Chatcolet Lake with St. Joe Baldy in the distance (southern end of Lake Coeur d'Alene).  For the Schitsu'umsh (Coeur d'Alene), the Lake and its surrounding Mountains is the place of creation as well as spiritual and kinship orientation. Continue your travel with us into the significance of Schitsu'umsh "place"

From Mythic Lakes to Space Needles.  While the word place usually refers to a physical landmark, for example, a prairie, river or urban center, the University of Idaho’s Humanities Seminar will transcend the overt properties of our region’s landscape to explore the rich and diverse aesthetic, political, historical, economic, and cultural meaning of place in the Pacific Northwest.  

The University of Idaho’s Humanities Fellows will lead an exploration of how the landscape of the Pacific Northwest influences and, in turn, is influenced by memory, imagination and creativity. The fellows are Mary DuPree, professor of music; Rodney Frey, professor of American Indian Studies and anthropology, and Kenton Bird, assistant professor of communication. They were chosen as the third group of fellows within the College of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences to promote excellence in teaching the humanities.  The Excellence in Teaching the Humanities program is supported by an endowment of more than $1.5 million created by private donations to the University of Idaho and a matching grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The Space Needle has become emblematic of Seattle's sense of place. Continue your travel with us into the significance of Seattle "place."

The Seminar Format. Over the next 18 months, DuPree, Frey and Bird will work with other UI faculty members to extend learning opportunities for students and invigorate teaching across the humanities disciplines. They are planning a series of on-campus faculty seminars, as well as four extended field trips.  In combination, these seminars will explore the many ways to discover how the Northwest’s sense of place has developed over time and is expressed today in geography, history, politics, literature and the arts.  Among the places to be traveled are a mining community, an American Indian community, and a week-long trip to Seattle in late May, 2003. The trips to these places will be seminars in themselves.

For more information, please feel free to contact one of the Humanities Fellows:

 

Humanities Fellows:
Kenton Bird, School of Communication (208) 885-4947, kbird@uidaho.edu	Mary DuPree, Lionel Hampton School of Music (208) 882-8615, mdupree@uidaho.edu	Rodney Frey, Department of Sociology & Anthropology (208) 885-6268, rfrey@uidaho.edu

Page manager: rfrey@uidaho.edu