The Center of the American West is proud to present Kent Haruf with its highest honor, the Stegner Award, on April 25 at 7:00 p.m. in the Wittemyer Courtroom of the Wolf Law Building on the University of Colorado Boulder campus. A self-proclaimed “ministry brat,” Kent Haruf grew up in eastern Colorado, where his novels…

Coming Out of Hibernation: Bears, Their Stories, and You Are you coming out of hibernation? Ready for spring? So, too, are the bears in our environs. And really, how much do you know about the bears that occupy our state? Laura Pritchett, author of the new book Great Colorado Bear Stories, and Jeff Mitton, University…

Each year, thanks to the generosity and kind support of CU alumni Jeannie and Jack Thompson, the Center of the American West awards cash prizes to talented CU students writing on Western topics. Judges from a broad range of scholarship and specialties seek writing with vibrancy and appeal to a broad, informed audience. We hope…

The Center of the American West invites you to a special Modern Indian Identity Event featuring multi-talented artist, activist, and public speaker, Bunky Echo-Hawk. Historically, many tribes would spend the winter months recounting the year’s hunting and battle exploits. A tribal artist would facilitate the group’s stories, interpreting multiple perspectives of an incident, and applying…

The Words to Stir the Soul events spotlight some of the region’s best writing by providing a unique opportunity for both readers and attendees to deepen their appreciation of the region in which we live. This year, the Center of the American West will feature the work of Boulder-based poet and essayist, Reg Saner.  His…

The Center of the American West is proud to award John McPhee its highest honor, the Stegner Award, on October 27th at 7:00 in the evening in Old Main Chapel on the CU campus. 2011 marks the fortieth anniversary of the publication of John McPhee’s extraordinary work, Encounters with the Archdruid. Patty Limerick has long…

“Indigenuity: Exercising Indigenous Ingenuity in the Age of Cybernations” The Center is pleased to announce Dan Wildcat as the ninth guest in the Modern Indian Identity series. Dr. Daniel Wildcat, Ph.D., is a professor at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas, and an accomplished scholar who writes on indigenous knowledge, technology, environment, and education….

Native American Skies Join Dr. John Stocke at 7:00pm Wednesday evening September 14th for an “Arts and Culture Week” presentation of “Native American Skies”, the view of the sky as seen by the people of three Western US tribes. Dr. Stocke, a CU-Boulder professor of Astrophysical & Planetary Sciences, will use the multi-media capabilities of…

You are invited to a memorable evening with Muffy Marshall Muffy Marshall is the 87-year-old daughter of Mayor General Richard J. Marshall, MacArthur’s Chief of Staff throughout World War II. She grew up on Corregidor Island, dated the officers who would end up on the Bataan Death March, then spent the war in Chicago as…

Thank you to everyone who came out for “Native American Skies.” Because of the event’s overwhelming popularity, Astronomy Professor John Stocke will be presenting again for anyone who missed the show. “Native American Star Lore” Hosted by Fiske Planetarium Doors to the building open at 6:30 p.m. Doors to the theater open at 6:45 p.m….

The contest is open to ALL degree-seeking CU-Boulder students. For official rules, click here.

UPDATE: Colorado Public Radio aired an hour-long edited version of our event, Words to Stir the Soul and Reckon with Reality, on April 10 and April 11, 2011: You can listen online at CPR’s website. The Center of the American West was honored to host Words to Stir the Soul and Reckon with Reality: The…

John Stocke, Astronomy Professor in the Astrophysical & Planetary Sciences Department at the University of Colorado, and board member of the Center of the American West, will present “Native American Skies” at the Fiske Planetarium on the CU campus at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, March 2. This multimedia show will feature the traditional star knowledge…

Charles Wilkinson is Distinguished Professor and Moses Lasky Professor of Law, University of Colorado Law School. He is also the co-founder of the Center of the American West. In his remarkable new book, The People Are Dancing Again: The History of the Siletz Tribe of Western Oregon, Wilkinson brings to life the history of the…

“In the Courts of the Conqueror: A Native American Experience” We are pleased to announce Walter Echo-Hawk, a lawyer, tribal judge, scholar, and activist, as the eighth guest in our Modern Indian Identity series. With legal experience including cases involving Native American religious freedom, prisoner rights, water rights, treaty rights, and reburial/repatriation rights, Echo-Hawk worked…

