The Editor's Reflections and Reports

Special Editor's Introduction | Editor's Corner We of Film & History have been busy since the last issue of thejournal and here are some of the highlights of the past months. The Editor's Reflections and Reports Our Conference on the West takes shape Elsewhere in this issue readers will find the details about our conference on "The American West(s) in Film, Television, and History." The meeting is slated for Kansas City, Missouri, the city properly named the "Gateway to the West" during the era of settlement; the Oregon, California, and Santa Fe trails „ , cvspun out as tendrils oftravel from Conference Siter that jumping off point. By the time you receive this issue, the Area Chairs (listed in this issue and with hyperlinks on our web site) will have begun to assemble panels for the meeting; indeed, we have received a lot of traffic over the Internet in advance of our completed preparations. Many are particularly attracted to this Fall The Kansas City Marriott, . . „ , event because it is centrally located and can be reached by automobile; others like the idea of meeting in a city with some exciting cultural attractions. (We have tours planned for the participants for which information is already up on the web site.) You might note that we now have a counter on the web site; I have been overwhelmed by the numbers of people from across the globe who have paid visits to our site. Check it out over a two or three-day period. The luncheon speaker for the Kansas City meeting will be John Cawelti, author of a pioneering book, The Six-Gun Mystique . Irememberpurchasing a copy when the book was released from the Popular Press (Bowling Green State U) in 1971. I rememberthe excitementofreading this short—butinspiring—overview of themes and genre characteristics of a popular art form. Subsequent to that book, Dr. Cawelti produced some fascinating works on the success myth, Southern literature, and film noir, but— for the sake of our meeting—we have asked him to reflect on the publication of his ground-breaking book and the reception it received in a time when such studies were deemed "radical." (While people of my interests were excited about the book, there were many traditionalists who saw such efforts as a threat to the "Humanities " and an attack on the culture of "the Word.") For those who did not live through those early days ofpopular culture studies , it is hard to evoke the resistance to the kinds ofnew perspectives and methods Cawelti's work represented. The resistance has been overcome. Indeed, two registrants have indicated that they are, during this very semester, using portions of the book in theirfilm classes. We will all profitfrom Cawelti's mature thoughts and reflections—which will be all the more relevant within the context ofour study ofAmerica's West(s). Most of us believe that the study of the Western in any particular era inevitably becomes a reflection on American identity , because what Americans feel about the frontier and settlementtranslates directly into our national self-image. From Henry Nash Smith's The virgin Land(1950) to such volumes as Slotkin's Gunfighter Nation (1993), the literature, songs, paintings of America's frontier provide lines of interpretation leading back to the national geist of the author. Indeed, it is such connections which make Western stories, novels, paintings, poems, and films valuable research and teaching tools—for the study of the past, but also for an understanding of America's present. As an example , the current PBS series entitled Frontier House claims to examine the lives of homesteaders in the year 1883, but the series says volumes more about the America's spiritual poverty, despite ourcurrent abundance and suburban life-style. How could the commentary on the present be avoided? Please take the time now to contact one of the Area Chairs for the conference on "The American West(s) in Film, Television , and History." Early birds receive the most compatible panels at such meetings. Everyone who attends will be rewarded by the intellectual stimulation, the networking opportunities, and the chance to visit a vibrant and exciting city with a multicultural background in which it takes...