faculty
Eric Sandeen | Director John Dorst | Professor Frieda Knobloch | Professor
Frederick Chapman | research fellow Mary M. Humstone | research fellow
Programs represent anomalies within department and college structures. Given the unique position of American Studies at Wyoming, this statement is doubly true. Like most programs, we have an adjunct faculty consisting of participating disciplinary colleagues. For American Studies, the primary task of this faculty is to interact with students at the graduate level -- sometimes overseeing research or public programs, more often serving on thesis committees. This form of faculty recruitment is typical of most interdisciplinary programs and is certainly practiced at Wyoming.
Eric J. Sandeen
email
Program Director
Professor of American Studies
B.A., 1970, University of Notre Dame
M.A., 1976, University of Iowa
Ph.D., 1977, University of Iowa
Eric became director of the American Studies Program in 1982. In the Spring semester of 1994 he worked in Washington D.C. as the Scholar-in-Residence for the United States Information Agency, Division for the Study of the United States. Just a few years ago he was a Senior Fulbright Lecturer in Copenhagen, Denmark. Eric is usually working on various research projects. One of these projects resulted in Picturing an Exhibition: The Family of Man and 1950s America, published in the Fall of 1995 by the University of New Mexico Press.
As a Notre Dame graduate, Eric is an avid fan of Fighting Irish football.
In his spare time he enjoys cross-country skiing,
relaxing at his cabin in the Snowy Range, and playing in the summer softball
leagues. He is currently working on a scale model of the 1893 Chicago
Columbian Exposition, constructed entirely from shredded transcripts of ASA
Presidents' speeches.
John D. Dorst email
Professor of American Studies
B.A., 1974, Oberlin College
M.A., 1977 University of California-Berkeley
Ph.D. 1983 University of Pennsylvania
After growing up in semi-rural/early suburban Wisconsin, I stayed in the
Midwest to get a B.A. in English at Oberlin College. While there I took a
great class in folklore studies, and that planted the seed for what
eventually became my academic career.
My graduate degrees are in folklore/folklife from U.C. Berkeley (M.A.) and the University of Pennsylvania (Ph.D.). After an early infatuation with medieval literature and archaic languages, I ended up specializing in the ethnographic study of advanced consumer culture.
I
have published two books:
The Written Suburb (1989) is a “postmodern”
ethnography that is my revenge on a suburban childhood.
Looking West (1999)
combines ethnographic and literary approaches in an attempt to understand
visual discourses in the American West. As a new research project I am
beginning to investigate the significance of animal trophies as display
items in homes, commercial establishments, and museums.
Frieda Knobloch email
Professor of American Studies
B.A., 1985, Cornell University
Ph.D., 1994, University of Minnesota
Frieda teaches cultural and intellectual history, with particular emphasis
on American identities and environments. Her current research places people,
artifacts and landscapes of Wyoming within a larger context of national and
international developments, not from a "backwater," but as agents of
historical change.
Dr. Knobloch is the author of The Culture of Wilderness: Agriculture as Colonization in the American West, University of North Carolina Press, 1996.
read all about Dr. Knobloch's research
interests and writings...
Frederick Chapman
Research Fellow
B.A., Anthropology, Wright State University
M.A., American Studies, University of Wyoming
An archeologist by training, Mr. Chapman has worked in the field of public archeology throughout the United States for over 30 years. He was previously the senior archeologist and Native American liaison at the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office, where he was personally involved in many of the region’s most contentious cultural resource management issues. He has authored articles on cultural resource management and Native American heritage preservation issues, several hundred technical archeology reports, and over a dozen National Register of Historic Places nominations. Most recently, Mr. Chapman was a contributing author to Preserving Western History, the first book devoted to heritage resource management issues in the western United States. He helped develop the historic preservation and public sector curriculum currently featured by the University of Wyoming American Studies Program. He teaches classes in American Studies, Environment and Natural Resources, Geography, and American Indian Studies. His research interests include cultural landscape management, prehistoric rock art, and the comparative practice of cultural resource management. He remains active in Native American consultation and frequently provides expert assistance to tribal authorities regarding cultural resource laws and regulations, documentation and protection of traditional use areas, ethnohistory educational initiatives, and language retention programming.
