelling myths about the definition of allyship, encouraging people to say I don't know instead of pretending to know and bringing awareness to the fact that nicotine is one of the most addictive substances. Gabrielle lives in Boise with her wife and dog and they enjoy traveling whenever the opportunity presents itself.
Watch the video here.
Scott Slovic discussed a unique program at U of I in which he is a part of. Semester in the Wild is a program which has taken students from across the world into the Frank to learn about the environment and understand how the wilderness exists and functions.
Dr. Scott Slovic is an English professor at the University of Idaho. Dr. Slovic teaches courses in interdisciplinary environmental humanities, American and comparative literature, environmental writing, and nonfiction writing. He has been an IHC board member since 2014.
Watch the video here.
Larry LaRocco recalled his time with Senator Frank Church and the battle to establish the wilderness at the core of Idaho.
Larry LaRocco was elected to two terms as U.S. Representative from Idaho’s First District, where he served on the House Banking and Interior Committees. While in Congress LaRocco passed legislation into law creating the Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area. Previously he was North Idaho Field Director for Senator Church. Subsequent to Congress, he was a managing director of the American Bankers Association and established a public affairs and government relations firm, LaRocco and Associates. He is past president and board member of the US Association of Former Members of Congress. He is a graduate of the University of Portland and Boston University and studied at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. LaRocco served in the US Army from 1969 -72 in Military Intelligence attaining the rank of captain. He and his wife, Chris, live in Boise.
Watch the presentation here.
General Manager Kevin Greene will talk about the incredible history of baseball in Idaho Falls. He’ll speak to all the notable players that have come through the city in the last 80 years and also cover the history of the ballpark, not just Melaleuca Field built in 2008, but all the professional stadiums in Idaho Falls which have always been on this same lot. Also, not only did the Idaho Falls Chukars win the 2019 Pioneer League Championship, the team had its highest attendance since 2007 and the Chukars contributed over $80,000 in charitable donations throughout the 2019 season.
Kevin Greene, President and General Manager of the Idaho Falls Chukars, was named 2019 Pioneer League Executive of the Year, it was the 5th time in his 27-year career as the President and General Manager of the Idaho Falls Chukars, previously winning the award in 1995, 1998, 2001 and 2013.
Watch the video here.
People generally know Boise's agricultural history, but little about its industrial history. Jennifer Stevens will treat the audience to an overview of the city's robust 20th century industrial history and the systematic dismantling of its industrial relics to make way for Boise's modern "green" identity.
Dr. Jennifer Stevens is an urban environmental historian and an Assistant Clinical Professor. She earned her Ph.D. in History at University of California, Davis, and her B.A. at University of California, Santa Barbara in History and Political Science. Her current research, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, focuses on the impact of deindustrialization on the American West and western urban identity.
Watch the video here.
Welcome to the Idaho Humanities’ Connected Conversation program. You will find a large variety of experts covering everything from the life of John Denver to Godzilla and all the way to The center of the universe, Wallace, ID. Almost all of our episodes are on YouTube with visuals, so feel free to check them out in the show notes. We also livestream these programs first with a live Q + A. More information on attending these events can be found on our website.
Our mission at the IHC is to connect you with ideas. We hope you can learn something new, spark that sense of intrigue, and push you to continue to ask questions and learn. If you like this program or our mission, feel free to get involved by going to our website, www.idahohumanities.org
Instagram: @idahohumanities (https://www.instagram.com/idahohumanities/)
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/idahohumanitiescouncil/
Other IHC Links: https://linktr.ee/idahohumanities
Hope to get you connected!!