MSU Wonderlust forum discusses public lands in the New West
From MSU News Service
Montana State University Wonderlust will host Betsy Gaines Quammen, a Bozeman-based environmental historian, writer and conservationist, for its Friday Forum event on September 11th. “Public Lands in the New West Past and Present: Entitlement, Conflict and Conspiracy,” will take place online from noon to 1:30pm. The event is free and open to the public.
Betsy Gaines Quammen is a Bozeman-based environmental historian, writer and conservationist. She is also an MSU alumna, earning her doctorate in environmental history in 2017.
Quammen will discuss her new book, “American Zion: Cliven Bundy, God and Public Lands in the West,” which explores the 27-year legal battle and land-use war in Bunkerville, Nevada, between the large Bundy family and local, state and federal governments. She will also discuss research for the book and ongoing conspiracy theories and will draw comparisons to the current unrest between the government and the American public.
In “American Zion,” Quammen argues that the Bundys represent an antagonism with the U.S. government that dates back to when adherents of the Church of Latter-day Saints came west, bringing militant beliefs, some legitimate grievances and their certainty of claiming a God-promised homeland they called Zion. She describes the book as a journey through the New West, one still haunted by 19th century white settlement, violence and an enduring sense of entitlement.
Quammen is an MSU alumna who earned her doctorate in environmental history in 2017. She has studied various religious traditions over the years and is fascinated with how religious and cultural views shape relationships to landscape and wildlife. The rural American West, pastoral communities of northern Mongolia and the grasslands of East Africa have been her main areas of interest.
Registration is required. For more information and to register, visit www.montana.edu/wonderlust. Upon registration participants will receive an email with the Webex link and instructions to join the program.
Friday Forums are a partnership between MSU Wonderlust and the Bozeman Public Library Foundation. Wonderlust is a program of Academic Technology and Outreach at MSU. ATO works across the university to support and advance its land-grant mission through unique and innovative opportunities for outreach and engagement. •