Join us as Center of the American West affiliate and local historian, Buzzy Jackson, releases her newest book, Shaking the Family Tree: Blue Bloods, Black Sheep, and Other Obsessions of an Accidental Genealogist. “Who are you and where do you come from?” As a historian, Jackson thought she knew the answers to these simple questions…

Patty Limerick interviewed the 2010 Stegner Award recipient, Ted Turner, for a morning of engaging discussion. Each year, the Center celebrates the life and achievements of an individual who has made a sustained contribution to the cultural identity of the West through literature, art, history, lore, or an understanding of the West. Throughout his career,…

Following up on the success of the Center of the American West report, What Every Westerner Should Know About Energy Efficiency and Conservation, this film emphasizes the sexiness of our nation’s relationship with fossil fuels and explores how that relationship is evolving into a more mature and lasting union with alternative forms of energy. The…

The Bureau of Land Management’s National Landscape Conservation System – an extraordinary, but under-recognized, collection of treasured public lands – is celebrating its tenth birthday with a signature event at the University of Colorado at Boulder. These uplifting landscapes, often home to rich and intricate ecosystems, have been designated for special care by the NLCS…

CU-Boulder Professor, award-winning journalist, and aquatic ecologist Anders Halverson celebrated the release of his newest book, An Entirely Synthetic Fish: How Rainbow Trout Beguiled America and Overran the World, with the Center of the American West on March 4, 2010. This exhaustively-researched and gripping account follows the discovery and propagation of the most commonly stocked…

Theodore Roosevelt was the twenty-sixth President of the United States and is remembered for his leadership of the Progressive Movement as well as his “cowboy” image. Theodore Roosevelt will be portrayed by actor Clay Jenkinson. Jenkinson is a humanities scholar, author, and social commentator who has devoted most of his professional career to public humanities…

Thomas Jefferson was the third President of the United States, an avid inventor, and principal author of the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt will be played by actor Clay Jenkinson. Jenkinson is a humanities scholar, author, and social commentator who has devoted most of his professional career to public humanities programs and…

The Center celebrated the release of its newest book, Remedies for a New West: Healing Landscapes, Histories, and Cultures. Published by the University of Arizona Press, this exciting new collaborative volume, coedited by Patty Limerick, Andrew Cowell, and Sharon Collinge, offers a kaleidoscope of viewpoints from engineers, biologists, linguists, musicians, lawyers, and others – on…

Retired Yellowstone National Park Superintendent Bob Barbee spoke as part of the third Randy Jones Memorial Lecture, jointly sponsored by the University of Colorado’s Center of the American West and the National Park Service. The talk was free and open to the public. Barbee served a long and distinguished career with the National Park System…

Boulder can boast of being placed on many “Best of…” lists: most educated cities, best cities for bicycling, best healthy places to retire, greenest cities, top art destination, and so forth. Comparisons to other innovative cities along these lines are natural and create a set of kindred cities, from whom we may have been “separated…

Zuni farmer, museum director, and interrupted artist Jim Enote spoke at the University of Colorado at Boulder September 17 as part of the Center of the American West’s Modern Indian Identity series. The talk, “Stranger than Paradise: Is There a Medicine Man in the House?” examined the paradoxes present in living on Indian reservations. The…

One of the foremost experts on the environmental history of fire, Stephen Pyne discussed fire in America, addressing the issues that it raises about the interface of wild lands and urban development. Noted for his highly entertaining and accessible approach to academic topics, Pyne is currently a Regents Professor at Arizona State University, has received…

This panel discussion was presented by the Boulder Sesquicentennial Celebration Committee, the CU Center of the American West, and the Boulder History Museum. To call the past 50 years of Boulder’s history tumultuous is an understatement. Boulder’s transformation over that time – from a community bent on a path of rapid growth and development in…

The Center was proud to welcome David Treuer as the sixth guest in our Modern Indian Identity series. This series features contemporary Indian speakers telling their stories in ways that shatter misconceptions on what it means to be a “real Indian.” Treuer is an Ojibwe Indian from Leech Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota. He is…

