Sponsored Research

“American Fantasies and Imagined Histories: Ethnic Play and Settler Colonialism in Twentieth-Century Wyoming”

My project examines three case studies unified through ethnic play, the interrelated structures of settler colonialism and white supremacy, geographical location, and time period. This project employs an interdisciplinary approach that combines original archival historical research, and literary and cultural analysis while drawing on Indigenous and Black frameworks. This study concludes that in twentieth-century Wyoming, redface and blackface filled Native and Black cultural absences in order to maintain the structures of settler colonialism and white supremacy. At the same time, this dissertation examines settler colonialism, slavery, and white supremacy in relation to the experiences of Black and Native peoples and shows how ethnic play both maintains and disrupts the race and gender hierarchies created by the interrelated structures of settler colonialism and white supremacy.

"The Montana modernists: redefining Western art"

Since my graduation in December, 2019, I took a position as Assistant Teacher Professor in the MSU Honors College. I also started an art consulting business working with artists and families of deceased artists concerned with legacy issues, and I have been a contributing writer for various regional and national magazines. My dissertation,  "The Montana modernists: redefining Western art", talks about the first generation of modern artists in Montana and their influence on the way Montanans looked at themselves. That manuscript is currently being considered by Washington State University Press for publication in the Spring of 2022. 

"Western American Spectral Studies: Haunting in Film, Literature, and Landscape"

My dissertation examines the way western American cultural expressions involving “haunting,” when taken seriously, can provide much needed insights into both the hegemonic structure of the white, male, civilizing Turnerian narrative and “post-western” expressions which challenge this nationalized story. This study is important since the Western traditionally articulates America's foundational identity and because haunting narratives have more explicitly arisen in the post-WWII era in a way that suggests the Western and the West continue to wrestle with those haunting voices and ideas lost, neglected, and/or pathologized in the rush to celebrate an "exceptional," monolithic American identity.  

Post graduation, I've been teaching at MSU in the University Studies department. Additionally, I am currently revising both select chapters and my dissertation for publication.

Ties, Rails, and Telegraph Wires:Railroads and Communities in Montana and the West. Dale Martin. Helena, MT: Montana Historical Society Press, 2018.

Ties, Rails, and Telegraph Wires:Railroads and Communities in Montana and the West vividly relates the story of rail transport’s centrality to the lives of westerners and their communities.  Railways linked towns and cities to the nation’s commerce, carrying passengers, mail, express, and freight.  The telegraph pole lines that followed the tracks were the primary communications of the era.  Trains brought political figures, Chautauquas, sports teams, and circuses to all corners of the west.  Using extensive research in historical sources and engaging memoirs, Martin brings to life the essential role railways played in creating vibrant communities and powerful memories, and reflects on the social losses that accompanied the vanishing trains.

Just one of the reviews:

“Martin’s writing provides a timely reminder that railroads not only revolutionized travel and changed the structure of corporations, but that they also reshaped the daily routines and social lives of communities.”--Montana Magazine of Western History

Dale Martin is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Department of History & Philosophy and a popular lecturer for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute  (OLLI) in Bozeman.  He has worked in archaeological excavation and the field study of historic buildings and bridges.  Dale has watched and ridden trains on four continents.

Shakespeare in Montana: Big Sky Country’s Love Affair with the World’s Most Famous Writer. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 2020.

Winner of the 2020 Montana Book Award, Shakespeare in Montana uncovers a vast array of different voices that capture the state’s love affair with the world’s most famous writer. From mountain men, pioneers, and itinerant acting companies in mining camps to the contemporary popularity of Shakespeare in the Parks throughout Montana, the book chronicles the stories of residents across Big Sky Country who have been attracted to the words and works of Shakespeare. Minton explores this unique relationship and provides considerable insight into the myriad places and times in which Shakespeare’s words have been heard and discussed.

