Ari Kelman is a historian of the Civil War and Reconstruction, the politics of memory, and Native American history. Author of Battle Lines: A Graphic History of the Civil War andA Misplaced Massacre: Struggling Over the Memory of Sand Creek.

Historians Imagine is a monthly webinar devoted to this dimension of the craft. Patty Limerick and Matthew Jacobson talk with path-breaking historians about the inventiveness and vision of their work, and about the more mysterious aspects of their practices—their imaginative spark and the virtues that lie beyond rigor and out of reach of your typical "how to" manual. These conversations will appeal to professional historians, to be sure, and might offer liberation from the academy's constraints and the disciplining demands of convention. But they will equally engage anyone who is interested in how new stories are made from old materials, and how great storytellers and historical sleuths think to do what they do.

Patty Limerick is the Faculty Director and Chair of the Board at CU Boulder's Center of the American West. Matthew Frye Jacobson is William Robertson Coe Professor of American Studies and History at Yale. He is the author of seven books on race, politics, and culture in the United States.

In a time when many friendships have crashed on the rocks of political division, Dick Wadhams, former chair of the Colorado Republican Party, and Patty Limerick, Faculty Director of the Center of the American West, have maintained a steady tie of mutual respect. Drawing on years of finding each other's thoughts to be always worthy of consideration (and, every now and then, worthy of a stiff challenge!), Wadhams and Limerick invited the public into their conversation. They explored topics ranging from the reasons for the intensity of bitter partnership to controversies over historical monuments. At the center of their exchange they identified the issues where conservatives and liberals genuinely disagree and to call attention to the areas where they might find common ground. "You and I ought not to die," John Adams and Thomas Jefferson said to each other, "before We have explained ourselves to each other." In endorsing this principle, Wadhams and Limerick (who are, thankfully, both in good health) are honored to align themselves with a great American tradition.

Patty Limerick, director of the Center of the American West, and Jennifer Ho, director of the Center for Humanities & the Arts, talked about what it means to disagree. The partisan politics and extreme divisiveness of our current society have made many of us wary about entering into provocative subjects. How do we maintain unity when we confront divided opinions? How can we respect one another while vehemently debating topics we feel passionate about? Is it possible to separate the person from the provocation? Patty and Jennifer discussed all of this throughout the dialogue (and for many years to come!), modeling civil disagreement, robust curiosity about one another’s positions, and respectful friendship. Co-sponsored by the Center for Humanities & the Arts.

The Center of the American West has teamed up with the CU Latinx Law Students to orchestrate a virtual event, bringing two noted scholars of immigration into a consequential conversation with Congressman Joe Neguse, representing Colorado's Second District. The goal was ambitious: to lay out terms that will position these knowledgeable scholars as allies and teammates of a dedicated public servant who is committed to finding solutions and resolutions to one of the nation's most challenging issues. Here were the bedrock questions for this discussion: a) If Congress were to prove able to reform immigration policy in a post-election arrangement of authority, what should be the top priorities for such reform? b) What are the most beneficial ways to mobilize historical understanding to improve the quality of public discussion of immigration and to guide national legislators as they deliberate? c) What are the most notable mistaken impressions of the roles played by immigrants in the nation, and what are the most effective channels of communication for correcting those misapprehensions?

The Center of the American West has teamed up with the CU Latinx Law Students to orchestrate a virtual event, bringing two noted scholars of immigration into a consequential conversation with Congressman Joe Neguse, representing Colorado's Second District. The goal was ambitious: to lay out terms that will position these knowledgeable scholars as allies and teammates of a dedicated public servant who is committed to finding solutions and resolutions to one of the nation's most challenging issues. Here were the bedrock questions for this discussion: a) If Congress were to prove able to reform immigration policy in a post-election arrangement of authority, what should be the top priorities for such reform? b) What are the most beneficial ways to mobilize historical understanding to improve the quality of public discussion of immigration and to guide national legislators as they deliberate? c) What are the most notable mistaken impressions of the roles played by immigrants in the nation, and what are the most effective channels of communication for correcting those misapprehensions?

Lunch with Limerick is a one-hour virtual lunch-time series where Patty Limerick interviews a range of guests on current issues and a variety of topics relevant to the West and beyond.

For decades, the Postal Service held the contradictory roles of the most taken-for-granted federal agency and the federal agency with the most consistent impact on the daily lives of Americans. In 2020, the pandemic and the impending presidential election completely overthrew that "taken-for-granted" part. Concerns that in-person voting would enhance the spread of Covid-19 led to a widespread recognition that mail ballots could offer protection and safety. At that point, political polarization and divisiveness of the nation placed the funding and efficiency of the Post Office at the center of the nation’s attention.

