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Author Spurgeon, Sara L

Title Exploding the Western : myths of empire on the postmodern frontier / Sara L. Spurgeon
Edition 1st ed
Published College Station : Texas A & M University Press, ©2005

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Description 1 online resource (x, 168 pages)
Series Tarleton State University southwestern studies in the humanities ; no. 19
Tarleton State University southwestern studies in the humanities ; no. 19.
Contents Foundation of Empire: The Sacred Hunter and the Eucharist of the Wilderness in Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian -- "Pledged in Blood": Truth and Redemption in Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses -- "The Acts of Their Own Hands": Borders, Otherness, and Identity in Cormac McCarthy's The Crossing -- Decolonizing Imperialism: Captivity Myths and the Postmodern World in Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony -- Sanctioned Narratives and the (Non)Innocent Triumph of the Savage War: Mythic Co-Dependence in Leslie Marmon Silko's Almanac of the Dead -- Necessary Difference: The Creation of a Chicana Utopia in Ana Castillo's So Far from God
Summary The frontier and Western expansionism are so quintessentially a part of American history that the literature of the West and Southwest is in some senses the least regional and the most national literature of all. The frontier--the place where cultures meet and rewrite themselves upon each other's texts--continues to energize writers whose fiction evokes, destroys, and rebuilds the myth in ways that attract popular audiences and critics alike. Sara L. Spurgeon focuses on three writers whose works not only exemplify the kind of engagement with the theme of the frontier that modern authors make, but also show the range of cultural voices that are present in Southwestern literature: Cormac McCarthy, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Ana Castillo. Her central purposes are to consider how the differing versions of the Western "mythic" tales are being recast in a globalized world and to examine the ways in which they challenge and accommodate increasingly fluid and even dangerous racial, cultural, and international borders. In Spurgeon's analysis, the spaces in which the works of these three writers collide offer some sharply differentiated visions but also create new and unsuspected forms, providing the most startling insights. Sometimes beautiful, sometimes tragic, the new myths are the expressions of the larger culture from which they spring, both a projection onto a troubled and troubling past and an insistent, prophetic vision of a shared future
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL
English
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Subject American literature -- West (U.S.) -- History and criticism
American literature -- Southwestern States -- History and criticism
American literature -- 20th century -- History and criticism
Western stories -- History and criticism
Postmodernism (Literature) -- West (U.S.)
Frontier and pioneer life in literature.
Imperialism in literature.
LITERARY CRITICISM -- American -- General.
American literature
Frontier and pioneer life in literature
Imperialism in literature
Intellectual life
Literature
Postmodernism (Literature)
Western stories
Literatur
Westernliteratur
Gesellschaft
Pionniers -- Dans la littérature.
Littérature américaine -- Thèmes, motifs.
Littérature américaine -- Histoire et critique.
Westerns (littérature) -- Histoire et critique.
SUBJECT Southwestern States -- Intellectual life -- 20th century
West (U.S.) -- Intellectual life -- 20th century
Southwestern States -- In literature
West (U.S.) -- In literature
Subject United States -- Southwestern States
West United States
USA -- Südweststaaten
États-Unis (ouest) -- dans la littérature.
Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2004020778
ISBN 9781603445924
1603445927
1585444227
9781585444229
1299052614
9781299052611