[nativestudies-l] 11/15 lecture: KIT CARSON - NATIONAL HERO OR GENOCIDAL MANIAC?

[Alyssa Mt. Pleasant]

> *The Howard R. Lamar Center at Yale University
> Presents Author Hampton Sides
> *
> * 
> *
> *Kit Carson: National Hero.
> Genocidal Maniac. (Pick one)
> *
>  
> Date and Time: Thursday, November 15 at 5:30 pm
> Place:  101 Linsly-Chittenden Hall (61 High Street)
> Free and open to the public
>  
> Hampton Sides brings the history of the American conquest of the West 
> to life. At the center of his
> book stands the remarkable figure of Kit Carson--the legendary 
> trapper, scout, and soldier who
> embodies all the contradictions and ambiguities of the American 
> experience in the West.
> Carson?s exploits made him a household name when they were written up 
> in pulp novels known as
> blood-and-thunders"; yet Carson himself, after reading a biography 
> based on memoirs he had dictated,
> is said to have remarked that the author "had laid it on a leetle too 
> thick." As one reviewer of the book
>  has noted, "Carson was the consummate frontiersman....Illiterate but 
> fluent in five Indian languages
>  as well as Spanish, he'd had two Native American wives before 
> marrying into an old Spanish family
> from Taos. Carson, who seems often to have been at the right place at 
> the right (or wrong) time,
> had a deep understanding of the complex clash of cultures taking 
> place.... In Sides's depiction,
> Carson was a humble loner who became an unflinching killer when 
> circumstances or
> superiors demanded it."
>
> Author Hampton Sides will give a talk drawn from his national 
> bestseller,/ Blood and Thunder: An Epic
>  of the American West/ (Doubleday), now out in paperback. A native of 
> Memphis, Sides is editor-at-large
>  for/ Outside/ magazine and the author of/ Ghost Soldiers/ 
> (Doubleday), which was the basis for the
>  2005 Miramax film,/ The Great Raid/./ Ghost Soldiers/ won the 2002 
> PEN USA award for non-fiction and
> the 2002 Discover Award from Barnes & Noble, and his magazine work has 
> been twice nominated for
>  National Magazine Awards for feature writing. Sides is also the 
> author of/ Americana/ (Anchor) and
> / Stomping Grounds/ (William Morrow). He graduated from Yale in 1984, 
> where he studied narrative
> non-fiction under John Hersey and earned a B.A. in American history. 
> He lives in New Mexico with
>  his wife, Anne, and their three sons.
>
> For more information, please call 203-432-2328 or email 
> lamar.center at yale.edu.
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/nativestudies-l/attachments/20071101/0893794b/attachment.htm