James Postema, Professor of English, Concordia College--Moorhead, Minnesota.
My specialized academic areas include American literature (especially since 1900), Native American literatures (Anishinaabe/Ojibwe and D-Lakota/Sioux), and literary theory. I have also researched and published articles on the Rev. Oscar Elmer[1] and have continued to transcribe the manuscript of Elmer's journal, which includes daily entries for the years 1868-1889. I used Elmer's journal to research and publish an article on Garrison Keillor's use of the Prairie Home Cemetery in the book Lake Wobegon Days.[2]
Lately I've become interested in the history of railways in the United States, which led to work on the Northern Central Railway article, which was woefully in need of expansion and citations.
References
edit- ^ “Unavoidable Failure: Oscar Elmer’s Frontier Mission Work in Sauk Centre, Minnesota, 1869-1871,” The Journal of Presbyterian History, Summer 2004.
- ^ "A Slough Runs Through It”: Colonization, Despair, Garrison Keillor, and the Prairie Home Cemetery,” published in “The River Is a Strong Brown God”: Iconic Places and Characters in 20th Century American Cultures—Selected Papers from an Interdisciplinary Conference, St. Cloud State University, 2008.