The West and the Word
About this book
Western expansion in North America has mainly been described as either a linear sequence energized by nineteenth-century nation-building processes at a moving frontier, or as the practice of settler colonialism and its exploitation of resources and displacement of nonwhite peoples. This book suggests that shifting the focus from this binary pattern towards spatial imaginations and spatialization processes—a new theoretical framework developed at SFB 1199—provides novel insights into the placemaking dynamics of the American West. It brings to light a discursive diversity that often contradicts unidirectional interpretive patterns. It becomes clear that while some discourses solidified into spatial metanarratives like the character-shaping clash of civilizations at the frontier or manifest destiny, alternative spatial imaginations exist juxtaposed to or obfuscated by canonical interpretations. Making use of a variety of sources (including works of literature, poetry, newspapers, paintings, and speeches) to access spatialization processes on several sociocultural scales, the book presents a careful exploration of the parameters that inform(ed) the creation, affirmation, and subversion of spatial imagination of the American West throughout the nineteenth century from the perspective of American Studies.
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Topics
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Frontmatter
I -
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On the Series
V -
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Acknowledgements
IX -
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Contents
XI -
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Abstract
XIII -
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Introduction: Imagining the American West
1 -
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Historical Background: The West and the World
19 -
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Methods and Theories: Doing Over Geography
47 -
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Spatialization Processes: Towards a New Language of Space in Literary and Cultural Studies
57 -
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Chapter 1: Integrating the Old Northwest through Utopian, Regionalist, Feminist, and Local Colour Discourse
67 -
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Chapter 2: The Incommensurable West between Integration and Separation
139 -
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Conclusion: Reimagining the American West
261 -
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List of Abbreviations
267 -
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List of Figures
269 -
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Bibliography
271 -
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Index
291
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