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Chapter
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Comments
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Questions
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1. Dakota Circle
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This brief introductory chapter toys with an explanation
of regional culture and hints at the purpose of the book.
The writing here is casual and conversational. If you're listening, though,
you will hear some academic concepts, such as we have treated in lecture,
resonating.
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1. How did this book come to be? Where did the idea come
from?
2. What is the thesis of the book?
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2.
What Are Plains Like?
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This chapter is about affective reactions to the plains,
that is, how you feel about the place.
As you read, situate yourself in relation to the question. What is
your affective sense, your gut feeling, about the plains?
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1. How would you explain the profoundly different
reactions that individuals have to the land and people of the plains?
2. What's the difference between Norris and Stegner?
Which one is closer to your own sense of place?
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3.
Hungry for History
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This chapter is about the passion of people on the plains
for antiquities and the need to invest the land with stories.
Think about your own home country as you read; become
conscious that stories help to make it a place.
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1. What's the significance of the Verendrye
plate? Why do people make so much of it?
2. Can you think of anything similar to this in your own locality—an
object that is important because it anchors a story about the place?
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4.
Winter Survival Kit
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Story-telling continues here, focusing on that central
theme of the northern plains—winter.
Think about your own reactions to the onset of
winter. You may find out something about yourself.
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1. Why do we preserve and tell these stories of winter
survival or tragedy? What does that say about us?
2. Why might you carry a Dakota Heat candle, even if you don't think
you'll ever use it?
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5.
Und Auch der Belzenickel
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Lawrence Welk, St. Peter &
Paul Church, and the Belzenickel are all
manifestations of German-Russian culture on the plains.
Do you have an ethnic heritage you can identify and
invoke?
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1. Judging by the subjects here treated, what
characteristics of German-Russian culture can you identify?
2. Put yourself in that farmhouse in McHenry County when the Belzenickel
arrives. What does this event mean to you?
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6.
Something Odd in Absaraka
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Here the narrative phenomenon known across America as
the "urban legend" turns up on the plains as what some
folklorists call a "teenage legend trip."
What's the legend trip in your locality?
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1. Just what is a legend? What kind of story is a
legend?
2. The essay argues that the legends of Absaraka
and Dickey may be different from more traditional narratives. How is this?
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7.
Great Plains Grotesque
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All over the country, but perhaps particularly on the
plains, certain individuals seem driven to create these fantastic
mini-environments. The study of the Great Plains
emphasizes environment as a factor. These are environments within the
environment.
This has to do with a fundamental and powerful human
impulse, the drive to arrange and order one's surroundings, for the sake of
comfort and perhaps to make a statement. Think about it.
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1. What sort of person is driven to creations such as
the Petrified
Garden or the St.
Mary's shrine?
2. Do these creations relate in any way to the broader Great
Plains environment?
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8.
A Sore Subject
9.
They Wanted a Viking
10.
Big Birds
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Here's another nation-wide, indeed world-wide, phenomenon—the
construction of gigantic roadside monuments.
All right, what's your home-town monstrosity? Think
about what it might mean.
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1. What's the purpose behind these roadside monuments?
2. Is there anything about them that is distinctly regional, partaking
of the plains?
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11.
Thresherman’s Heaven
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More roadside monuments, but of a different sort. These
are individual, folk monuments, rather than community statements.
You know people who make statements like these. Think
about it.
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1. What sort of individuals erect
monuments such as these?
2. What statement do they make to the traveling public?
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12.
Every One a Greenhead
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Ernie Zahn is a remarkable
fellow and story-teller who spent his life interacting with nature in ways
that are fascinating and, to some, disturbing.
Zahn is like a man
from another time. Do you know anyone like that?
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1. In what ways did Zahn make
his living? Are these occupations still around today?
2. What does a life like this say about attitudes toward nature on the
plains?
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13.
Jerry-Built Contraptions
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People on the plains invent and construct the darndest things.
Some of this inventiveness, no doubt owes to
universal human nature. Some of it, though, seems native to this land.
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1. What do these constructions tell us about the
phenomenon of human inventiveness?
2. What do they tell us about the facts of life on the plains?
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14.
It Makes the Place Survive
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Buildings on the plains reflect both broad traditions of
design and specific adaptation to the environment.
Think about how you consider buildings—whether they
are matters of taste, or of practicality.
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1. What constants of Great Plains
conditions affect the evolution of design here?
2. Can there be more to this adaptation of buildings on the plains than
just immediate practicality? Is there a great Plains aesthetic?
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15.
Montana
Caviar / 16. Plum Butter
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These chapters deal with things in nature that you can
capture, work with, and consume in order to connect with the environment
and with people. Most of these things have elements of ritual.
Ritual is something we deny in modern life. It's not
that we don't have it, we just don't admit it. So admit it.
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1. How have changes in the northern plains environment
produced a paddlefish fishery?
2. Is there such a thing as a Great Plains
cuisine? What is the nature of it?
3. What role might such traditions as fishing and cooking play in construction
of regional culture?
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17.
Pasture People
18.
Lost Forest
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These chapters deal with people and their plants in the
construction of the Great Plains
landscape. Grass and trees.
"Native" and "exotic" are terms
often applied to plants on the plains. Think about yourself in relation to
these terms.
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1. Is it appropriate to introduce foreign plants to the
plains? Just what does "native" mean? Is it by nature superior?
2. What values and developments are manifest in the withdrawal of land
from farming to create community pastures?
3. What values and developments are manifest in the planting of trees on
the plains?
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19.
Parking for North Dakotans
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This chapter deals with aspects of out-migration and
depopulation on the plains.
If you are from the plains, situate yourself in
respect to this subject. What are your plans?
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1. What do you see as the causes of depopulation?
2. What effect does this process have on the remaining people and
communities on the plains?
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20.
You Must Be from North Dakota
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Humor is a hallmark of culture. The question here is, what kind of culture?
Enjoy the jokes, but think about them, too.
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1. Consider the catalog of North
Dakota jokes. Do they add up to anything about the regional
character?
2. The chapter posits a certain transformation in regional culture late
in the 20th century. Do you buy this?
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A couple of general questions:
1. Apply the Webb thesis to this book. How much of the book's
contents can be explained using Webb's interpretive lenses?
2. Apply the 4-point model of
regional culture to the book. What phenomena can you ascribe to each of the
four points?
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