Summer 2003
Humanities
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 …
Fall 2004
Imagine: Class combines word and image to understand William and Blake
The students in this class not only study Blake as both poet and visual artist--they also make images as he made them. » 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 …
Winter 2005
Being Sacagawea
For the past two years historian Jeanne Eder has been traveling in Sacagawea’s footsteps. Donning a traditional dress as well as another woman’s persona, Eder has toured the West performing her interpretation of an older and wiser Sacagawea who, years after the Journey of Discovery expedition, has time to reflect.
Eder (’00 Ph.D. Hist.) teaches at the University of Alaska, Anchorage. A Dakota Sioux who grew up on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in northeast Montana, she researches the lives of historic Native American women and portrays them in Chautauqua-style performances.
Playing the most famous woman of the 1800s has its challenges, says Eder. “People … » More …
Winter 2005
Medieval Missive: An ancient document rediscovered
A sacred and significant artifact of European history-a genuine papal bull from the Middle Ages-was recently found tucked among the books and papers of Washington State University’s Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections.
The bull, or bulla, named for its original form as a bubble-shaped metal plate, and later for the lead seal affixed to an official document, was most often a legal missive from the pope. Papal bulls did everything from advocate for an individual’s safe travel to advise the citizens of a country to follow their king.
The written communication from the pope now at WSU once protected a house for lepers in the … » More …
Fall 2005
Noam Chomsky
The surprising thing about Noam Chomsky in person was what he was not. Even though I was not intimately familiar with either his linguistics or his political writing, I had imagined him as stern and austere, too absorbed in thought to bother with either social grace or chitchat.
Rather, he’s like your favorite uncle-albeit the one who has perfect recall and is amazingly smart and has the ability to explain big ideas in everyday language. No jargon. No evasiveness.
A professor in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Chomsky is the most influential and best-known American linguist. Even more familiar … » More …