Click here for information on 2022 award funding cycle

Applications are due March 15, 2022.

Lecture titles are tentative and room locations are tentative. Updates will be posted on the individual Facebook Event page (linked below). View all upcoming events here: https://www.facebook.com/pg/BYUReddCenter/events.

Subscribe to this blog or like our Facebook Page for more updates when the event dates approach.

January 26

Simon J. Bronner, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of American Studies, Penn State University

"A Resonant Background": Landscape, Region, and Makerspace in Folklore and Cultural Studies

January 26, 2022
2:00 PM
B192 JFSB, Education in Zion Auditorium

BYU Folklore Archives annual Founder's Lecture

February 17

Fred E. Woods, Professor of Religious Education, Brigham Young University

Bright Lights in the Desert: The Latter-day Saints of Las Vegas

• Documentary film screening and Q&A   

February 17, 2022
11:00 AM
B192 JFSB, Education in Zion Auditorium
Facebook Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/202857718725718

March 25

Gregory E. Smoak, Associate Professor of History, University of Utah; President, National Council on Public History; and Director, American West Center

"History at the Center(s) of the West: Thoughts on Regional Public History Practice" 

March 25, 2022
7:00 PM
1060 HBLL, Library Auditorium
Facebook Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/2684993628462070

Redd Center 50th Anniversary

Fifty years ago, the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies was established by a group of visionary western studies history faculty who approached the administration at Brigham Young University to propose a western studies center. Charles and Annaley Naegle Redd, prominent southeastern Utah ranchers and philanthropists, donated funds to the university due to their deep roots in the West and their interest in western history. The Redds had lived in Provo when their children attended schools, including Brigham Young High. A neighbor and BYU physics professor named John Gardner was instrumental in convincing the Redds to donate to BYU. In 1972, the Redds’ agreed to provide an endowment to support the creation and operation of the center. They also established the Lemuel Hardison Redd Jr. Chair of Western History, named in honor of Charlie Redd’s father.

Leonard J. Arrington, an economic historian, became the first Redd Chair and the first center director. Thomas G. Alexander served as assistant and then associate director. In 1980, Alexander became the Redd Center director (1980–1992), and he was followed by William A. (Bert) Wilson, a folklorist and English professor (1992–1996). Edward A. Geary, an English professor and essayist, was Wilson’s successor (1996–2002), and Jessie L. Embry served as acting director following Geary’s term (2002). Brian Q. Cannon, a historian specializing in western rural history, assumed directorship in 2003 (2003–2018). The center’s current director is Jay H. Buckley, a historian specializing in American West and American Indian history (2018–present).

Through the years, the center has received additional support from the Redd Foundation, a nonprofit organization established by Charles and Annaley Naegle Redd. In the 1980s, Karl D. Butler donated funds and encouraged his sister Hazel Butler Peters and her husband, William Howard Peters, to bequeath funds to the Redd Center. In 1986, those funds established the John Topham and Susan Redd Butler Research Endowment, named in honor of Karl and Hazel’s parents. Jessie L. Embry’s parents also donated funds, and the Redd Center established the Bertis L. and Anna E. C. Embry Endowment.

The Redd Center’s mission is to promote the study of the Intermountain West (AZ, CO, ID, MT, NV, NM, UT, WY) by sponsoring research, publications, teaching, and public programs in academic disciplines including (but not limited to) anthropology, art, biology, economics, folklore, forestry, geography, history, literature, politics, range science, popular culture, and sociology. Research grants are awarded annually to students, independent scholars, faculty, and museums. Additional grants allow scholars to come to BYU to use the extensive L. Tom Perry Special Collections for their research. The center also funds prizes for books, articles, and exhibits in conjunction with numerous professional organizations and conferences.

            The center will hold a Golden Jubilee celebration on the afternoon of Friday, March 25, 2022, in the Harold B. Lee Library Auditorium and L. Tom Perry Special Collections foyer at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. This free event is open to the public. The Annaley Naegle Redd Lecture will be given that evening by noted western American historian Clyde A. Milner II in the library auditorium.

Writing Westward Podcast Update

After a 1-semester pause, the Writing Westward Podcast is relaunching in January 2022 with monthly episodes. Each episode features a conversation with writers of new work on the North American West, sampling from a vareity of disciplines and subfields. The podcast is hosted and produced by Redd Center Associate Director, Professor Brenden W. Rensink.

• 036 - Andrea Ross, Unnatural Selection: A Memoir of Adoption and Wilderness (August 2021)
  
• 035 - Erika Allen Wolters and Brent S. Steel, The Environmental Politics & Policy of Western Public Lands (July 2021)
• 034 - Benjamin Hoy, A Line of Blood and Dirt: Creating the Canada-United States Border across Inidgenous Lands (June 2021)
• 033 - Steven L. Peck, The Tragedy of King Leere in a Post-Apocalyptic West (May 2021)
• 032 - Tiffany Midge, Bury My Heart at Chuck E. Cheese's (Apr. 2021)
• 031 - Susan Lee Johnson, Writing Kit Carson: Fallen Heroes in a Changing West (Mar. 2021)
• 030 - Janne Lahti, The American West and the World: Transnational and Comparative Perspectives (Feb. 2021)

Listen and Subscribe Via:

           

Connect with Writing Westward on Social Media

  Intermountain Histories Update

The Intermountain Histories project curates local histories on a website (http://www.intermountainhistories.org) and free mobile apps (iOS and Android). Stories are written by students from universities around the Intermountain West, and in collaboration with various professors.

The project was recently featured in a number of news stories. Check them out!

• BYU News and Provo Daily Herald, BYU professor highlights unsung stories from Utah’s rich pioneer history with Intermountain Histories website 
• Deseret News, How this new mobile app can help you discover Utah’s forgotten immigrant pioneers
• ABC4 News, Charting a course: BYU history professor, students building historical map of Intermountain West 
• Inside Sources Podcast, Remembering Utah's Other Pioneers
• Daily Herald
  
  

Mobile Apps:	Apple iOS / iTunes Store
	Google Play Android Store

  New People at the Redd Center

Fall 2021-Winter 2022 Intermountain Histories Research and Editorial Assistant

Winter 2022 Intermountain Histories Intern