Contributors
Fiona Angus currently teaches sociology at MacEwan College in Edmonton, Alberta, after having taught for several years at the University of British Columbia. She obtained her Ph.D. in sociology at the University of British Columbia in 2000. Her doctoral thesis is based on extensive participant-observation research she conducted on a western Canadian carnival, during which she worked as a carny, living and travelling with the carnival over the four western provinces. She continues to conduct research on Canadian carnivals and frequently gives guest lectures on carnival life and culture.
Hugh A. Dempsey is chief curator emeritus of the Glenbow Museum and the author of a number of books on the Canadian West, including Tom Three Persons: Legend of an Indian Cowboy and The Golden Age of the Canadian Cowboy: An Illustrated History. He has been editor of the quarterly Alberta History since 1958. He received the Order of Canada in 1975, and in October 2005 Canada’s National History Society honoured his lifetime achievements with a special centenary award.
Lorry Felske is the coordinator of the Canadian Studies Program in the Faculty of Communication and Culture at the University of Calgary. His research interests focus on the history of local communities, especially their origins, and the social, cultural, economic, and political forces at work in new communities.
Max Foran is a professor in the Faculty of Communication and Culture at the University of Calgary. He has written several books and articles on Calgary’s development and in 2004 published a history of the Alberta beef cattle industry up to 1948. He has just completed a manuscript on the relationship between the City of Calgary and land developers in the post-1945 period of suburban sprawl.
Vern Kimball joined the Calgary Stampede in 1986 and has been chief executive officer of the organization since 2006. Vern played a key role in the design and implementation of the Stampede’s twenty-year development plan, which is focused on transforming Stampede Park into a year-round gathering place for Calgarians and visitors to the city. Vern has M.B.A. and B.A. degrees from the University of Calgary.
Glen Mikkelsen is the author of Never Holler Whoa!: The Cowboys of Chuckwagon Racing and Checkered Courage: Chuckwagon Racing’s Glass Family. For over ten years he has been a feature writer for the Calgary Stampede Rodeo and Grandstand programs. He has also written articles for Western Horseman, Canadian Rodeo News, Canadian Cowboy Country, Alberta History, and Oklahoma City’s National Cowboy Hall of Fame. As an event manager in Prince George, British Columbia, he assists in the planning and production of amateur rodeos and the West of the Rockies Pro Rodeo Finals. For over a decade his family has hosted an annual Calgary Stampede breakfast, bringing horses, roping cowboys, singing cowgirls, and free flapjacks to the suburbs of northern British Columbia!
Frits Pannekoek is president of Athabasca University. He is also an adjunct professor in the Department of History and an adjunct professor in the Faculty of Communication and Culture at the University of Calgary. He has written widely on western Canadian history, heritage studies, digital environments, and information management. He was a founding member of the Calgary Civic Trust and the 2005 winner of the Calgary Stampede Western Legacy Award.
Brian Rusted is an associate professor in the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Communication and Culture. He teaches courses in visual culture, folklore, and performance studies. His recent research on visual culture and the performance of place has appeared in journals such as Cultural Studies, Text and Performance Quarterly, and Visual Studies. As an active volunteer with the Calgary Stampede, Brian has helped coordinate aspects of the annual Western Art Show and has lectured on the history of the Stampede as part of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C.
Tamara Palmer Seiler is a professor and division head of Culture Studies in the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Communication and Culture. She has a Ph.D. in Canadian literature with a particular interest in narratives about immigrant experience in Canada. She has also published books and articles on Alberta history and culture. Although she has spent her adult life in Canada, she was born and raised in the United States and has an academic and personal interest in the North American West.
Robert M. Seiler is an associate professor emeritus in the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Communication and Culture. He has a Ph.D. in English from the University of Liverpool, where he specialized in Victorian studies, and has written three books on the British cultural critic Walter Pater. His research interests include media and cultural studies, with a focus on the social construction of meaning. He is currently completing a book on the history of film exhibition in western Canada.
Donald Wetherell has an M.A. from the University of Saskatchewan and a Ph.D. from Queen’s University. He is a professor and director of the Historical Resources Intern Program at Athabasca University. He is co-author with Irene Kmet of Useful Pleasures: The Shaping of Leisure in Alberta, 1896–1945; Town Life: Main Street and the Evolution of Small Town Alberta, 1880–1947 (named Scholarly Book of the
Year by the Book Publishers Association of Alberta in 1995); and Alberta’s North: A History, 1890–1950 (winner of the Clio Award [Prairies], 2001), among other books. Most recently, he was one of the editors of Alberta Formed – Alberta Transformed, the centennial history of Alberta, and edited Architecture, Town Planning and Community: Selected Writings and Public Talks by Cecil Burgess, 1909–1946. He lives in Calgary.
Aritha van Herk has been an avid spectator of chuckwagon races for thirty years. She is the author of nine books, including five novels and two works of criticism. Her irreverent history of Alberta, Mavericks: An Incorrigible History of Alberta, won the Grant MacEwan Author’s Award and frames the new permanent exhibition at the Glenbow Museum. She is a University Professor and professor of English at the University of Calgary.