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Landscapes of the New West: Gender and Geography in Contemporary Women's Writing (Cultural Studies of the United States) - Hardcover
In the early 1970s, empowered by the civil rights and women's movements, a new group of women writers began speaking to the American public. Their topic, broadly defined, was the postmodern American West. By the mid-1980s, their combined works made for a bona fide literary groundswell in both critical and commercial terms. However, as Krista Comer notes, despite the attentions of publishers, the media, and millions of readers, literary scholars have rarely addressed this movement or its writers.Too many critics, Comer argues, still enamored of western images that are both masculine and antimodern, have been slow to reckon with the emergence of a new, far more ""feminine,"" postmodern, multiracial, and urban west. Here, she calls for a redesign of the field of western cultural studies, one that engages issues of gender and race and is more self-conscious about space itself - especially that cherished symbol of western ""authenticity,"" open landscape. Surveying works by Joan Didion, Wanda Coleman, Maxine Hong Kingston, Leslie Marmon Silko, Barbara Kingsolver, Pam Houston, Louise Erdrich, Sandra Cisneros, and Mary Clearman Blew, Comer shows how these and other contemporary women writers have mapped new geographical imaginations upon the cultural and social spaces of today's American West.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Review:
Extensively explores the element of landscape--the single most unifying factor in all writing of the West.
Synopsis:
"Library Journal"
"Comer splendidly integrates urban geography, ethnic studies, feminist studies, and literary detail.
Jose David Saldivar, University of California, Berkeley"
"Truly indispensable to scholars working with the literature of the American West, American studies, environmental theory, and feminist criticism.
"Western American Literature""
"Especially in its reckoning with race and with dreams of the wilderness, this book makes you think, and think with freshness.
Patricia Nelson Limerick, University of Colorado at Boulder"
Comer splendidly integrates urban geography, ethnic studies, feminist studies, and literary detail.
Jose David Saldivar, University of California, Berkeley
Truly indispensable to scholars working with the literature of the American West, American studies, environmental theory, and feminist criticism.
"Western American Literature"
Especially in its reckoning with race and with dreams of the wilderness, this book makes you think, and think with freshness.
Patricia Nelson Limerick, University of Colorado at Boulder
Comer has established the richness of an evolving Western literature.
"Women s Review of Books"
A call for the redesign of Western cultural studies - one that engages issues of gender and race. Surveying work by writers such as Joan Didion and Wanda Coleman, it shows how they have mapped new geographical imaginations upon the cultural and social spaces of today's American West.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherThe University of North Carolina Press
- Publication date1999
- ISBN 10 0807824852
- ISBN 13 9780807824856
- BindingHardcover
- Number of pages312
- Rating
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