Past Lectures

2024     Juliana Barr, Duke University, "The Woman in Blue: How Native Storytellers Turned a Bilocating Nun into an Expression of Indigenous Geopolitics"

2023     Katrina Jagodinsky, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, "The Many Faces of Habeas: Challenging Coercion and Confinement in the American West"

2019     Annette Gordon-Reed, Charles Warren Professor of American Legal History at Harvard Law School, and Dr. Peter S. Onuf, Thomas Jefferson Foundation Professor of History, Emeritus, at the University of Virginia.

2018     Dr. Megan Kate Nelson, Historian/Author/Cultural Critic, "Why the Civil War West Mattered"

2017     Dr. Ari Kelman (UC Davis), "For Liberty and Empire:  How the Civil War Bled Into the Indian Wars"

2016     Dr. John Mack Faragher (Yale), "Violence and Justice in Frontier Los Angeles," You can view the lecture here.

2015     John Gray, Director, National Museum of American History, "American History: What Kind of People Do We Want To Be?"

2014     Dr. Brenda Stevenson (UCLA), "Rethinking the L.A. Riots of 1992: Contested Images of the 'Female' in the Murder Trial of Soon Ja Du"

2013     Dr. Ned Blackhawk (Yale), "The Indigenous West of Mark Twain: Samuel Clemens and the American Empire, 1861-1866"

2012     Dr. Martha Sandweiss (Princeton), "Lost Tales, Forgotten Women, and the Violence of Everyday Life in the Nineteenth Century West"

2011     Dr. Andrew Kirk (UNLV), "Doomtown: Picturing Home on the Nevada Test Site"

2010     Dr. Stephen Aron (UCLA), "Can We All Just Get Along: In Search of an Alternative History of the American West"

2009     Dr. Dan Flores (Univ. of Montana), "Art and Regional Identity in the Northern Rocky Mountain West"

2008     Dr. Sherry L. Smith (SMU), "Discovering the Nations Within: Indians, the Counterculture, and the New Left in the ‘Sixties’ West"

2007     Dr. Paul Hutton (UNM), "Kit Carson's Ride."

2006     Lucy R. Lippard (Art Critic, Author), “Five Acres: Disputed Land and Disappearing Landscapes in the Galisteo Basin” 

2005     Dr. Philip Deloria (Univ. of Michigan), “Reading Mount Rushmore: A tour of Landscape and Nationalism at Mount Rushmore” 

2004     Dr. David Wrobel (Univ. of Oklahoma), “Through Traveler’s Eyes: Visions of Western America in the Travel Narrative

2003     Dr. Marc Simmons (Author), “Kit Carson: The Family Man”

2002     Dr. Hal K. Rothman (UNLV), “Tourism and the Next Stage of Capitalism: How Experience Became Currency and Entertainment Replaced Culture”

2001     N/A

2000     Dr James P. Ronda (Univ. of Tulsa), “Roads to Santa Fe” 

1999     Dr. Richard Etulain (UNM), “Telling Western Stories” 

1998     Dr. William deBuys (Writer, Conservationist), “West as Southwest”

1997     Dr. Vicki Ruiz (UC Irvine), “Conquests and Migrations” 

1996     Dr. Patricia Limerick (Univ. of Colorado-Boulder), “A Just and Honorable West”

1995     Dr. Glenda Riley (Ball State Univ.), “Family Life on the Frontier” 

1994     Dr. Elliott West (Univ. of Arkansas), “Going West” 

1993     Dr. Donald Worster (Univ. of Kansas), “Environmental Change in the American West”

1992     Dr. Joan M. Jensen (NMSU), “Creativity and Western Women”

1991     Dr. Gerald D. Nash (UNM), “Western Historians”

1990     Dr. William H. Goetzmann (Univ. of Texas-Austin), “Did Modern Art Kill the Myth of the West?” 

1989     Dr. Rennard Strickland (Univ. of Oregon), “Indian Images” (1988-1989)

1988     Dr. David J. Weber (SMU), “The Hispanic Southwest” 

1987     Dr. Juan Gómez-Quiñones (UCLA), “Contemporary Chicano Political History” 

1986     Dr. Robert M. Utley (Fmr. Chief Historian, NPS), “The Lincoln County Wars”