Amato to read at Minneota library

Southwest Minnesota State University Professor Emeritus of History Joseph A. Amato will read from his new book, “Buffalo Man: Life of a Boy Giant on the Minnesota River,” at several regional libraries in the coming weeks.

His book has been described as “A zany mix of myths, storytelling, singing, dancing, games and jokes … which introduces the reader to Minnesota’s last giant in a world that has no more room for giants.” Local appearances include:

• Oct. 2, 7 p.m., Tracy Library • Oct. 8, 10 a.m., Ivanhoe Community Center

• Oct. 10, 10 a.m., Cottonwood Community Library

• Oct. 10, 1 p.m., Minneota Library

• Oct. 16, 6:30 p.m., Marshall-Lyon County Library.

All events are free and open to the public, and are funded with money from the Minnesota Arts Cultural Heritage Fund.

In 1969, Amato began teaching at Southwest Minnesota State University (SMSU) in Marshall, Minnesota where he was a founder and chair of the History Department. He taught a range of courses in European intellectual and cultural history and historiography, with a particular interest in the Middle Ages, Renaissance, German, Italian, and French histories and European rural life, as well as taught ethics and introductory social science courses.

Amato has given countless lectures and talks on a variety of subjects in the region, throughout the state, Midwest, and at national conferences.

Reading and speaking a variety of European languages — Italian, French, Russian, Spanish, and German (and some Biblical Greek) — Amato is widely traveled in Western Europe from the British Isles and the Netherlands to southern Italy, Greece, and Sicily.

A known local, regional, and state speaker and innovator in understanding place and the transformation of everyday rural life, in 2003 Amato was honored as a Friend of the Humanities by the Minnesota Humanities Commission and as Prairie Star by the Southwest Minnesota Arts and Council.

He served as an editor and advisor of Historically Speaking, reviewed regularly for the Journal of Social History and Modern Age. Amato won the Minnesota Humanities Prize for Literature in 2005.