Lecturer to explore gender, ethnicity and the prisms of history

Rita Napier, an associate professor of History at the University of Kansas, will present “Less Corn, More Hell!’ Gender, Ethnicity and the Prisms of History” as the speaker for the annual Boertman Lecture, Thursday, March 1 at 7:00 p.m. at the Sauder Alumni Center, 1500 Highland Street.

The Boertman Lecture is endowed in honor and memory of C. Stewart Boertman (1906-1980).  Dr. Boertman earned an A.B. in History and Political Science (1929) and Ph.D. in History and Geography (1934) from the University of Michgan. A past president of the Kansas History Teachers Association and the Emporia chapter of the American Association of University Professors, Dr. Boertman served as a member of ESU’s faculty for forty-one years until his retirement in 1977.

Napier specializes in the social history of the American West, Plains Indian history, and the history of Kansas.  While working on her graduate degrees she taught in a Tlingit Indian village in Alaska.

She originated the teaching of Native American history at KU and co-chaired the committee that created its Indigenous Studies program.  Editor of the acclaimed Kansas and the West: New Perspectives (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003), she is currently writing a book with a very different take on the causes of Bleeding Kansas (which she hopes will not get her driven out of Lawrence).  Professor Napier has received several teaching and service awards, including the William T. Kemper Award for Teaching Excellence.

Previous Boertman Lecturers include:  Senator Mark Hatfield, Supreme Court Justice Arthur J. Goldberg, Ambassador Jack Matlock, Senator Nancy Kassebaum, and Professor James M. McPherson.

This event is free and open to the public. For more information contact the Emporia State University Social Science Department at 620-341-5461.

Last Updated July 2, 2007>