Dr. Brian Dillon: If Memory Serves: Writers Who Challenge How We Think About World War One
Sept. 23 - LIB 148 - 6:30 pm
Program Description: This talk will focus on prose literature—fiction and memoirs—by authors from Germany, France, the U. S., and especially England. Some challenge the master-narrative that the war was futile, a pointless waste of civilians’ and soldiers’ lives. But even those writers whose literary works fit the master-narrative express that sense of futility in a wide variety of engaging ways. Includes Opening Reception.
Speaker Biography: Brian Dillon has taught in the English Dept. at MSUB for over 24 years. His recent publications focus on World War One literature, twentieth-century Irish literature, and Young Adult fiction. His course on the Literature of World War One will be offered again in Spring ’15.
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Dr. Tom Rust: WWI from the Bottom Up
Sept. 30 - LIB 148 - 6:30 pm
Program Description: Dr. Rust will present a lecture focusing on the lives and motivations of rank-and-file soldiers. Using the recently digitized ”Trench Magazines” written by and for soldiers in the trenches, he will examine the experience of the common soldier and examine the communities that they developed on the front lines of the "War to End All Wars." Includes Reception.
Speaker Biography: Dr. Tom Rust is an Associate Professor of History and a native Montanan who started his undergraduate career at MSUB's satellite campus in Bozeman but transferred to the University of Minnesota, graduating with a BA in history in 1992. He received his MA in History from the University in Denver in 1995 where his work in American military history, more specifically the 19th century west, has been published in the journal “Military History of West.” Sensing that one master's degree wasn't enough, he went on to receive a M.Ed. from MSUB in 1999 before completing his Ph.D. at the University of Leicester in 2006. He has conducted and published both historical and archaeological research in a variety of areas from ancient Rome to the American West. Dr. Rust has taught at MSUB since 1999.
Dr Keith Edgerton: Free Speech, Sedition & Montana in WWI
Oct. 7 - LIB 148 - 6:30 pm
Program Description: Montana experienced a wave of intense and almost unprecedented anti-German sentiment during World War I that included burning German-language textbooks, daily harassment of German-speaking immigrants, and the passage of a sweeping “anti-sedition” law in 1917, the framework upon which the US Congress later fashioned national legislation. This program explores Montana’s complex history during World War I and the anti-German hysteria that griped many communities, including Billings, during the time.
Speaker Biography: Dr. Keith Edgerton currently teaches American history, environmental history, and Montana history, at Montana State University-Billings where he is a professor of history and chair of the history department. He holds a B.A. and M.A. in history from the University of Montana and a Ph.D. in American Studies from Washington State University. He grew up in eastern Kansas in the heart of the region that was known during the Civil War era as “Bleeding Kansas” where the memories of those events are currently still very much alive and kicking. He is currently teaching a history course on the Civil War era here at MSU-Billings.
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Dr. Jen Lynn: Visualizing Conflict: Memory and the Great War
Oct. 14 - LIB 148 - 6:30 pm
Program Description: Dr. Lynn’s presentation explores how multiple memories and meanings of war were fashioned in the aftermath of World War I. She analyzes a variety of photographs, paintings, memorials and films in order to examine the contested representations of national identity, violence, anti-war sentiment and trauma in European culture. Dr. Lynn argues that the memory of the war (and images of the war and military culture) became especially important within German society and politics within the context of forming of the Weimar Republic and the political battles of the late 1920s and early 1930s. Images helped produce and shape memories and meanings of the war on an individual, local and national level.
Speaker Biography: Jen Lynn received her PhD in history from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill in 2012. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at MSUB and teaches courses on European history, European Women’s History, War and Film and the History of Monsters in European History. Her interest in photography and media closely informs her teaching and research related to Modern Germany, Women’s and Gender History and Visual/Cultural History. Her current project, “Contested Femininities: Gendered Representations of Modern Women in the German Illustrated Press, 1920 – 1960” explores how the ability to manipulate, modify, adopt the image of the Modern Woman to differing political and social goals is of central importance in understanding how different groups imagined, constructed and disseminated their ideal forms of “femininity” and “modernity” to a mass audience. Jen Lynn is an alumni of Montana State University Billings where she completed her BA in history in 2005.
