Wild West Meets Ozarks at Gerstäcker Symposium

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FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Join scholars from around the world for “The Legacy of Friedrich Gerstäcker: 
Arkansas and the Wild West.” The symposium will begin at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 11, in Giffels Auditorium with a keynote address by Jeffrey Sammons of Yale University. The three-day event is hosted by the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, the Center for Arkansas and Regional Studies, the department of history, and the department of world languages, literatures and cultures.

Gerstäcker, a prolific traveler and writer from Germany, romanticized the American frontier and wrote about the social conditions as he found them in backwoods Arkansas before the Civil War. He published more than 400 travel sketches and short stories in addition to around 70 books — both fiction and nonfiction. Much of his writing is set in Arkansas, and some of his fiction is still in print. His Arkansas travels, from 1838 to 1842, capture a time when the state was still wild and rugged and the man was still in his 20s.

The gathering will include papers, performances and outings including:

Friday, Oct. 12

Academic Papers: Inn at Carnall Hall

9-10:15 a.m. — Dr. Michael André, moderator

Wolfgang Hochbruck (University of Freiburg) 
River Pirates and Leather Stockings: Gerstäcker and the Adventure Novel

Charles Adams (University of Arkansas) and Christoph Irmscher (Indiana University)
 A New Translation of Gerstaecker' Die Regulatoren in Arkansas

10:30-11:20 a.m. – Louise Hancox, moderator

Nicole Grewling (Washington College) 
Blood Brothers? Germans and Indians in Friedrich Gerstäcker’s Fiction

Michael Pierce (University of Arkansas) 
C.O. Haller and the Rise of Negrophobia among Gerstaecker’s Arkansas Friends

1:30-2:20 p.m. – Chris Harvey, moderator

Robert Cochran (University of Arkansas)
 Gerstäcker and other early Arkansas traveler accounts (Dunbar, Schoolcraft, Nuttall, Featherstonhaugh)

Michael Pfeiffer (Ozark-St. Francis National Forests) 
Clay Tobacco Pipe Production and Distribution in the Journals of Friedrich Gerstäcker

2:30-3:20 p.m. – Jeff Grooms, moderator

Irene Di Maio (Louisiana State University)
Friedrich Gerstäcker--Translator and Translated: Images of "America" for Germany and the United States

Shirley Schuette (Independent scholar, Butler Center,  Little Rock) 
Friedrich Gerstäcker’s Arkansas German friends

3:30-4:20 p.m. – Bart Belaire, moderator

John Pizer (Louisiana State University)
Kineticism vs. Causerie: A Contrastive Analysis of Prose Dialogue in Friedrich Gerstäcker and Theodor Fontane

Kathleen Condray (University of Arkansas)
The Kerl in the Wild West: Sturm und Drang leanings in Gerstäcker’s Die Regulatoren in Arkansas

7 p.m. – Concert, Giffels Auditorium

Clarke Buehling and Sugar on the Floor

Saturday, Oct. 13

9 a.m.-noon

Field visit to Arkansas sites mentioned in Gerstäcker’s writings. 
John Riley of the University of Arkansas and Adam Leslie, a Arkansas State Park Interpreter.

The international symposium is free and open to the public. Call 479-575-5938 for more information or go to http://fulbright.uark.edu/gerstacker.php.