Across the Spectrum: The Interdisciplinary Life and Letters of John G. Neihardt provides an extensive searchable digital archive of Neihardt’s collected professional and personal letters along with previously uncollected essays and reviews. Accompanying interpretative essays provide a contextual framework for the digital archive. When complete, the archive will contain the equivalent of more than 15 standard print volumes of Neihardt's original nonfiction prose writings.
In conjunction with this archive, two new print volumes Neihardt on Science: Selected Essays and Reviews 1913-1938 and Voices and Visions: Selected Letters of John G. Neihardt have been reviewed and approved by the Neihardt Trust. Both of these volumes have been invited for submission to the University of Nebraska Press. Neihardt on Science will bring together in one place, for the first time, a selection of over 200 of Neihardt’s science essays and book reviews on such topics as ecology, evolutionary theory, astronomy, Einsteinian physics, sociology, psychology, ESP, mysticism and futurism. In Voices and Visions, the selected letters will offer a sampling of the range of new insights made available by the digital archive’s collected correspondence regarding Neihardt’s aesthetic philosophy, literary work, professional and personal relationships and home life. Together with the archive and website, we hope that these materials will enrich understanding of Neihardt’s life and works for scholars and general readers for many decades to come.
Across the Spectrum is a significant part of a long-term vision for The Neihardt Projects which - over the next 5-7 years - will also include the development of educational outreach materials, the creation and distribution of an interdisciplinary K-12 curriculum, and related children’s exhibits. These materials will offer educators downloadable interdisciplinary instructional content (pdfs, podcasts, video and music files) developed to Nebraska State Department of Education standards for use in Language Arts, History, Social Studies, Art and Music. Some of these materials will form the basis of portable exhibits for use by schools, libraries, Scout troops, civic groups and American Indian organizations.
Across the Spectrum is edited by Pamela Gossin, Professor of History of Science and Literary Studies and Affiliate Professor of Science Education at the University of Texas at Dallas. An Associate Fellow of the Center for Great Plains Studies, Professor Gossin also serves as the Director of The Neihardt Projects. The archive is under construction in cooperation with and with the support of the Plains Humanities Alliance, the Center for Great Plains Studies and the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