In hundreds of American communities, post offices have been centers of socializing and communication. In that same spirit, the Center of the American West turned out to be the place of convergence for people equipped with great insight on the centrality of the Post Office in civic life. As Oregon Secretary of State in the 1990s, Phil Keisling led the movement that made Oregon the first state to shift entirely to voting by mail in 1998. Keisling is the Chair of the Board of Vote at Home, an organization now playing a crucial role in deliberations and decisions nationwide on voting by mail. On another track entirely, a graduate student named Cameron Blevins wrote his dissertation at Stanford on the enormous impact of the U.S. Postal Service on westward expansion in the nineteenth century.

As an undergraduate at Yale University in the 1970s, Phil Keisling endured Patty Limerick's endless comments on his papers. Forty years later, Cameron Blevins endured pages and pages of Limerick's commentary as he revised his dissertation into the forthcoming book, Paper Trails: The U.S. Post and the Making of the American West.

Without the Center of the American West, Keisling and Blevins would never have met. In a prime demonstration of the Center’s status as a place of improbable—but actually very logical!—convening, Keisling, the practitioner and Blevins the scholar got together with Patty Limerick, to unite their understandings of the many meanings of the U.S. Post Office.

Lunch with Limerick is a one-hour virtual lunch-time series where Patty Limerick interviews a range of guests on current issues and a variety of topics relevant to the West and beyond.

In 2020, only a pathologically cheerful individual could say that the United States is a nation in a state of health. Between the malady of the coronavirus and the affliction of divisive polarization, the current state of affairs puts a premium on the chance to talk with an accomplished historian of American attitudes toward health and disease. A professor at Boston College, Conevery Valencius teaches courses on environmental history and the history of science and medicine. In her book, The Health of the Country: How American Settlers Understood Themselves and Their Land, Professor Valencius uncovers a close tie between the ways that mid-nineteenth-century Americans understood the landscapes and communities where they settled, and the ways they thought about their own bodies. Her conversation with Patty Limerick did not deliver a comprehensive diagnosis of the nation's condition, but proposed new interpretations and raised insightful questions addressing ideas about health and disease that many Americans now take for granted. And matching up to local issues, Professor Valencius is currently working on a book about the science of induced seismology (a.k.a. earthquakes!) and hydraulic fracturing.

Lunch with Limerick is a one-hour virtual lunch-time series where Patty Limerick interviews a range of guests on current issues and a variety of topics relevant to the West and beyond.

In 2020, reasons for gloom over the state of American governance are in over-supply. People looking for a remedy for that despair may wonder where to turn. On September 25, when Patty Limerick interviewed Jim Ogsbury, the Executive Director of the Western Governors Association (WGA), the Center offered one such remedy. In a time of intense polarization and divisiveness, the Western Governors Association has charted a distinctive course in confronting serious problems and steering clear of the traps set by antagonism, grandstanding, and acrimony. In the words of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, "the states are the laboratories of democracy," and Mr. Ogsbury has been an influential figure in those arenas of experimentation. Qualities and practices prized by the Center of the American West— robust humor and lively story-telling were featured elements of Jim Ogsbury's comments and reflections, since they have been central to the commitment to problem-solving shared by the Western Governors, who, true to their home region, turn out to be colorful characters!

Lunch with Limerick is a one-hour virtual lunch-time series where Patty Limerick interviews a range of guests on current issues and a variety of topics relevant to the West and beyond.

In a conversation with Center Faculty Director Patty Limerick, business turnaround artist Gus Halas offered stories and insights drawn from the years he has spent observing the capacity of human beings to stop short of the brink of calamity. He lead us on a searching exploration of our nation's dilemmas and an appraisal of the craft of leadership required to address those dilemmas.

Mr. Halas has the temperament, experience, and insight to provide a fresh and illuminating perspective on the condition of the United States in 2020.

Moreover, his personal history gives him a grounded view of American ideals and the promise of this nation; he came to the United States as an 11-year-old, when his home country of Greece was in a very troubled state. If you ever wondered why the term is "turnaround artist," instead of "turnaround operator" or "turnaround mechanic," you’ll fully understand that word choice after listening to Gus talk with Patty.

The Colorado Scientific Society, in collaboration with the Center of the American West, presents Water & Energy in Colorado. The four-day virtual symposium, hosted by the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, focused on the science and cultural issues at the interface between water and energy in Colorado. Moderated by Patty Limerick, water and energy specialists together with insightful commentators on Colorado’s present challenges and future opportunities, highlighted some of the most important issues facing our community today and in the future. The emphasis will center on science that frames these topics, but also will incorporate cultural contexts and identify common ground and collaborative opportunities.