One of my ancestors on my dad’s side was an Indian princess. Well, sort of. If you know me I know that I’m a rigorist in these matters. There are no Indian princesses because the “Indians” didn’t have royal families. And, the vast majority of these claims are hokum anyway. But Catoneras is one of…
Author: Justin Durand
Can People Have Names?
Yesterday’s post about names as performance got me to thinking. Somewhere on the periphery of memory I seemed to recall a paper about a medieval debate whether people can have names. And, sure enough, I found it: Rachel Anna Bauder. Naming Particulars: A Thirteenth-Century Debate on Whether Individuals Have Proper Names. PhD Dissertation, University of…
Name Performance
Are names performative? That’s a new idea for me. I came across it while reading a book by Abu El-Haj about the politics of Israeli archeology: The author “specifies for the first time the relationship between national ideology, colonial settlement, and the production of historical knowledge. She analyzes particular instances of history, artifacts, and landscapes in…
Garden Church of Eden
I always loved the Episcopalian church in Eden, Wyoming but I always thought it was called Garden Church of Eden. Guess not. I did a Google search and quickly found it’s really called Oregon Trail Memorial Church. I wonder if the name might have changed. My grandparents Harry Swanstrom and Vivian (Luce) Swanstrom didn’t belong…
Farson History
Here’s a brief article about the history of the Eden Valley. Staff Writer. “Eden Valley Wyoming; An Early History.” Wyo4News <wyo4news.com>. Nov. 5, 2017, retrieved Jan. 2, 2020. “The majority of the settlers came into the Valley in 1907 when a large scale irrigation project under the provision of the Carey Act funded by John…