Review of The West and Beyond: New Perspectives on an Imagined Region edited by Alvin Finkel, Sarah Carter, and Peter Fortna

Authors

Ryan C. Eyford, University of Winnipeg

Date of this Version

Summer 2011

Document Type

Article

Citation

Great Plains Quarterly 31:3 (Summer 2011).

Comments

Copyright © 2011 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska.

Abstract

From 1969 to 1990 the Western Canadian Studies conferences brought together researchers interested in the history of a region defined as "the Prairie West" or simply "the West," often at the University of Calgary. In large measure the conference was an outgrowth of the fractious regional politics of the late 1960s. The range of topics participants explored, however, ultimately went well beyond the limited theme of "western alienation" and made an important contribution to the regional historiography; fourteen volumes of conference papers, usually edited by University of Calgary scholars, were published between 1970 and 1993.

In June 2008 a group of historians at the University of Alberta tested the possibility of reviving Western Canadian Studies with a conference titled "The West and Beyond: Historians Past, Present, and Future." The organizers believed it was time for scholars in the field to "rise up, evaluate, and appraise the state of Western Canadian history, acknowledging and assessing the contributions of historians of the past and present while at the same time showcasing the research interests of the next generation."