Evelyn Funda Featured on Czechast Podcast

Evelyn Funda, retired professor of English and American Studies at USU, has recently shared her extensive knowledge about Willa Cather and Cather’s Bohemian (Czech) characters on the podcast Czechast. Sponsored by Radio Prague International and broadcast in English, the podcast is created for Czechs and those interested in Czech society, history, and culture. 

One episode centered on Cather’s seminal novel My Antonia and Cather’s connection to immigrants and her take that these immigrants contributed much to American society. Cather’s exposure to immigrants, Evelyn insists, helped her to see and understand the broader world. Evelyn’s mother was from Moravia and her name was Antonia, so Evelyn was immediately connected to Cather after reading “Neighbor Rosicky,” a short story that is actually a sort of sequel to My Antonia. 

Another episode focused on Evelyn’s own beautiful memoir Weeds: A Farm Daughter’s Lament, in which Evelyn shares her own family’s experiences immigrating to a farm two miles from the very small town of Emmett, Idaho, northwest of Boise. Evelyn grew up an only child in a remodeled sheep-herder’s shack home as a “country kid” who spoke Czech, and who has admitted to feeling like a “really dumb farm girl” early on, which strikes her former students and colleagues as funny because she’s so very smart and a brilliant writer, as Weeds testifies. Evelyn discusses her own family’s giving up their language, their lodge, and the Americanization they experienced.  

Evelyn arrived at USU in 1995 to teach American Literature/Studies. She has published widely on Willa Cather, focusing on the writer’s interests in oral narratives/performance theory as well as Czech culture. Additionally, her book Weeds: A Farm Daughter’s Lament is an award-winning cultural memoir. Her interest in agrarian literature is evidenced in her co-authorship of Farm: A Multimodal Reader. Deeply involved in graduate education during her tenure — on the departmental, college, and university level — she won awards for her service from USU (Graduate Mentor of 2014) and the Western Literature Association (Outstanding Teaching and Mentoring award in 2014). She retired in 2021 after serving as Associate Dean in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences and Director of the Mountain West Center for Regional Studies.  

In retirement, she continues an active research agenda with continued work on a book about Willa Cather’s engagement with Czech people and culture. She also serves on the Board of Directors for the Czechoslovak Genealogical Society International, and she writes for their quarterly magazine and presents at their international conferences on Czech cultural topics and writing family history inspired by heirlooms and artifacts.