71st Annual Spring Conference Schedule
Thursday, June 4
1:00 PM: Welcome and Opening Plenary: "Cancer and Caregiving: Willa Cather's My Mortal Enemy"
with Heather Althoff - RCOH Auditorium*
2:15 PM: Session 1
Panel A: Memory, Myth, and Meaning in My Mortal Enemy - RCOH Auditorium
Stories that Travel: Memory, Myth, and the Landscapes of Identity in Willa Cather's My Mortal Enemy
Heather Gill, Independent Scholar
Challenging Claims that "Only the stupid and phlegmatic should teach" in Cather's My Mortal Enemy
LaVona Reeves, Eastern Washington University
My Mortal Enemy: Advertising and Critical Reception
Laurie Weber, Independent Scholar
Panel B: Tactile, Visual, and Virtual Cather - Hotel Garber Conference Room
Journey to Webster County: An Interactive Education Activity
Nick Powers, University of Nebraska at Kearney
Cather Behind the Glass: Willa Cather's Public Histories
Nathan Tye, University of Nebraska at Kearney
Artificial Intelligence Meets Willa Cather: Mythstakes Propagate!
Scott Reynolds, Independent Scholar
3:45 PM: Plenary 2: “From Typescripts, to Magazine Novelette, to Book: The Writing and Publication of My Mortal Enemy” with Melissa Homestead - RCOH Auditorium*
6:30 PM: All Aboard: West-Bound Trains and American Culture Opening Celebration - Burlington Depot
Friday, June 5
9:00 AM: Scholarship Announcements and Reading of Award Winning Essays - RCOH Auditorium
10:30 AM: "To Think of All that Was Remembered and Retold": Educators in Cather's Red Cloud with Marcy Mahoney, Melissa Schuster, and Marisa Zornes - RCOH Auditorium*
11:30 AM: Lunch on your own
1:00 PM: Archive Research by pre-arranged appointment
1:00 PM: Session 2
Panel A: Philosophy and Religion in Cather’s Work - RCOH Auditorium
Sacred Blood on the Floor of of the World in Death Comes for the Archbishop
Sarah Junek, University of St. Thomas-Houston
"A Subconscious Existence": Sublime-Sentimental Aesthetics and Character Psychology in Willa Cather's O Pioneers! and One of Ours
Caroline Loop, Texas A&M University
"Smoking censers and candles and stars": Catholic Sacramentals in My Mortal Enemy
Amy Oatis, University of the Ozarks
Panel B: Cather Herself - Hotel Garber Conference Room
Every Stroke Has a Story: Seeing Willa Cather Through Her Handwriting
Rolando P. Garcia, Independent Scholar
Snob Appeal: Why Willa Cather, Like Myra Henshawe, Could Be Hard to take
Robert Miller, Professor Emeritus, University of St. Thomas
Out of Virginia
Patti Burris, Northeast Community College
3:00 PM: Session 3
Panel A: Travel in Print and Practice - RCOH Auditorium
"The Night Express," Red Cloud, and Syndication
James Jaap, Penn State University
Wish You Were Here: Willa Cather's Picture Postcards
Katherine Hamilton-Smith, Newberry Library
Go West, Young Man! Cather and Western Mythology
Garrett Peck, Independent Scholar
Panel B: Literary Motifs - Hotel Garber Conference Room
"snow was general all over": Western Snows and Repressed Loves in Cather and Joyce
Matt Low, Brownell Talbot School
Willa Cather, Fairy Teller: "And now, an Amethyst remembrance is all I own"
Sally Ketcham, Independent Scholar
Death by Drowning in Willa Cather: Confronting America at 150
Susan Wood, Midland University
5:00 PM: Gallery Artist Talk with Susan Hart - Red Cloud Opera House Art Gallery
7:00 PM: Invited Speaker Rebecca Romney - RCOH Auditorium
“Willa Cather, the Archival Chain, and the Making of a Literary Legacy”*
Romney’s lecture considers the effects of archival collections on the writing of literary history, with special emphasis on Cather’s posthumous legacy. Such collections are not formed accidentally. They exist through the efforts of individual people, archival agents who save material, become its long-term caretakers, and make it accessible for study. The decisions of archival agents, big and small, can cause ripple effects across the stories we tell. With Cather as our primary case study, we will consider some of the most impactful, unexpected, and exciting of these ripple effects.
Book signing to follow
Saturday, June 6
8:00 AM: Coffee and Kolache - Red Cloud Opera House Art Gallery
8:45 AM: Service at Grace Episcopal Church
9:45 AM: Concurrent Activities
Prairie Foraging with Adam Hintz
Micro-Readers Theater: My Mortal Enemy - RCOH Auditorium
10:45 AM: Creative Panel: "From Page to Stage: Adapting Cather, " with Brenda Withers and Jonathan Fielding of the Harbor Stage Company - RCOH Auditorium*
11:45 AM: Lunch on your own
1:30 PM: The Passing Show with Bridget Barry, Brad Bigelow, Will Fellows, and Garrett Peck - RCOH Auditorium*
3:00 PM: Book Signing with Brad Bigelow, Melissa Homestead, and Garrett Peck
3:30 PM: Concurrent Workshops
Writing Workshop with Ana McCracken - Burlington Depot
Collage Workshop with Susan Hart - Hotel Garber Creative Hub
Workshop sign-up form can be found on our webpage: www.willacather.org/events/spring-conference
6:00 PM: Spring Conference Banquet
8:00 PM: The Harbor Stage Company presents The Bohemian
*These events are open to the public thanks to support from Humanities Nebraska and the Nebraska Cultural Endowment.