Online Professional Development Seminars for History and Literature Teachers

Buffalo Bill, American Idol
An AMERICAN EXPERIENCE Seminar

External/Outbound link to PBS American Experience home page.

Date: Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2010

Time: 7:00-8:30 p.m. (EST)

Registration Deadline: Nov. 2, 2010

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Between 1883 and 1916, Buffalo Bill's Wild West—an extravaganza of riding, roping, shooting, Indian attacks, and stage coach robberies—gave audiences throughout the world an image of the American West so vivid that, for millions both here and abroad, it became the American West. In the process William F. Cody, Buffalo Bill, established himself as one of, if not the, most famous American of his era. How did he achieve his fame? Why were audiences so captivated by his shows? How did he define the West? Built around the AMERICAN EXPERIENCE historical documentary film Buffalo Bill, this seminar will explore themes that illuminate American life in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and that still resonate today, themes like the rise of mass entertainment, the creation of celebrity, the power of popular culture, and the role of the West in American national identity.

Leader: Joy Kasson, Professor of American Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; National Humanities Center Fellow

Click here to register for this seminar.