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WORK TITLE: Great Plains Literature
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1943?
WEBSITE:
CITY:
STATE: NE
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY:
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born c. 1943.
EDUCATION:Florida Southern College, B.A., 1965; Emory University, Ph.D., 1968.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Author. University of Nebraska-Lincoln, English Department Chair; University of Nebraska, Provost and Executive Vice President, 2006-2012, Professor Emeritus, 2014–.
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, interim College of Arts & Sciences Dean. Leader of Midwest Higher Education Compact, the University of Nebraska Graduate College, EPSCOR, Nebraska Research Initiative, University of Nebraska Programs of Excellence, Nebraska P-16 Initiative, Buffett Early Childhood Institute, and Online Worldwide.
MEMBER:Association of Departments of English (president), American Association of University Professors (president).
AWARDS:James A. Lake Academic Freedom Award; Distinguished Teaching Award.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Linda Ray Pratt, also known as Dr. Linda Ray Pratt, is mainly affiliated with the University of Nebraska. She spent several years serving as the school’s Provost and Executive Vice President, before resigning from the position in the year 2012. From that point forward, she returned to leading classes in her main subject of expertise: English. Prior to starting her academic career, Pratt attended Emory University and Florida Southern College, earning her bachelor’s degree at the latter and her doctorate at the former. Pratt has obtained numerous awards through her work, including a James A. Lake Academic Freedom Award and a Distinguished Teaching Award. Pratt retired from her teaching career in the year 2014. She has penned several books, such as Matthew Arnold Revisited, and also contributed an afterword to Meridel Le Sueur’s I Hear Men Talking and Other Stories: Stories of the Early Decades.
Great Plains Literature is another one of Pratt’s books. As the title explains, the book focuses on the various works of literature written by authors from the Great Plains region of the United States—or, more specifically, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota. Pratt discusses the life and works of numerous authors from this area, from Mari Sandoz to John Steinbeck, as well as how the history of the region came to affect the authors’ works.
Much of the works Pratt discusses center on race relations within the area, as well as its geography and the changes White settlement brought to the land. Much of the race-related discussion featured within the book also centers around White settlement and its effects. As much of the literature Pratt covers illustrates, numerous Native American communities were displaced by the settlement of White Americans, which in turn created several ripple effects. Some of the works Pratt discusses go on to depict these ripple effects from the points of view of the Native Americans themselves, including such noteworthy figures as Black Elk (as portrayed in “Black Elk Speaks,” a story by John G. Neihardt.) Tensions also existed between the African-American and White American communities, as another of the stories Pratt focuses on—“Fire in Beulah,” by Rilla Askew—deals with rioting and racial violence.
Some of the stories Pratt examines are less political in nature. The Great Plains landscape transformed just as much as its people, with many of the landscape changes being caused by its people, either directly or indirectly. For instance, at certain points in history, the land endures extensive harm as a result of citizens looking to colonize there, as well as the natural effects of drought and other conditions. Some of the stories Pratt talks about take a magnifying lens to the effects the changes in climate and the overall condition of the land left on the people residing there. In addition, many of the authors featured in Great Plains Literature also delve into the disparity between socio economic classes residing in the area, as well as the resulting effects.
Overall, Great Plains Literature is meant to expose readers to the greater diaspora of authors who resided in and experienced life within the Great Plains all across history. Pratt looks not just at the works of the author’s themselves, but also how their own points of view came to shape their work and the types of storylines they chose to depict. One Publishers Weekly contributor remarked: “Pratt’s study is a worthwhile introduction to a body of literature perhaps not as well-known as it should be.” On the San Francisco Book Review website, Ryder Miller wrote: “Linda Ray Pratt, emeritus professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, does a flawless job of bringing this literature and its authors to life.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Publishers Weekly, January 15, 2018, review of Great Plains Literature, p. 52.
ONLINE
Collaborative Brain Trust, https://www.collaborativebraintrust.com/ (August 5, 2013), author profile.
San Francisco Book Review, https://sanfranciscobookreview.com/ (May 1, 2018), Ryder Miller, review of Great Plains Literature.
University of Nebraska website, https://nebraska.edu/ (June 8, 2012), Bob Whitehouse, “Resolution of Recognition – Dr. Linda Ray Pratt,” author profile.
Executive Vice President and Provost, UNCA
Resolution of Recognition – Dr. Linda Ray Pratt
Pictured: Regent McClurg, Linda Pratt, President Milliken and Regent Whitehouse
WHEREAS, Dr. Linda Ray Pratt has served as Executive Vice President and Provost of the University of Nebraska since 2006; and
WHEREAS, she has had a distinguished academic career, including service as Professor and Chair of the English Department and interim Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln; and
WHEREAS, through her focus on high quality academic programs, her commitment to collaboration and her keen eye for talent she has built a valued and respected Office of the Provost; and
WHEREAS, as Provost Dr. Pratt has provided valued leadership for a broad range of academic endeavors including the Graduate College, the Nebraska Research Initiative, the Nebraska P-16 Initiative, Online Worldwide, the Buffett Early Childhood Institute, University-wide Programs of Excellence, EPSCOR and the Midwest Higher Education Compact; and
WHEREAS, she has provided guidance and support to international engagement activities in nations of strategic importance to the University; and
WHEREAS, she has been recognized and honored by her colleagues as President of the American Association of University Professors, President of the Association of Departments of English, and as the recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award and the James A. Lake Academic Freedom Award; and
WHEREAS, Dr. Pratt has been a trusted advisor to the President and Board, a successful advocate with donors, and a formidable political opponent for certain of her colleagues; and
WHEREAS, Dr. Pratt will retire as Provost and return to teaching effective June 30, 2012,
NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska extends its thanks and congratulations to Dr. Linda Pratt for her leadership, vision, service and passion for the academic community; and that the Board extends its best wishes to Dr. Pratt as she returns to the classroom and continues to “light tomorrow with today.”
