In Conversation: The Frontier Myth, Cowboys & Indians

Wash-Ka-Mon-Ya Fast Dancer
by Isaac by George Catlin, 1844
© Smithsonian American Art Museum,
Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr
http://americanart.si.edu/

Dr Karen Jones and exhibition curator Dr Stephanie Pratt and Dr Padraig Kirwan discuss how the popular mythology of cowboys and Indians was created, and it's impact today.

Dr Karen Jones is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Kent, who specialises in the History of the American West, Environmental History and Animal Studies. She is co-author of The American West: Competing Visions, which explores the popular appeal of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the life and after-life of Calamity Jane, cowboy mythology and the American Presidency.

Dr Stephanie Pratt is an Associate Professor (Reader) in Art History, School of Humanities and Performing Arts at the University of Plymouth. Her research explores the visual representation of First Nations/Native Americans, including issues surrounding museums' representations of the world's cultures and native peoples' self-representation.

Dr Padraig Kirwan is Lecturer in the Literature of the Americas at Goldsmiths, University of London. His research focuses on tribal writers' engagement with various forms of political, cultural and artistic sovereignty. His book, Sovereign Stories: Aesthetics, Autonomy and Contemporary
Native America Writing, will be published later this year.