2007 Call for Papers

The Rural and Agricultural Studies Section of the Western Social Science Association invites paper and session proposals for its 49th annual conference, "Crossing Borders," held April 11-14, 2007, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.  The deadline for submissions is December 1, 2006.  Panels, roundtable discussions, and papers on any aspect of rural studies or agriculture in any part of the world are welcome.  Varying in discipline, approach, and scope, past papers have addressed small towns, extraction-based economies, population change, food policy, and social and environmental history.  Scholars willing to serve as moderators/discussants shouldindicate their interests.  Please submit paper/session proposals with presentation title, presenter(s) name(s), contact information, and an abstract (150-word maximum) along with audio-visual needs to: Anthony Amato, Center for Rural and Regional Studies, Southwest Minnesoata State University, Marshall, MN 56258; Telephone: (507) 537-6117; email: tamato@southwestmsu.edu.

For more information on the WSSA conference in Calgary, see the conference web page.

 

 

The Second Annual 'Gather Round the Table Discussion features:

Locust: The Devastating Rise and Mysterious Disappearance of the Insect that Shaped the American Frontier

by Jeffrey A. Lockwood

copyright 2004

Published by Basic Books  ISBN 0-465-04167-1 pb

All conference attendees are welcome to join in the round-table discussion of this book.  If you wish to be listed in the program as a discussant in this session, contact Suzzanne Kelley, North Dakota State University.

Summary:

In 1876, the U.S. Congress declared the locust "the single greatest impediment to the settlement of the country between Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains."  Throughout the nineteenth centruy, swarms of locusts regulary swept across the American continent, turning noon into dusk, devastating farm communities, and bringing trains to a halt.  The outbreaks subsided in the 1890s, and then, suddenly--and mysteriously--the Rocky Mountain Locut vanashied.  A century later, entomologist Jeffrey A. Lockwood vowed to discover shy.  Locust is the story of how one insect shaped the history of the western United States.  A compelling narrative drawing on historical accounts and modern science, this beautifully written book brings to lif the cultural, economic, and political forces at work in America in the late-nineteenth century, even as it solves one of the greatest extinction mysters of our time.

(publisher authored)