Kent Cowgill

Born ≈ 1941 Silver Creek, NE (USA)

In the winter of 2005, Cowgill travels to France for a dual purpose: to discover the French people's "real" views towards America, after Bush's re-election, and also to find out if rural France still brings back memories from past days in America's heartland.
Cowgill's original plan was to revisit six areas: first Normandy at Arromanches, then the southwest region, the Languedoc Province, and finally Burgundy. He actually ends up exploring tinier communities than originally planned. His various encounters and discussions with the inhabitants reveal their struggles to keep their rural life alive against the "Walmarting" of their territory.
Cowgill was also a Chaucer scholar who has also published a humorous novel about fly-fishing, and environmental and cultural commentary. His book Back in Time: Echoes of a Vanished America in the Heart of France was published by Ibis, a French environmentalist press.

Places Lived

Silver Creek, NE
Columbus, NE
Guide Rock, NE
Red Cloud, NE
Lincoln, NE
Winona, MN
Houston County, MN

Author Of

Fiction
Nonfiction

Keywords

Environment; Nature; Cultural History

Education

Ph.D. in Medieval English Literature, 1970, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE

Occupation

Literature Professor, Winona State University, MN

Places Worked

Winona State University, Minnesota

Bibliography

Raising Hackles on Hattie's Fork. 1990.
The Cranberry Trail: Misfits, Drifters, and Dreamers on the Heartland Road. 1996.
Back in Time: Echoes of a Vanished America in the Heart of France. 2007.
Articles in Field and Stream magazine

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