The Richards Center and Dr. Christina Snyder, McCabe Greer Professor in the American Civil War Era, will host the second annual Many Wests manuscript workshop on March 21 and 22 at the Nittany Lion Inn. This workshop is part of the Many Wests book series published by the University of Nebraska Press. The series publishes works on environmental, indigenous, borderlands, gender, social, public, and legal history of the American West. Dr. Snyder serves as one of the editors of the series.

This year’s workshop features Traci Brynne Voyles, Associate Professor and Chair of Women’s and Gender Studies at Loyal Marymount University. She will deliver a public talk, Bound for the Sky: California’s Salton Sea, Settler Colonialism, and New Environmental Histories of Disaster on Thursday, March 21, 4:00 p.m., in the Nittany Lion Inn’s Boardroom I. The talk will offer a unique perspective on the consequences of environmental disasters. It explores the accidental creation of southern California’s Salton Sea over 100 years ago, which ultimately enabled agricultural development in the region. Dr. Voyles will examine how settler colonial and white supremacist power structures turned this environmental calamity to profit. A workshop for Dr. Voyles’s book manuscript will follow on Friday, March 22.

For more information, or to register for the event, please contact the Richards Center at RichardsCenter@psu.edu. Attendees must register by March 13.