Empire and Liberty: The Civil War in the West

Author and historian Virginia Scharff leads a panel discussion featuring Carolyn Brucken, curator at the Autry Museum; Durwood Ball, editor of the New Mexico Historical Review; and Jennifer Denetdale, a professor of American Studies at the University of New Mexico. Part of the programming series for the museum’s exhibit, Fading Memories: Echoes of the Civil War, a collaboration with the Santa Fe Opera’s debut of Cold Mountain this August. Free with admission; admission free on Sundays to NM residents.Sunday September 20, 2015

The discussion focuses on the recently released Empire and Liberty, a scholarly book addressing issues of slavery and the civil war in the West. The book accompanies an exhibit at the Autry National Center.

Carolyn Brucken joined the Autry National Center in 2003 and is associate curator of Western Women’s History. She received her doctorate in American civilization from George Washington University and her master’s from the University of Delaware, Winterthur Program. She has developed exhibitions for the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles (1999–2003) and the National Archives in Washington DC (1994–1996). Brucken has also taught at Miami University and California State University–Fullerton. Her current and recent exhibition projects include Home Lands: How Women Made the West, the reinterpretation of the Autry’s historical galleries, and California Style: Art and Fashion From the California Historical Society. She is the co-curator of Empire and Liberty: The Civil War in the West (April 25, 2015–Jan. 3, 2016)

Durwood Ball is editor of the New Mexico Historical Review and an associate professor of history at the University of New Mexico. He received his doctorate in history from the University of New Mexico in 1994 and worked for nearly a decade as an acquisitions editor for the University of New Mexico Press. In July 2000 he joined the history faculty to edit the historical review. He published Army Regulars on the Western Frontier, 1848-1861 in 2001 and, with Paul Andrew Hutton, co-edited a second edition of Soldiers West: Biographies from the Military Frontier in 2009. In addition he has published numerous articles and book chapters on frontier and western military history. He is currently writing a biography of the old frontier dragoon/cavalry officer Maj. Gen. Edwin Vose Sumner.

Jennifer Denetdale is the first Diné/Navajo to earn a doctorate in history. A strong advocate for Native peoples, she strives to foster academic excellence in the next generation of students interested in Native Studies. Denetdale is an associate professor of American Studies at the University of New Mexico and teaches courses in Native American Studies. She specializes in Navajo history and culture; Native American women, gender, and feminisms; and indigenous nations, colonialism, and decolonization. Her book, Reclaiming Diné History: The Legacies of Navajo Chief Manuelito and Juanita, was published by the University of Arizona Press in 2007 and has received positive reviews. Her book for young adults, The Long Walk: The Forced Exile of the Navajo, was published by Chelsea House in 2007. Denetdale’s most recent publication was an article, “Securing the Navajo National Boundaries: War, Patriotism, Tradition, and the Diné Marriage Act of 2005,” for a special issue on Native Feminisms in Wicazo Sa Review, which she co-edited. For the summer of 2010, she was guest curator for the exhibit, Hastiin Ch’ilhajíní dóó Diné bi naat’áanii Bahane’: Chief Manuelito & Navajo Leaders, at the Navajo Nation Museum. Her current research project is a history of Navajo women.

Virginia Scharff is associate provost for faculty development, distinguished professor of history, and director of the Center for the Southwest at the University of New Mexico. She has published numerous books, including Taking the Wheel: Women and the Coming of the Motor Age (1991); Twenty Thousand Roads: Women, Movement, and the West (2003); Present Tense: The United States Since 1945 (1996); and Coming of Age: America in the Twentieth Century (1998); Home Lands: How Women Made the West (coauthored with Carolyn Brucken, 2010); and the edited volume, Seeing Nature Through Gender (2003). She was Beinecke Research Fellow in the Lamar Center for Frontiers and Borders at Yale University (2008–09), and is chair of Western Women’s History at the Autry National Center in Los Angeles, and a fellow and executive board member of the Society of American Historians. She was president of the Western History Association for 2008.

Scharff served as co-curator of Home Lands: How Women Made the West, an exhibition sponsored by the Autry National Center that opened in Los Angeles at the Autry in April 2010 and traveled to the Missouri History Center, the New Mexico History Museum, and the Gilcrease Museum. She is also the author of four mystery suspense novels: Brown-Eyed Girl (2000), Bad Company (2002), Bye, Bye, Love (2004), and Hello, Stranger (2006).