This show is ostensibly about the Midwest. The culture we create. The culture we consume. The way culture leads to art, to politics, and to history. But the Midwest can be a squishy concept without obvious shape or definition. Jon Lauck hopes to change that through his work contextualizing the overlooked cultural story and influence of the Midwest. He teaches history and political science at the University of South Dakota and is the author of The Good Country: A History of the American Midwest. In this conversation with Tom Knoblauch, Lauck outlines his mission to establish a new historical discourse grounded in fair readings of the American past by locating a middle ground in the center of the country.