Accepted by acclamation June 8, 2012
Presented by Regent Bob Whitehouse
Linda Ray Pratt
Professor of English at University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Greater Omaha Area
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University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Emory University
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Experience
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Professor of English Emeritus
Company NameUniversity of Nebraska-Lincoln
Dates EmployedSep 2014 – Present Employment Duration3 yrs 10 mos
LocationUniversity of Nebraska
I retired August 2014 from UNL. I am currently involved with writing a book.
University of Nebraska
Executive vice President and Provost
Company NameUniversity of Nebraska
Dates EmployedJul 2006 – Aug 2012 Employment Duration6 yrs 2 mos
Academics and Students
Education
Emory University
Emory University
Degree NameDoctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) Field Of StudyEnglish Language and Literature/Letters
Dates attended or expected graduation 1965 – 1968
Florida Southern College
Florida Southern College
Degree NameBachelor of Arts (BA)
Dates attended or expected graduation 1961 – 1965
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articles and books on literature; articles on higher education
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Pratt, Dr. Linda Ray
Pratt Photo, c. 2012
Dr. Linda Ray Pratt was Executive Vice President and Provost for the four-campus system of the University of Nebraska from 2006-12. The four campuses include UN-Lincoln, a Research I institution, UN-Omaha, an urban campus with Carnegie research status, UN-Kearney, with an emphasis on undergraduate education, and the UN-Medical Center in Omaha. As Provost, Dr. Pratt was also Dean of the Graduate College for the NU system As Executive Vice President and Provost, Dr. Pratt worked extensively on a wide range of academic issues, including research priorities, proposed new academic degrees, budget planning, and graduate education. Her office supervised Institutional Research and Nebraska Online Worldwide.
Dr. Pratt has published frequently on issues in higher education and held national offices. In 1992 she was elected President of the American Association of University Professors.
AUGUST 5, 2013
Great Plains Literature
Publishers Weekly. 265.3 (Jan. 15, 2018): p52.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Great Plains Literature
Linda Ray Pratt. Bison, $14.95 trade paper (174p) ISBN 978-0-8032-9070-9
Pratt (Matthew Arnold Revisited), a professor emeritus of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, provides a well-informed, if overly brief, introduction to the literature of the Great Plains, an area she defines with some precision: "Minnesota, Iowa, and Missouri are not the Great Plains; the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Kansas are." Her survey includes discussions of writers well-known (Willa Cather, John Steinbeck) and less so (Zitkala Sa, Mari Sandoz), and touches on the dispossession of Native Americans (John G. Neihardt's Black Elk Speaks), the Tulsa race riot of 1921 (Rilla Askew's Fire in Beulah), and class relations and political corruption (Sandoz's Capital City), among other subjects. Pratt values historical accuracy; she cautions that Cather must be read carefully to "see in her novels of the West what was once there that is lost, as well as what was never there at all," while Lois Phillips Hudson's Bones or Plenty is praised for its unflinching realism, and even Ole Rolvaag's Peder Victorious is forgiven for its "tedious" account of schism within the Lutheran church ("it is an important part of the story of settlement and assimilation"). Pratt finishes with a discussion of contemporary Plains writers, including novelist Louise Erdrich and poet Ted Kooser. Pratt's study is a worthwhile introduction to a body of literature perhaps not as well-known as it should be. (Mar.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Great Plains Literature." Publishers Weekly, 15 Jan. 2018, p. 52. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A523888931/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=1bd8d412. Accessed 4 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A523888931
Great Plains Literature
We rated this book:
$14.95
Great Plains Literature is a fascinating introduction to the literary life west of Kansas City, spreading north and south to parts as far as Alberta and New Mexico (regional map included). Linda Ray Pratt, emeritus professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, does a flawless job of bringing this literature and its authors to life. There is something here for everybody, with coverage of classical writers like Ole Edvart Rolvaag and Willa Cather as well as their predecessors and contemporary writers. One will find here writers from the region that they might not have heard of but who should be on the reading list; the book is full of pleasant surprises for those who are serious about understanding this place.
Pratt is contemporary and sensitive with concerns about environmentalism, ie., drought and habitat damage, but more focus is on the effect that white settlement had on the indigenous peoples and the area’s not widely known struggles with racism. This has been exacerbated by the region becoming more urban, leaving fewer people on the farms, which are facing heightened problems caused by climate change. There is attention to the tales of native Americans with remembrances of Black Elk, N. Scott Momaday, and John Neihardt, who helped them tell their tales. The story moves forward and backward in time and place in Pratt’s moving treatment.
editor
Chris Hayden been working at City Book Review since 2012, so that makes him the keeper of knowledge. He manages the office and book reviewers (all 200 of them!), which is no small feat. If you’re looking at the book reviews here, you’re seeing them because he sent the books out for review. Without him, this place would fall apart, because no one else in the office knows how to use the postage machine. Two words: job security.
Reviewed By: Ryder Miller
Author Linda Ray Pratt
Star Count 4.5/5
Format Trade
Page Count 174 pages
Publisher Bison Books
Publish Date 2018-Mar-01
ISBN 9780803290709
Amazon Buy this Book
Issue May 2018
Category History