The State We’re In: Creative and Critical Approaches to Minnesota History at 150

05/15/2008

Sponsored by Project Logos at Saint John’s University, College of Saint Benedict, Stearns History Museum, Minnesota Historical Society and Minnesota Sesquicentennial Commission

Teachers, scholars and other historians of Minnesota's past will have the opportunity to meet, take stock of what we currently know and what the important questions are that are being or need to be studied during the “Minnesota at 150 Conference” May 28-30 at Saint John’s University, during the Sesquicentennial commemoration of Minnesota's admission to the Union.

The Minnesota at 150 Conference provides an opportunity to note this important anniversary and to think creatively and critically about the nature of the state's past. Among the questions that will be asked (and answered) at the conference include where have we done well, who are "we," and what are the various ways of understanding and knowing ourselves and our past?

The conference offers three days of sessions covering topics as varied as Teaching Minnesota History (using the Web, the land, artifacts, photography and performances); Land Conflicts; Bridges; How Stories are Told; Disasters; Treaties; Wildness and Wilderness; Minnesota Food as History; the Kensington Rune Stone; and State History from both Regional and Local Perspectives. 

On Wednesday, May 28, conference attendees will be visiting the Stearns History Museum in St. Cloud for an evening reception including the presentation “Beer, Bundts and Brats.”  The State We’re In concludes late Friday afternoon, May 30, with a choice of tours of the Art and Heritage Museum at Saint Benedict’s Monastery, St. Joseph; Grasshopper Chapel in Cold Spring, Minn.; and the Marcel Breuer buildings at Saint John’s. 

The opportunity to earn 13 Continuing Education Units will be available for the three-day conference.

Information and registration materials can be found on the CSB/SJU Web site.