Patrick Nunnally
Patrick Nunnally is a cultural historian whose research, teaching, and consulting practice center on the connections between people and the places they value. "My way of understanding the landscape is cultural," he explains. Nunnally introduces students to this way of perceiving the landscape through his class, Learning from the Landscape. In this course, Nunnally helps students understand why the landscape around us looks the way it does and what that reveals about us.

Nunnally came to his interest in place studies from literature. Nunnally has a master's degree in English and started his academic career as a high school English teacher. His interest in the literary evocation of a sense of place led him back to school and a Ph.D. in American Studies. In explaining his dissertation, Nunnally says "there are places in the world we need to find new ways to talk about." His dissertation analyzed the writings about place of several writers he considers emblematic of the new voices we need.

For over a decade Nunnally has developed a unique practice as a consulting historian. He helped organize and directed a conference, "River of Dreams: The Humanities and the Upper Mississippi River," and has presented his work at numerous academic and professional meetings. Nunnally has worked with public agencies and private firms on many planning projects for culturally sensitive sites. In addition, his writings appear in various history and historic preservation journals.

Nunnally's latest work is a chapter in the book, Grand Geographical Excursions, to be published by the University of Iowa Press. In his chapter, titled "Picturesque Mississippi," Nunnally studies how the participants in the 1854 Grand Excursion, a celebrated trip organized by the railroads to introduce people to the Upper Mississippi, saw the river and it's valley as they traveled by boat from the Quad Cities to Saint Paul. "They were seeing the Picturesque in 1854," Nunnally contends, "and we still see the river this way." The Picturesque view of the river, he continues, is embodied in the region's management plans and design guidelines.

Since 2001, Nunnally has been Executive Director of Mississippi River Trail (MRT), Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to developing and marketing a 10-state, continuous 2000 mile cycling route from the headwaters of the Mississippi at Lake Itasca, Minnesota, along the river to the river's end in Louisiana. The trail already has completed segments in several states, but planning for the Minnesota sections has just begun. Nunnally sees this endeavor as a rich opportunity for student research and projects.