PULLMAN, Wash. – In popular culture, connections between the American West and Italy rarely extend beyond the Italian “spaghetti Westerns” of the 1960s. But the idea of the American frontier has influenced Italy since the late 19th century.
Renée Laegreid, a professor of history at the University of Wyoming, will discuss three waves of western American influences on Italy and how Italians have used that mythology for their own personal, political and financial purposes. She will speak at 4 p.m. Wednesday, March 25, in Butch’s Den, CUB L60.
Her research specializes in the history of the American West, with a focus on gender and culture in the late 19th to mid-20th century. Her projects involve cultural and social analysis of western iconography, examining how symbols of the West have been created and shaped over time and across international boundaries.
Laegreid is the author of “Riding Pretty: Rodeo Royalty in the American West” (2006), and co-editor of “Women on the North American Plains” (2011) and “Finding the American West in Twenty-First-Century Italy,” Western Historical Quarterly (Autumn 2014). Her talk will be based on research for her current book project.