Thinking About the Great
Plains
Ideas That Matter Our second set of core readings, after Webb, is an anthology of seventeen classic essays about life and thought on the Great Plains of North America. The scheme of this anthology is to gather together previously published essays by authors whose ideas are consequential in regional life and in what we think about it historically. Some of the essays are by historians; most are not. These are writings and people worth knowing. Here are some criteria for essays included: 1. The essay contains ideas that matter to history and life on the plains. 2. The essay is readable by non-specialists, but is deserving of additional attention by specialists, too. 3. The essay has been previously published as a freestanding, article-length publication; it is not a fragment of a larger work. 4. The author is no longer living. (Living authors are trouble.) This collection of core readings will be distributed (free) in class. Essays are assigned in relation to specific lectures of the course and are to be read and responded to during the time of treatment of that topic in class. You are expected to write responses to the essays - see Response Papers on Essays. |