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Fall 2024

Humanities

Spring 2007

Just like it was yesterday

“We were living a good life,” said Albert Redstarr Andrews in a meditation concluding the second Plateau Conference, “and we were disturbed.” What might be taken as gracious understatement also resonated with profound loss.

In spite of a generally liberal sensibility and Native great-grandmother, I confess there have been times upon hearing Native Americans speak of the injustices of manifest destiny and conquest, I’ve wondered when they will finally accept, no matter the past injustice, that this is simply the way things are. Having attended the conference in October, however, I find I am still capable of learning.

The focus of this year’s conference was … » More …

Spring 2003

Letters from Vladivostok

“This is the best research project I’ve ever had. It’s invaded my life in a very good way.” So says Birgitta Ingemanson, associate professor of Russian at Washington State University, about her current project transcribing and editing more than 2,100 letters written by an American woman, Eleanor Pray, in Vladivostok between 1894 and 1930.

The collection consists primarily of letters written by Pray and her sister-in-law, but also includes hundreds of photos taken by Pray of Vladivostok before the Russian Revolution and World War I. The array of letters and photographs provides glimpses of the city’s culture, politics, and merchant life from an American woman’s … » More …

Summer 2004

Stories about growing up

Pamela Smith Hill isn’t one to forget her roots.

Born and raised in Missouri, Smith Hill set one of her novels, A Voice from the Border, in the Show-Me state, and another, Ghost Horses, in South Dakota, where she lived and worked for nearly a decade.

And her early training as a newspaper reporter-long ago in Springfield, Missouri-is part of the reason for her success today as a writer of award-winning books and short stories for young women and girls, she says. “As a reporter, I had the chance to listen to people, to the way they talk, and to observe details of their own … » More …

Summer 2004

All that Remains

Nearly two-thirds of the Lewis and Clark Trail is under man-made reservoirs. Another one-quarter is buried under subdivisions, streets, parks, banks, and other modern amenities. Almost none of the original landscape is intact. No one appreciates this contrast like author and historian Martin Plamondon II, who has reconciled the explorers' maps with the modern landscape.

» More ...
Spring 2004

Late history professor, chairman was popular with students, faculty peers

Raymond Muse became a teacher at the urging of his father, a farmer in the Ozarks, who didn’t want to see his son spend the rest of his life “looking at the hind end of a team of mules.”

During more than three decades at Washington State University, the history professor earned “favorite teacher” status from thousands of students. Faculty peers praised his leadership. His tenure as chairman was the longest in the department (1956-79).

Muse died October 28, 2003 in San Diego after a long illness. He was 88.

His teaching career began at age 18 in a rural one-room school, not far from … » More …

Spring 2004

Author Sherman Alexie receives Regents’ Distinguished Alumnus Award

Sherman Alexie likes to remind people that attending Washington State University presented him with a real challenge. As a Spokane Indian, a liberal, and a writer, he did not fit the prevalent mold of students attending WSU in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Regardless, on October 10, 2003, WSU president V. Lane Rawlins presented Alexie with the University’s highest alumni honor, the Regents’ Distinguished Alumnus Award.

Since leaving WSU in 1994 with a bachelor’s degree in American studies, Alexie has published nine books of fiction and poetry and has written and directed two award-winning movies. Widely popular, his short stories appear in the nation’s … » More …