Amy Irvine is a nationally-ranked competitive rock climber and for five years was the Development Director at the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. Her book, Trespass, is the story of one woman’s struggle to gain footing in inhospitable territory. A wilderness activist and apostate Mormon, Amy Irvine sought respite in the desert outback of southern Utah’s…

The Center of the American West presented Western author Tom McGuane with the prestigious 2009 Wallace Stegner Award in an engaging evening. Each year, the Center celebrates the life and achievements of an individual that has made a sustained contribution to the cultural identity of the West through literature, art, history, lore, or an understanding…

Willett Kempton is Associate Professor in the College of Marine and Earth Studies, and Director of the Center for Carbon-free Power Integration, at the University of Delaware. His training is in cognitive anthropology, electrical engineering, and computer science. He has 30 years experience with social and technical energy analysis, including energy conservation, renewable energy, and…

This evening highlighted the issues that arise when traditional and cultural land use issues come into conflict with non-religious and oftentimes profit-motivated uses of the land. The program was presented by the Natural Resources and Environmental Law Section of the Boulder County Bar Association, together with the Center of the American West, in cooperation with…

On the heels of one of the longest presidential campaigns in history, one that has turned up the heat on the topic of immigration, the Center shifted the focus back from positions to people. This special evening celebrated the literature of immigration, rather than the policies of immigration. A large crowd listened as community members,…

The Western Literature Association and the University of Colorado’s Center of the American West hosted a celebration of contemporary Western writing in conjunction with the Western Literature Association’s 43rd Annual Conference. The week-long event provided the CU-Boulder community with a rich and varied program of free public readings and presentations by prominent Western authors. Featured…

“Why I did what I did”: Sharing the American Indian Story in our National Parks The Center welcomed Superintendent Gerard Baker, the highest-ranking Native American in the National Park Service, to both the University of Colorado and to Rocky Mountain National Park. Superintendent Baker delivered a lecture as part of our Modern Indian Identity series…

Patty Limerick, Ph.D., award-winning historian and Chair of the Board at the Center of the American West, University of Colorado, interviewed J. Robert Oppenheimer as portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson, award-winning humanities scholar and author. The first atomic device was detonated more than 60 years ago, but the aftershocks can still be felt today. During…

The Center of the American West, in conjunction with the University of Colorado Law School, was proud to present one of the most influential, and interesting, Westerners of our time, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, with the 2008 Wallace Stegner Award. Justice O’Connor was the first female Supreme Court Justice and her time on the bench…

An Evening with Robert Mirabal This was a very special evening with Grammy Award-winner Robert Mirabal. As a composer, songwriter, and musician, Mirabal has won many honors, including two-time Native American Artist of the Year, three-time Songwriter of the Year, and a 2006 Grammy Award for “Sacred Ground” – Best Native American Album of the…

This film screening was followed by a panel discussion moderated by Patty Limerick. The respectful and positive exchange reflected on the current opportunities and challenges surrounding energy development in the West. Panel Participants: Joe Brown, Director and Producer Joe Brown is a librarian, activist filmmaker, and aspiring journalist. He studied Philosophy and History at CU-Boulder…

George Catlin was a self-taught artist who dedicated himself to painting Indians and their culture. Professor John Hausdoerffer discussed the impact these paintings have had on Indians and the popular conception of them. John Hausdoerffer is Director of Environmental Studies and Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies and Philosophy at Western State College in Gunnison, CO.

This year, the Center honored the tireless, and oftentimes thankless, exertions of Colorado’s public servants. With Mayor John Hickenlooper as our host, we celebrated the dedicated spirit that drew these exceptional individuals into their challenging line of work. Participants read passages from Western literature that have inspired, thrilled, educated, and enlightened them. Readers included: Senator…

My Father’s Stories: Remembering Oklahoma The Center presents Dr. Eva Marie Garroutte in this fall’s Modern Indian Identity lecture. Professor Garroutte is the author of Real Indians: Identity, Community, and the Survival of Native America. In this talk, Professor Garroutte blends her father’s stories of growing up in the Cherokee Nation of the 1930s with…

