Postwestern Cultures

Susan Kollin is an associate professor of English at Montana State University and the author of Nature's State: Imagining Alaska as the Last Frontier. Contributors: Michael Beehler, Neil Campbell, Krista Comer, Nancy Cook, Audrey Goodman, Melody Graulich, Susan Kollin, Beth Loffreda, Lee Clark Mitchell, Capper Nichols, David Oates, John Streamas, and Stephen Tatum.

• Contents Acknowledgments  Introduction: Postwestern Studies, Dead or Alive     Susan Kollin Part 1: Newer New Wests 1. Spectrality and the Postregional InterfaceStephen Tatum2. Everyday Regionalisms in Contemporary Critical Practice Krista Comer3. Critical Regionalism, Thirdspace, and John Brinckerhoff Jackson's Western Cultural LandscapesNeil Campbell4. Architecture and the Virtual West in William Gibson's San Francisco Michael Beehler Part 2: Nature and Culture  5. What's Authentic about Western Literature? And, More to the Point, What's Literary? Lee Clark Mitchell6. Some Questions about Sexless Nature WritingDavid Oates7. Backpacking and the Ultralight Solution Capper Nichols8. Survival, Alaska Style Susan Kollin Part 3: Contested Wests 9. Scheduling Idealism in Laramie, Wyoming Beth Loffreda10. Frontier Mythology, Children's Literature, and Japanese American Incarceration John Streamas11. I'm Just a Lonesome Korean Cowgirl; or, Adoption and National Identity    Melody Graulich12. Cultivating Otowi Bridge Audrey Goodman13. The Romance of Ranching; or, Selling Place-Based Fantasies in and of the West  Nancy Cook References Contributors

"Like a showdown in an old western, a meeting between post-prefixed studies and the West was just plain inevitable. Postwestern Cultures stages a version of the event, and anyone interested in the American West ought to study the result."-Daryl W. Palmer, Western Historical Quarterly -- Daryl W. Palmer Western Historical Quarterly "With its multiplicity of approaches Postwestern Cultures works to liberate "the West" from its moorings in place, time, and myth. Its interesting and insightful essays provide ways to construct the region not as a static but as a fluid entity that, like Whitman's iconic American self, "contains multitudes"."-Donna Campbell, Great Plains Quarterly -- Donna Campbell Great Plains Quarterly "This outstanding collection provides not only an overview of the best current scholarship on the West, but also a glimpse of the future of Western Studies."-Darryl Hattenhauer, American Studies -- Darryl Hattenhauer American Studies "This wide-ranging collection of essays is an ambitious demonstration of the New Western Criticism at work."-Geneva M. Gano, Journal of the West -- Geneva M. Gano Journal of the West