Dr. Matthew Redinger: The World’s Greatest Adventure in Advertising: Propaganda and World War I
Oct. 21 - LIB 148 - 6:30 pm
Program Description: This presentation, titled “The World’s Greatest Adventure in Advertising: Propaganda and World War I” will look at the goals of propaganda and molding of public opinion during The Great War. Key elements to the wartime propaganda campaign were the manipulation of popular perspectives on femininity, masculinity, and shared responsibility through images, text, and music. The presentation will also explore the ways wartime propaganda transcended battle lines and national identity.
Speaker Biography: Dr Matt Redinger received his bachelors and masters degrees in History from the University of Montana, and earned his PhD from the University of Washington in 1993. He has been a faculty member in the Department of History at MSU Billings since 1996. His areas of specialization include twentieth century United States, US foreign relations, and Modern Latin America. Dr Redinger has worked as Vice Provost for Academic Affairs since 2013.
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Dr. Mark Fenderson, John Roberts & Douglas Nagel: The Music of WWI
Oct. 28 - Cisel 135 - 6:30 pm
Program Description: This lecture-recital, presented by MSUB Department of music faculty Mark Fenderson, John Roberts, Doug Nagel and Gary Behm will examine what was happening in the wonderful world of music at the very time the world was experiencing one of its darkest hours. The contrast of the joys of music and the horrors of war is a very stark but interesting one indeed! In addition, a look at the way music played a direct role in the war effort, in a way never seen before, will also be examined.
Speaker Biography: Mark Fenderson is the Assistant Professor of High Brass at Montana State University Billings. He is also the conductor of the Symphonic Band, and the Pep Band. He earned his BA from the University of Southern Maine, his MM from the University of South Florida and his DMA in trumpet performance from the University of North Texas. He is the principal trumpet of the Billings Symphony and the Rimrock Opera Orchestra and is a member of the Yellowstone Chamber Players and the Billings Brass. A native of Maine, he was a member of the Portland, Maine Symphony Orchestra before moving to Florida where he taught at the University of Tampa and was a staff musician at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay. Includes Closing Reception.
Speaker Biography: John Roberts, currently a professor at MSU Billings, spent the past 16 years working out of Los Angeles as a touring and recording musician. John is a Montana native, graduating from MSU Billings and California Institute of the Arts. He is currently working on his children's book series as well as forming his own performance ensembles in the world music vein.
Speaker Biography: Billings native Douglas Nagel, baritone and Assistant Professor at MSU Billings, has sung over 300 opera roles in the US and internationally. As Artistic Director of Rimrock Opera in Billings, Mr. Nagel produced over 20 operatic productions, 10 statewide school tours, and countless outreach programs into the community. At MSUB, Mr. Nagel teaches Vocal Pedagogy, Choral Conducting, Applied Voice, Italian, German, French and English Diction, and conducts University Chorus and Chamber Singers.
Dr. Paul Milan Foster, Jr.: Into the Bloody Fray: Montanans' Return to the Home Front in WWI
Feb. 10 - LIB 148 - 6:30 pm
Program Description: Beginning in 1917, many Montanans were mobilized into the US Armed Forces for military action in Western Europe in WWI; however, already in 1914, another group of Montanans used alternative channels to join the armed forces of allied nations. The focus of this presentation is Montanans from the Balkans (Albanians, Bosnians, Greeks, Croats, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Serbs, Slovenes) who emigrated to the US and Montana in the early part of the twentieth century from their homelands, which were incorporated into two empires destined to demise after WWI – the Ottoman and the Austro-Hungarian Empires. The participation of these individuals in WWI draws attention to the multiethnic nature of Montana at this time, as well as the formation and reformation of national and regional identity – Montanan, American, and as it pertains to the emerging nations of South Eastern Europe.
Speaker Biography: Dr. Foster is a Billings native, and has studied and worked extensively abroad in higher education and is fluent in 3 languages with working knowledge in at least 6 more (that he can tell us about - the others are top secret!). Most recently, he worked as Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at South East European University in Tetovo, Macedonia. He has a PhD in Slavic cultures from Columbia. He has worked as Director of MSUB International Studies & Outreach since 2013.
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Reno Charette & Dr. Jeff Sanders: American Indian Involvement in WWI
Feb. 17 - LIB 148 - 6:30 pm
Program Description: This presentation will discuss how American Indians enlisted in unprecedented numbers in WWI and it was no surprise – and returning victory ceremonies helped continue long established practices that were once deemed illegal.
