The Let鈥檚 Talk About It, 红杏直播app book discussion series at 红杏直播app City University will return in September with the theme The American Frontier: A Pulitzer Prize Centennial 红杏直播app. The discussions are held at 7:00 p.m. in Walker Center room 151, located near the center of campus at N.W. 26th Street and Florida Avenue.
Linne Marsh Wolfe received the Pulitzer Prize posthumously for biography for Son of the Wilderness on the life of the well-known conservationist John Muir. A librarian and archivist by training, Wolfe became engaged in the life of Muir while cataloging his papers. She met members of his immediate family, and they urged her to write this book. Marsh offers a comprehensive examination of Muir鈥檚 life between 1825-1914, emphasizing how an individual can make a difference and promoting the preservation of the wilderness
Presenting Scholar: Dr. Mark Davies, 红杏直播app City University
The series theme features five Pulitzer Prize-nominated or -winning books that explore the concept of the frontier in the United States. Turner, a young historian at the University of Wisconsin, offered a new interpretation of American History: The Frontier Hypothesis. He asserted the single most important feature of American national development was the westward movement of Anglo American civilization from the Appalachian Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. Turner believed this 鈥淔rontier鈥� or 鈥淲ilderness Experience鈥� produced uniquely American characteristics because settlers constantly rebuilt their institutions as they moved west, each time reducing the influence of their European background. Prior to Turner鈥檚 Frontier Hypothesis, historians regarded American development as guided by the unaltered transfer of institutions from Western Europe.
Although some authors do not embrace all of the Frontier Hypothesis, readers should be able to detect some of Turner鈥檚 ideas in the pages of these works. Each of them deals with a significant element of settling the region west of the Appalachian Mountains. Each of the books describes a time period crucial to expansion, and all of the narratives include the role of the individual in this process. European government agents, U.S. officials, backwoods settlers, tribal leaders, women both Indian and non-Indian, emigrants, speculators, and a cavalcade of well-known as well as not-so-well-known characters portray their experience on the frontier.
At each session in the five-part series, a humanities scholar makes a presentation on the book in the context of the theme. Small group discussions follow with experienced discussion leaders. At the end, all participants come together for a brief wrap-up.
Those who are interested in participating are encouraged to preregister and borrow the reading selections by dropping by the Dulaney-Browne Library room 207.