The Center was proud to present internationally-acclaimed author Ivan Doig with the 2007 Wallace Stegner Award. Mr. Doig spent the evening in conversation with Center of the American West founders Patty Limerick and Charles Wilkinson. Doig grounds his poetic prose in the landscape of the American West, mining it for universal truths in such books…

The changing patterns of land use in the American West and problems of land use planning and growth management are the subject of a talk by University of Colorado at Boulder geographer William Travis on April 26. Travis, author of the newly released New Geographies of the American West: Land Use and Changing Patterns of…

University of Michigan Professor Phil Deloria will lecture at the University of Colorado at Boulder April 16 as part of a Center of the American West series aimed at improving understanding between Indians and non-Indians. The talk, “Crossing the (Indian) Color Line: A Family Memoir,” is part of the Modern Indian Identity lecture series and…

Richard Sellars of Santa Fe, N.M., will speak on “Past Perfect? Historic Preservation in the National Park System” at 4:00 p.m. in the Wolf Law Building, room 207. The inaugural event in the Randy Jones Memorial Lecture Series is free and open to the public. The lecture is sponsored by the CU-Boulder Center of the…

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Proulx presented the Center of the American West’s Distinguished Lecture at 7:00 p.m. on Nov. 29 in the Glenn Miller Ballroom at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The event was free and open to the public. A reception and book signing followed the lecture. The CU-Boulder Center of the American…

Native American activists John Echohawk and Billy Frank, Jr., were honored by the University of Colorado at Boulder’s Center of the American West on Nov. 2 at 7:00 p.m. at the Glenn Miller Ballroom. The Center presents the Wallace Stegner Award, its highest recognition, to individuals who have made a sustained contribution to the cultural…

Former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt celebrated the centennial of the Antiquities Act – used by U.S. Presidents to declare national monuments and thereby protect millions of acres of land – in a talk at the University of Colorado at Boulder on Oct. 9. Babbitt spoke at 7:00 p.m. in the courtroom of the Wolf Law…

The CU-Boulder Center of the American West celebrated the rich literary heritage of the region Sept. 5 with its 10th annual “Words to Stir the Soul: Readings from the American West” at 7:00 p.m. in Old Main Chapel. The popular program featured about a dozen well-known community members and CU-Boulder faculty who read selections from…

Two-time Grammy and two-time Emmy nominee Bill Mooney of Boulder performed an original one-man show as famed frontier showman William F. Cody in “Tonight! Buffalo Bill!” Aug. 14 at Chautauqua Auditorium. The show was written by Mooney especially for the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado at Boulder. “Of all the…

Harry R. Lewis, a Harvard Professor and former Dean of Harvard College, offers his provocative analysis of how America’s great universities are failing students and the nation. America’s great research universities are the envy of the world – and none more so than Harvard. Never before has the competition for excellence been fiercer. But while…

The Center’s next event, part of its summer lecture series on energy, will feature Greg Franta, principal architect and team leader of the Rocky Mountain Institute/ENSAR Built Environment Team. Franta will speak on “Green Building Practices” in the Chautauqua Community House. He will present slides from around the world illustrating strategies for sustainability in site…

Peace Chiefs at Work: Stories About Remarkable American Indian Leadership in This Generation Twenty-first-century Indian people face a particular and peculiar dilemma with history and time. Novelists and filmmakers have had extraordinary success in romanticizing the Western past, and one result is this: in the minds of many non-Indians, the only “real Indians” are nineteenth-century…

Rebecca Watson, former Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management at the U.S. Department of the Interior, lectured on “Current Administration Energy Policies” at Chautauqua Park in Boulder on Monday, May 22. While at the Department of the Interior, Watson was involved in setting policy and providing oversight to the Bureau of Land Management, Minerals…

Noted energy expert Dr. Willett Kempton gave a talk on Monday, May 15, entitled “Preventing Climate Catastrophe: How Soon, How Much, and How to Cut CO2?” at the Chautauqua Community House. Dr. Kempton is Senior Policy Scientist at the University of Delaware’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy and Assistant Professor in the University’s School…