Speaker Biography: Ms. Charette currently serves Montana State University-Billings as the Director of the American Indian Outreach Office. She teaches Native American Studies courses and works on cultural projects that help American Indian students feel comfortable and succeed while attending college at MSU-B. Ms. Charette is a member of the Ties-In-Bundle clan of the Crow Nation and a descendant of the Pembina band of Turtle Mountain Chippewa. She was raised on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation where she attended school in Busby and St. Labre. Ms. Charette holds a Master of Arts degree in History with a specialty in the American West supported by a Bachelor’s degree in Liberal Studies with an emphasis in Native American Studies. Above all, her most important contribution to the world is that she is a mother of four children and grandmother of six.
Speaker Biography: Dr. Jeffrey Sanders, B.S. at Cornell University, M.S. at Western Connecticut State University and his Ph.D. from the University of Arizona and currently teaches at Montana State University-Billings. He has traveled in 40 countries, often spending extended periods of time with Indigenous people. His teaching and workshops follow an interdisciplinary approach as he stresses the influence people and land have on each other, as in song, story and ceremony. He has taught in public schools, Tribal Colleges, and in state university systems and was a Fulbright Travel Fellow to study and travel in Peru and Guatemala. He was honored to receive the Special Recognition Award from the Montana Indian Education Association and the Faculty Excellence Award from Montana State University-Billings. He currently serves on the Board of Friends of KEMC and Humanities Montana.
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Dr. Tom Lewis: WWI, Chemical Weapons, and the 1918 Influenza Pandemic
Feb. 24 - LIB 148 - 6:30 pm
Program Description: This presentation will begin with a description of chemical warfare agents, their characteristics, effects on humans, and means of delivery. The presentation will then shift to a global event that was propelled by WWI, the influenza pandemic of 1918; hypotheses regarding its origin, a timeline of its spread, and perspectives from modern virology.
Speaker Biography: Dr. Tom Lewis is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biological and Physical Sciences at MSU Billings. He received a B.S. degree in microbiology from Northern Arizona University and a Ph.D. in microbiology from Oregon State University. He did postdoctoral work at New Mexico State University before becoming a Project Leader at the University of Idaho’s Environmental Biotechnology Institute. He was an Assistant Professor in the Microbiology and Molecular Genetics Department at the University of Vermont’s College of Medicine before joining MSUB. Dr. Lewis’s research is in the area of microbial physiology; developing understanding of how microbes, primarily bacteria, achieve some of the novel metabolic traits they display. For many years the aim of those studies was toward biological pollutant transformation. More recently he has focused on iron and sulfur metabolism by the human pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
Dr. Sam Boerboom & Dr Emily Arendt: Democracy Should Begin at Home: Women and the Great War
Mar. 10 - LIB 148 - 6:30 pm
Program Description: American women during World War I participated in the war effort in unprecedented numbers. Abroad, women served as nurses and in clerical positions. On the domestic front, many entered the workforce and provided the temporary labor needed to maintain wartime industries. Other women drew on their pre-war social reform networks to encourage Americans to conserve food and purchase war bonds. For some reforming women, the Great War offered the opportunity to bring the debate over women's suffrage to center stage. This talk will examine the myriad ways that women participated in the war effort and used this period of social upheaval to demand that democracy's promise be fulfilled not only abroad, but at home.
Speaker Biography: Dr. Samuel Boerboom has an MA in English from the University of Nebraska and a PhD in Rhetoric from the University of Minnesota. This is his second year teaching at MSU Billings. Sam researches and teaches Political Communication, Media Theory, and Media Criticism.
Speaker Biography:Emily Arendt is a scholar of early American gender and political history. She did her BA and MA at the University of Wyoming, focusing on history and women's studies. She holds a her doctorate in history from The Ohio State University and she joined the Department of History at MSU-Billings in the Fall of 2014. Her research interests include the American Revolution, partisan political culture in the Early American Republic, and the history women's political and organizational activism in the United States.
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Tami Haaland: Down the Close Darkening Lanes: Poetry of WWI
Mar. 17 - LIB 148 - 6:30 pmProgram Description: From historic to contemporary poets, from those who served to those who were left behind, and from the most well-known to the least-known, this presentation will provide an introduction to poets writing in English as well as translations from French and German.
Speaker Biography: Tami Haaland is the author of two books of poetry: When We Wake in the Night, and Breath in Every Room. Her poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies and have been featured on The Writer’s Almanac, Verse Daily, and American Life in Poetry. Haaland teaches creative writing and chairs the department of English, Philosophy and Modern Languages at Montana State University Billings. She is Montana’s Poet Laureate.
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