[nativestudies-l] TODAY: Symposium on Frontier violence

[alyssa.mt.pleasant at yale.edu]

Got Yourself a Gun: Frontier Violence in American History and Culture.

 Lamar Center Symposium, 29-30 September 2006

 Friday , Sept. 29 Keynote, Linsly Chittenden Hall, Room 102, 5PM
 Saturday, Sept. 30 Panel Discussion, Linsly Chittenden Hall, Room 101, 10 AM
 
 
 This year's Lamar Center Symposium engages the topic of violence and justice in the American West and its depiction in American popular culture. Since the late nineteenth century, some critics have argued that the frontier was never so violent as it was represented, while others have emphasized the relationship between the depiction of violence and the implicit violence of colonization. Frontier violence and its representations have always been discursively linked. 
 The symposium begins Friday afternoon with a keynote address by David Milch, creator, producer, and head writer of the controversial HBO series "Deadwood." The problem of violence has been a preoccupation of the best movie westerns from "The Virginian" to "Unforgiven," and "Deadwood" continues in that tradition. Milch will discuss his choices in the portrayal of violence, as well as his more general thoughts on violent performances in popular culture. On Saturday morning four distinguished historians will respond.
  Participants: 
 David Milch, Red Board Productions, Santa Monica, California
 William Carrigan, Rowan University, Glassboro, New Jersey
 Robert Dykstra, State University of New York at Albany
 Elliott Gorn, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island
 Melody Graulich, Utah State University, Logan, Utah

 
 
 The symposium is jointly sponsored by the Lamar Center for the Study of Frontiers and Borders at Yale University and the Autry National Center in Los Angeles, and is part of a broader Lamar-Autry initiative, "Violence and Justice in the American West." Additional funding has been provided by the John and LaRee Caughey Foundation which supports civil rights and the study of the American West and Yale University Department of History.
 Events free and open to the public. Registration is not required.
 For further information, call 203-432-2328 or by email at lamar.center at yale.edu