Humanities

Woman's dentalia cape (Courtesy Plateau Peoples' Web Portal)

Winter 2018

Fabric of Washington

Stories, photos, paintings, and belongings like baskets and tools tell the rich history of Plateau tribes of the inland Pacific Northwest, a history now shared online.

The Plateau Peoples’ Web Portal, a gateway to those cultural materials, is maintained by Washington State University’s Center for Digital Scholarship and Curation (CDSC) in partnership with WSU’s Native American Programs.

The materials have been chosen and curated by tribal representatives from the Spokane Tribe of Indians, the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, the Coeur d’Alene Tribe of Indians, the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, the Nez Perce Tribe, and … » More …

Fall 2018

Two river poems

Washington State University landscape architecture professor and poet Jolie Kaytes reflects on the complex emotions and rational considerations about the Columbia River watershed through poems that give new ways to consider our part in the stories of the River.

Fishhook Park

A tongue stopping “f”

with a soft “ish,”

tied to a tight lipped “h”

caught on “ook.”

Hard to swallow.

Where the Palouse Band gathered,

homed their family bones

now buried by the Snake River’s

stopped up waters, slow and dumb.

» More …

Fall 2018

Influence

Abraham Lincoln, when nominated for president in 1860, apologized for his lack of formal education. No apology was necessary from the articulate orator and voracious reader whose desire to learn and improve himself continued into his adulthood. Even without school, Lincoln had teachers, people who influenced his education. He moved to New Salem, Illinois, in his early 20s and studied grammar and debate under the tutelage of his mentor, remarkably named Mentor Graham, who wrote about Lincoln: “No one ever surpassed him in rapidly, quickly and well acquiring the rudiments and rules of English grammar.”

Gladys Cooper Jennings ’48 similarly served as a mentor … » More …

Fall 2018

A river rolls on

After thousands of years of use for food, transportation, and trade, the Columbia River’s dynamics have changed, resulting in unforeseen consequences and deeply mixed emotions.

Once there were Five Sisters. Because they loved to eat salmon, the sisters kept a dam at the mouth of Big River to prevent the fish from swimming upstream. Every night they feasted on a wonderful, fat salmon. This didn’t suit Coyote, who thought that the salmon need the people and the people need the salmon. Or maybe he was jealous and wanted some of that fat salmon for himself. So Coyote tricked the sisters to get into their … » More …

Fall 2018

Briefly noted

Boulder, Colorado: A Photographic Portrait

Twin Lights: 2018

Kieffer, a 20-year resident of Colorado, captures the diverse culture and personality of the city of Boulder through his images of the city’s people, architecture, cultural events, and lovely green spaces.

Closure

Tasche Laine ’89 Comm.

Skye Blue Press: 2018

Laine’s first novel tells of childhood sweethearts Trey and Tara who fall in love through writing letters. Based on a true story, the Vancouver author’s plot follows the different paths of the young pair until they come back together after 20 years.

Fall 2018

Talkback for Fall 2018

Glass mountain

I enjoy finding and connecting bits of information discovered serendipitously that bring enlightenment just as the researchers were enlightened about Broborg glass by chance conversations and discussions. “Fires Burned, Cauldrons Bubble” [Spring 2018] reminded me of a fairy tale, “Princess on a Glass Mountain.” Knowing that fairy tales and storytelling are often embellished verbal histories based on a fact (a particular time, place, person or event), I researched it. The Norwegians, Swedes, and Poles have versions: a glass mountain, princess, and golden apples growing on top. Perhaps the Swedish Vikings carried the tale to Poland as the Swedish Vikings usually traveled … » More …

Irrigated water in the Columbia Basin. Photo Zach Mazur

Fall 2018

Three economists on the Columbia river

Retired Washington State University economist Norm Whittlesey is sitting at his kitchen table with two other retired economists, Walt Butcher and Ken Casavant. They are reminiscing about the collective 150 years they have worked on and around the Columbia River.

“We used to catch steelhead on the Snake River before the dam,” says Whittlesey. “I’ve got a picture of Walt with, what, a 25 pounder?”

Walt Butcher chuckles and says, “That fish might be up to 25 pounds by now.”

Casavant adds, “It’s been growing, even after being eaten.”

With a sweep of his hand across a map of the Columbia River watershed on the … » More …

Summer 2018

Out West

We make so many assumptions about gender expression and identity, and sexual orientation, that it’s sometimes a shock to realize that ideas about them have changed over time. Take pink and blue.

Pink is for girls, blue is for boys—except when it wasn’t. A Ladies’ Home Journal article from 1918 clearly states that “the generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.”

A decade later, Time magazine repeated the … » More …

Summer 2018

Captain Cook’s Final Voyage: The Untold Story from the Journals of James Burney and Henry Roberts

Edited by James K. Barnett

WSU Press: 2017

The British Navy was outfitting ships for war against the upstart American colonies when Captain James Cook sailed from Plymouth Harbor in July 1776 for his third and final voyage. The mariner sought the elusive Northwest Passage via the west coast of North America, but the ensuing three-and-a-half-year expedition didn’t turn out as planned.

Much has been written about Cook, particularly … » More …

Summer 2018

Protest on Trial: The Seattle 7 Conspiracy

Kit Bakke

WSU Press: 2018

It’s December 1970, and surprise witness Horace “Red” Parker is mumbling his way through his testimony. The prosecutor has to keep telling the self-made activist infiltrator to speak up. The defense attorney keeps objecting to Parker’s constant inferrals of what the defendants must have been thinking as they organized the anti-Vietnam War protest they’re on trial for. Which, as Kit Bakke points out, is ironic, because … » More …