15th International Willa Cather Seminar

please register each attendee individually.

Fragments of Desire: Cather and the Arts

Hosted by the Willa Cather Foundation and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Cather Project

"It had come all the way; when men lived in caves, it was there. A vanished race; but along the trails, in the stream, under the spreading cactus, there still glittered in the sun the bits of their frail clay vessels, fragments of their desire."

This year’s conference is striking out into new territory to

combine both the Cather Foundation’s annual Spring Conference

and the International Cather Seminar. This Seminar focuses on

Cather in her interdisciplinary contexts, particularly the fields of

performance (theater and music) and the visual arts. Cather was

in many ways a cultural critic, with wide and varied passions for

her favored painters, musicians and singers. The Seminar will explore

— in paper sessions, plenary panels and unique performances —

this complex world of art forms. We are particularly pleased

that Jules Breton’s painting, The Song of the Lark, an inspiration

for the novel of that name, will be on display at the University’s

renowned Sheldon Art Museum during the conference. This

important work is part of an exhibition titled “Cather and the

Visual” and curated by unl’s Lindsay Andrews and Beth Burke.