Scholar to discuss 'What Makes a Region' in Oct. 5 seminar

Visiting scholar Nicole Etcheson will discuss "What Makes a Region? Exploring the Intersection between Politics and Regionalism on the Great Plains" Oct. 5 in the first seminar in the 2004-05 Research and Region colloquium series.

Presented by the Plains Humanities Alliance and the Center for Great Plains Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the seminar will begin at 3:30 p.m. at the Great Plains Art Collection, 1155 Q St., Hewit Place. Refreshments will follow. The event is free and open to the public.

Etcheson is associate professor of history at the University of Texas at El Paso. She is the author of "Bleeding Kansas: Contested Liberty in the Civil War Era" (Lawrence, 2004), and "The Emerging Midwest: Upland Southerners and the Political Culture of the Old Northwest, 1787-1861" (Bloomington, 1996). She has also written numerous articles on the political culture of the Midwest as well as on the controversy in Kansas Territory. "Bleeding Kansas" has been selected by the History Book Club. She is now at work on a book about the Union home front in Indiana during the Civil War.

The Research and Region colloquium series, sponsored by the Plains Humanities Alliance, is an outlet for local and visiting scholars to present their research about the Great Plains and other Plains regions to faculty, graduate students and the interested public. The seminar meets several times a semester. Seminar organizers are pleased to include presentations of scholars' research-in-progress, including graduate students' dissertation proposals. Forward proposals to Timothy Mahoney, Plains Humanities Alliance, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 115 Ferguson Hall, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68588-0692.

CONTACT: Deborah Eisloeffel, Plains Humanities Alliance, (402) 472-9478