Who Owns the American West? A Reading and Conversation with William Kittredge

Sunday, 08 Feb 2009 at 7:00 pm – Sun Room/South Ballroom, Memorial Union

Author William Kittredge has for years been a prominent voice in the literature of the American West, with writings that explore the theme of sustainability and its relationship to culture, history, and human nature. His many books include a memoir, Hole in the Sky; two collections of essays, Owning It All and Who Owns the West as well as a collection of short stories and the novel The Willow Field. He was coproducer of the movie A River Runs Through It with Annick Smith. They also coedited The Last Best Place: A Montana Anthology. Kittredge taught at the University of Montana for twenty-nine years, retiring as Regents Professor of English and Creative Writing in 1997. The conversation will be moderated by Benjamin Percy. Part of the Symposium on Wildness, Wilderness, and the Creative Imagination.

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William Kittredge’s relationship to the spare, often unforgiving western landscape of his childhood is fraught with contradictions. Having grown up on a cattle ranch in Oregon, he has an intimate connection to the vast landscape that was once vital to his family’s trade. He has also witnessed, over many decades, the depletion of the West’s natural resources due to overuse. A University of Montana Emeritus Regents Professor of English, William Kittredge is the author of numerous books, including Hole in the Sky: A Memoir; Owning it All: Essays; The Next Rodeo: New & Selected Essays, The Nature of Generosity, and Who Owns the West? Kittredge is also the author of short story collections including We Are Not in the Together, and a novel, The Willow Field.

Kittredge received the Montana Governor’s Award for the Arts, was co-winner of the Montana Governor’s Award for Humanities and co-winner of the National Endowment for the Humanities’ Charles Frankel Award for service to the humanities, awarded by President Clinton. In 2006 he was given the Chiles Award for Service to the Great Basin, and in 2007 the Robert Kirsch Lifetime Achievement Award from the Los Angeles Times. In 2008 he will receive a Lifetime Achievement award from the Western Literature Association.

More information and a complete schedule of events for the Fifth Annual Symposium on Wildness, Wilderness, and the Creative Imagination

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This lecture was made possible in part by the generosity of F. Wendell Miller, who left his entire estate jointly to Iowa State University and the University of Iowa. Mr. Miller, who died in 1995 at age 97, was born in Altoona, Illinois, grew up in Rockwell City, graduated from Grinnell College and Harvard Law School and practiced law in Des Moines and Chicago before returning to Rockwell City to manage his family's farm holdings and to practice law. His will helped to establish the F. Wendell Miller Trust, the annual earnings on which, in part, helped to support this activity.

Cosponsored By:

• Bioethics Program
• Center for Excellence in the Arts & Humanities
• College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
• Creative Writers' Milieu
• Creative Writing Program
• Ecology, Evolution & Organismal Biology
• English
• Environmental Studies
• Geological & Atmospheric Sciences
• Henry A. Wallace Endowed Chair for Sustainable Ag
• LAS Miller Lecture Fund
• Committee on Lectures (funded by Student Government)