Mary M. Humstone
Research Fellow
B.G.S., 1973, University of Michigan
M.S., 1984, University of Vermont
Mary teaches about the American built environment, cultural landscapes and
historic preservation and coordinates outreach activities including
internships, field classes and independent studies in the American Studies
Program. She started her professional career in historic preservation as
executive director of the Our Town – Downtown Revitalization Project in
Laramie in 1984. From there she joined the Mountains/Plains Office of the
National Trust for Historic Preservation in Denver, where she was the
assistant director and co-founded BARN AGAIN!, a national program to
preserve historic farm buildings. She helped to found the Tracks Across
Wyoming heritage corridor, and has been involved with numerous preservation
projects in Wyoming and the West.
Mary’s specialty is studying, interpreting and writing about American
landscapes, and developing strategies to help preserve them. In 2001-02 she
received a Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship to study preservation of
rural buildings and landscapes in Japan, and she returns to Japan regularly
to practice Japanese as well as keep up on current research. She engages her
students in a variety of projects throughout Wyoming. Recent examples
include analyzing state policies on school construction, documenting and
interpreting mining and ranching landscapes, developing a preservation plan
for a military camp and working with individual communities to identify and
celebrate important community places.
UW links to some projects:
King Ranch Field Class
http://www.uwyo.edu/news/showrelease.asp?id=7344
Sunrise Mine
http://www.uwyo.edu/news/showrelease.asp?id=5863
Wyoming Schools Project
http://uwadmnweb.uwyo.edu/newsletter/2006/august/schools.htm
Adjunct Faculty
A sampling of past and present adjunct faculty
R. McGreggor Cawley
Associate Professor, Political Science
B.A., 1971, Kearney State College
M.A., 1974, Colorado State University
Ph.D. 1981, Colorado State University
Dr. Cawley grew up in the Denver area and, other than a short stint in the
Midwest, has been a Westerner all his life. He received his M.A. from
Colorado State University, working for two years as a janitor, before
returning to CSU for a Ph.D. in Political Science. Dr. Cawley has been
teaching at the University of Wyoming since 1986.
Although Dr. Cawley is often labeled a liberal environmentalist, he realizes
the complex cultural, political, and philosophic entanglements involved in
environmental policies. Dr. Cawley's new book, Federal Land, Western Anger:
The Sagebrush Rebellion and Environmental Politics, traces the webs of
meaning and conflict in the public lands debate.
The particular way in which Dr. Cawley observes fundamental connections and
the interplay of cultural forms, as well as his approach to teaching, places
him comfortably within the American Studies field--a field he greatly
admires. Dr. Cawley views American Studies as "an attitude, a way of
seeing."
Barbara Chatton
Professor, Leadership & Human Development
B.A., 1970, University of California-Santa Cruz
M.L.S., 1971, University of California-Los Angeles
Ph.D. 1982, Ohio State University
I was born, raised, and went to school in California (a bachelor's degree in
American history from the University of California at Santa Cruz and a
master's degree in Library Science from UCLA) and spent most of my life
believing that I lived in "The West." After working as a public librarian in
Salinas, California for a number of years and pursuing children's literature
as a hobby, I went to graduate school at Ohio State to study in depth. At
Ohio State I focused on children's and young adult literature through the
College of Education and on folklore in the English department.
My dissertation concerned American themes in prize-winning children's books:
What messages do we give our children about what it means to be an
American?
When I came to Wyoming in 1982 I discovered I hadn't been born and raised in
"The West" but rather on "The Coast" so I have plunged myself into study of
this region, focusing on literature by and about western women and
literature for children about the west. I also write a column on integrating
literature into history units for a magazine for librarians and teachers.
I have published a book on children's poetry, another of my great loves.
My husband, who is from the South, and I both love the natural beauty of
Wyoming. He likes to ski, climb and otherwise interact with it. I like to
gaze, picnic, and read about it. We now think of Wyoming, "the real West,"
as home.
Lewis M. Dabney
Professor, English
B.A., 1953, Swarthmore College
M.A. 1956, Columbia University
Ph.D. 1965, Columbia University
Though Wyoming is far, in more than one sense, from Siberia, I am generally
viewed as a member of the Eastern Establishment in exile. Educated at
Swarthmore and Columbia, I began teaching at Smith and Vassar Colleges and
moved to Laramie in 1972, which I have never regretted.
I teach American lit--Huck Finn, Moby Dick, The Sound and the Fury, and lots
of poetry--as a way of understanding the possibilities of life in this
country, and in tribute to what we've accomplished that is likely to last.