The Jubilate! Sacred Singers of Boulder performed works celebrating nature and the American West by Charles Ives, Aaron Copland, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, William Billings, Bob Nolan, William Dawson, and others at Chautauqua Auditorium. Dr. George Russell, a Boulder dermatologist, also performed poetry by Robert Frost and E. E. Cummings. “We are very pleased to…

Two prominent former Secretaries of the Interior, Stewart Udall and James Watt, will meet in a public event for the first time April 20 to discuss land management issues with University of Colorado at Boulder Professor Patricia Limerick. The public conversation will be held at 7:00 p.m. in the University Memorial Center’s Glenn Miller Ballroom…

The University of Colorado at Boulder’s Center of the American West will present a talk by author and historian David Wrobel on March 22, 2006, addressing how K-12 teachers and college professors can collaborate – and have collaborated – in the teaching of history. The talk, “Partnerships for the Future Built on the Past: How…

Elliott West, an award-winning author and Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Arkansas, gave a public talk at the University of Colorado at Boulder on February 20, 2006. West spoke about the reaction to his best-known book, The Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers and the Rush to Colorado. The 1988 book won numerous awards…

To celebrate the re-release of her landmark 1987 book, The Legacy of Conquest, University of Colorado at Boulder Professor Patricia Nelson Limerick joined with Stanford University historian Richard White in a special public conversation on Feb. 4. The two well-known and influential historians of the American West spoke in the Marriott Hotel’s Montrachet Room, 2660…

Donald Hodel, who held two cabinet posts during the Reagan administration, including Secretary of the Interior, will speak at the University of Colorado at Boulder on January 19, 2006. Hodel will speak at 6:00 p.m. in the Eaton Humanities Building, room 150, in a conversation with CU-Boulder Professor of History and Environmental Studies, Patricia Limerick,…

Personal stories and eyewitness accounts of the 1930s’ Dust Bowl disaster on the high plains were part of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Timothy Egan’s public discussion January 9, 2006, at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Egan discussed his new book, The Worst Hard Time, at 6:30 p.m. in the Old Main Chapel. The event was…

A new anthology about reintroducing wolves in Colorado and the Southwest was discussed by a panel of three writers, including Pam Houston, on Monday, Nov. 21, at a University of Colorado at Boulder event. The speakers discussed the book Comeback Wolves: Western Writers Welcome the Wolf Home at 7:00 p.m. in Old Main Chapel. A…

Author and naturalist Terry Tempest Williams will be honored by the University of Colorado at Boulder’s Center of the American West on Nov. 2 at 7:00 p.m. The Center will present Williams with its highest recognition, the Wallace Stegner Award. The free public event will be in the University Memorial Center’s Glenn Miller Ballroom. Williams…

Louis Warren explores the life of William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody, the most famous American in the world in the late nineteenth century. Along the way, we learn the sources of his legend, and how his purposeful (and fantastically popular) entangling of history and myth illuminate for us the politics and culture of the United…

The first nine years of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah was discussed with monument manager Dave Hunsaker in a public event at the University of Colorado at Boulder on Sept. 28. Hunsaker’s talk was followed by a conversation with CU-Boulder history and environmental studies Professor Patricia Nelson Limerick and Distinguished Professor Charles Wilkinson…

Former U.S. Secretary of the Interior and Arizona Governor Bruce Babbitt will visit the University of Colorado at Boulder Sept. 23 to speak about his new book, Cities in the Wilderness: A New Vision of Land Use in America. Babbitt’s appearance was sponsored by CU-Boulder’s Center of the American West, Natural Resources Law Center, and…

Susan Deans, Vice President and Editor of the Daily Camera Reading from Robert L. Perkin, The First 100 Years: An Informal History of Denver and the Rocky Mountain News (Doubleday, 1959). ASIN: B00007E6NGO Justin Dombrowski, Boulder Wildland Fire Management Coordinator Reading from Gary Snyder, “Axe Handles” from Axe Handles: Poems (Shoemaker & Hoard, 2005). ISBN:…

The program “Words to Stir the Soul” is our fall “kick-off” event, spotlighting some of the region’s best writing and providing a unique opportunity for both readers and attendees to deepen their appreciation of the region in which we live. Of all the people who feel connected to and committed to Western places, individuals who…