Index of University Press Releases

June 24, 2009

DWU professor publishes essay

Derek Driedger

MITCHELL – An essay by Derek Driedger, professor of English at Dakota Wesleyan University, was recently published in a new book celebrating the works of Willa Cather.

His essay, “The ‘Burden’ of the Prairie?: Studying Willa Cather’s ‘My Antonia’ and Sinclair Ross’s ‘As for Me and My House,’ ” appears in the book “Teaching the Works of Willa Cather,” published by Northwest Missouri State University’s Green Tower Press.

The book contains 19 essays that provide teaching methods for the novels, as well as describing classroom settings ranging from a tribal community college in South Dakota to a high school for performing artists in New York City. The book is dedicated to Susan J. Rosowski, a world-renowned Cather scholar and Adele Hall Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, who died in 2004. Driedger was one of her students, as were several other contributors to the book.

The editors noted Driedger’s essay was particularly useful because it draws on his own teaching experiences. “Professor Driedger’s respect for his students comes through loud and clear. His essay is an outstanding example of literary criticism grounded in real-life experience,” they said.

“Teaching the Works of Willa Cather” is co-edited by Steven B. Shively, associate professor of English at Utah State University, and Virgil Albertini, distinguished emeritus professor of English at Northwest Missouri State University. They are both members of the board of governors of the Willa Cather Foundation and founding co-editors of Teaching Cather, a semi-annual journal.

Willa Cather was born in 1873 in Virginia and moved to Catherton, Webster County, Neb., in 1883, and later moved to Red Cloud. She is best known for her novels, “O Pioneers,” “My Antonia,” and “The Song of the Lark.” She received the Pulitzer Prize in 1923 for “One of Ours.” Cather died in 1947.