T26S-116 The American Southwest
Tulsa | Available (Membership Required)
The American Southwest" covers a badly defined area that includes at least five states and is more diverse than most people think. We will start with tectonic plates and geology, cover environment and ecology, and then bring in the humans. Native American, from distant pre-history and from numerous tribes that exist today will appear as hunters, gatherers, and fine agriculturalists, followed by Spanish colonizers and missions, Anglo traders and trappers, railroads and artists, tourists and retirees, and more. We will also look at the stress on natural resources, particularly water, and more. We will compress millions of years of geological and environmental history, and at least 25,000 years of human history, into an eight-hour course. Along the way you'll see images of geology, living things, Mimbres pottery and Navajo weavings, Hohokam canals, deep mines, over-large metropolises, and an amazingly beautiful land.
Dr. James Showalter
Dr. James Showalter was raised in New York, Ohio, and Illinois. He holds a BA from Maryville College in Tenn., an MA from Northern Arizona University, and a PhD from OSU. He was the first curator and restorationist for the Oklahoma Historical Society of Old Central, the oldest building on the OSU campus. He taught 30 years at Langston University and one year at Southwestern University in Weatherford. He is a photographer, hiker, and carpenter and loves the West and his 1920 bungalow, which he’s renovating. He has taught about 20 or more classes for Osher.