Scan barcode
New Visions of the American West/Reimagining the Western Novel
9 participants (105 books)
Overview
The classic Western novel explores the tensions among the individual, community, and the meanings of justice, and employs landscape and climate as characters as significant as the people who endure them. But the classic failed to imagine the true richness of American West. Contemporary authors have taken up the challenge of seeing the West from a variety of differing perspectives. Even as they have done so, they have retained the importance of occupation in relation to character, one of the great continuities in this genre, and one that acknowledges the profound impact of capitalism on the West. For that reason, this challenge is organized largely by occupations, and also by identities and experiences when they were seen to supersede working identity. It includes novels whose actions are set outside the time period of the classic Western (roughly 1865-1895). It does not include space westerns--interesting though they may be!--as it is an opportunity to re-examine the American West rather than to explore genre.
New Visions of the American West/Reimagining the Western Novel
9 participants (105 books)
Overview
The classic Western novel explores the tensions among the individual, community, and the meanings of justice, and employs landscape and climate as characters as significant as the people who endure them. But the classic failed to imagine the true richness of American West. Contemporary authors have taken up the challenge of seeing the West from a variety of differing perspectives. Even as they have done so, they have retained the importance of occupation in relation to character, one of the great continuities in this genre, and one that acknowledges the profound impact of capitalism on the West. For that reason, this challenge is organized largely by occupations, and also by identities and experiences when they were seen to supersede working identity. It includes novels whose actions are set outside the time period of the classic Western (roughly 1865-1895). It does not include space westerns--interesting though they may be!--as it is an opportunity to re-examine the American West rather than to explore genre.