After an early book on Faulkner, I have focused on Edmund Wilson's work from
the Viking Portable Edmund Wilson (1983) to my edition of Wilson's last
journal, The Sixties (1993), with a number of reviews and essays between;
I'm now writing Wilson's biography, for his publishers, Farrar, Straus, &
Giroux.
My wife, two grown children in New York City, and I are all fans of Joe
Montana, not on account of his name.
Colleen Denny
Assistant Professor, Art & Women's Studies
B.A., 1981, Louisiana State University
M.A., 1983, Louisiana State University
Ph.D., 1990, University of Minnesota
I spent my growing up years moving from continent to continent. Not only was
I lucky to have this exposure to the world at such a young age, but of
course it has seriously and indelibly colored the person I am now! Because
of the many years I spent living in London, England, for example, my main
area of concentration has become Victorian England and provides a perfect
excuse to go back to England to do research.
So how am I connected to American Studies? My educational background is
strongly interdisciplinary. I did a B.A. at Louisiana State University in
Baton Rouge in English, where I developed a passion for the early
20th-century American novel and the expatriates. I went on to do graduate
work in Art History at L.S.U. (M.A.), the University of Iowa, and finished
with a Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota, focusing on modernism and
contemporary art, and doing related interdisciplinary work in Victorian
literature and history, the history of photography, and (gasp) African Art.
I have been teaching a contemporary art survey course here at UW which
always has room for American Studies students and I have in the past taught
a very fun seminar on exhibition systems, my true love and the topic of a
traveling exhibition that I am currently guest curating with the Yale Center
for British Art.
Despite all of my travels, I have never lived this far West in the United
States. It's rather a daunting experience. But, along with my husband, Don
Turner (an artist) and my two-year old daughter, Caitlin, I have begun to
explore this wonderful landscape on hiking and biking expeditions.
William J. Gribb
Assistant Professor, Geography & Recreation
B.S., 1973, Wayne State University
M.A., 1975, University of Colorado-Boulder
Ph.D., 1982, Michigan State University
Born in inner-city Detroit, Michigan, I grew up in a very ethnically diverse
neighborhood. After a short period in college, several years in factories,
and a tour of duty in the military I realized the importance of an education
and received my Bachelor of Science degree from Wayne State University in
Secondary Social Science Education with a major in Geography. Graduate
school in Geography was completed at the University of Colorado-Boulder (MA)
and Michigan State University (Ph.D.).
Most of my research has focused on three topics; American Indian land
claims, small towns, and rural areas. To analyze the data relating to these
topics, I incorporate computer mapping, statistics, and remote sensing.
However, the research has always taken an applied approach. Most of my work
has been to assist in the planning, management, or legal aspects that will
further the enrichment or cohesiveness of the group/community.
To give my life perspective, my wife and three boys provide a reality that
keeps me rejuvenated and energized. Living in the west for the past 20 years
has provided a great opportunity to explore, camp and enjoy many great
places for their physical beauty, cultural diversity, and friendliness.
Philip Roberts
Associate Professor, History
B.A., 1973, University of Wyoming
J.D., 1977, University of Wyoming
Ph.D., 1990, University of Washington
Phil Roberts is one of those curiosities: a native of Wyoming who came back
to teach at the University. After stints as a public historian, practicing
attorney, wire service reporter, newspaper editor and book publisher, Phil
returned to graduate school and took his Ph.D. at the University of
Washington, Seattle, in history.
His interests are wide-ranging and include the history of the American West,
its people and cultures, Wyoming history, American legal history and
American environmental history (with particular emphasis on the environment
of the American West).
He is developing courses in Canadian history.
Robert Torry
Associate Professor, English
B.A., 1972, Hiram College
Ph.D., 1988, State University of New York - Buffalo
Bob's expertise in film and literature brings an added dimension to the
American Studies program. He has been recognized for the Extraordinary Merit
in Teaching Award, University of Wyoming, in 1991 and 1993. His publications
include: Watch and Wake: Parousia and the Imaginary in Poe's 'The Tell-Tale
Heart' and Therapeutic Narrative: The Wild Bunch, Jaws, and Vietnam.
An avid cliff diver and beat poet, Bob also enjoys line dancing and playing
hot jazz on his Penfield Mood Organ. Most summers Bob retreats to a cabin in
the Maine woods, where he spends his time painting-by-numbers.
Bob's favorite film is Britney Spears' Crossroads - The Director's Cut. He is a Sagittarius,
likes Peņa Colada and getting caught in the rain, and his favorite marine mollusk is the hermit squid.