Just one of the reviews:

“For over two centuries, the works of Shakespeare have found a home under the big skies of Montana. Gretchen Minton is the ideal guide on this fascinating tour of one extraordinary state’s relationship with one extraordinary writer.”—Paul Prescott, author of Reviewing Shakespeare: Journalism and Performance from the Eighteenth Century to the Present

Gretchen E. Minton is Professor of English and an acclaimed scholar of Shakepeare and his contemporaries.  She has edited texts on Timon of Athens, Troilus and Cressida, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Revenger’s Tragedy, as well as the first commentary on the book of Revelation written in English, John Bale’s The Image of Both Churches.  Additionally, Gretchen is co-founder of Montana InSite Theater (MIST) whose members use classical texts to explore environmental issues in site-specific locations.

Riding Shotgun with Norman Wallace: Rephotographing the Arizona Landscape

William Wyckoff. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2020.

In Riding Shotgun with Norman Wallace, Bill Wyckoff celebrates the photographic legacy of Norman Grant Wallace, whose work as an Arizona highway engineer afforded him the opportunity to survey every corner of the Grand Canyon State. From 1906 to 1969 Wallace photographed the state’s natural and rural landscapes; its burgeoning infrastructure including roads, bridges, and dams; and its towns and cities, some of which experienced exponential growth following World War II. Nearly one hundred years later, Wyckoff retraces Wallace’s southwestern travels using the engineer’s photographs and meticulous notebooks as a guide. Wyckoff rephotographs many of Wallace’s iconic vantage points, giving us a historical tour of Arizona, a “then-and-now” viewpoint that also tells the personal story of Wyckoff’s own vicarious travels with Wallace through Arizona’s vast countryside and its urban centers and small towns.

Just one of the reviews:

“Wyckoff has spent his entire career looking carefully, thinking about what he is seeing, and communicating his thoughts in prose that is rich and refreshing, much to the benefit and delight of his readers. Maybe one day some plucky young scholar will have the presence of mind and good fortune to hop in a car and ride shotgun with William Wyckoff.”

--The AAG Review of Books

 Bill Wyckoff is Professor Emeritus of geography at Montana State University.  Known for his energetic and generous teaching, Bill retired from MSU in spring 2020 shortly after publication of Riding Shotgun with Norman Wallace. He is the author and coauthor of numerous books and articles on the American West, including How to Read the American West: A Field Guide, On the Road Again: Montana’s Changing Landscape; and Creating Colorado: The Making of a Western American Landscape, 1860-1940.

Amber Waves: The Extraordinary Biography of Wheat, from Wild Grass to World Megacrop Catherine Zabinski. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020.

Amber Waves tells the story of a group of grass species that first grew in scattered stands in the foothills of the Middle East until our ancestors discovered their value as a source of food. Over thousands of years, we moved their seeds to all but the polar regions of Earth, slowly cultivating what we now know as wheat, and in the process creating a world of cuisines that uses wheat seeds as a staple food. As ecologist Catherine Zabinski shows us, a biography of wheat is not only the story of how plants ensure their own success: from the earliest breads to the most mouthwatering pastas, it is also a story of human ingenuity in producing enough food for ourselves and our communities.

Just one of the reviews:

“If it hadn’t been for a capricious interloper named goatgrass mixing into wheat’s gene pool half a million years ago, our daily staple of bread—not to mention birthday cakes, mac and cheese, and pepperoni pizza—might never have existed. . . . Amber Waves nimbly segues into a socio-agro primer, providing a crash course in genetics, plant breeding, and agronomy. . . . Zabinski is a reliably optimistic guide, pointing us toward a hopeful food future. ‘As a species,’ she observes, ‘we have a stunning capacity for creativity and problem solving. Imagine if we focused all that capacity on optimizing agricultural production in the most environmentally sustainable way.’” -- Wall Street Journal

Cathy Zabinski is Professor of plant and soil ecology in the Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences.  She received a fellowship from the Arthur P. Sloan Foundation to work on Amber Waves.  Cathy was honored with the Women in Science Distinguished Professorship in 2020 and the Anna K. Fridley Distinguished Teaching Award in 2019. Having completed her study of wheat, she is now working on a book on wine.