Crisscrossing Borders in Literature of the American West

Crisscrossing Borders in Literature of the American West

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Crisscrossing Borders in Literature of the American West Edited by Reginald Dyck and Cheli Reutter

CRISSCROSSING BORDERS IN LITERATURE OF THE AMERICAN WEST Copyright Reginald Dyck and Cheli Reutter, 2009. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2009 978-0-230-61343-0 All rights reserved. First published in 2009 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN in the United States a division of St. Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-37798-5 ISBN 978-0-230-61954-8 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9780230619548 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Crisscrossing borders in literature of the American West / edited by Reginald Dyck and Cheli Ruetter. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. 1. American literature West (U.S.) History and criticism. 2. American literature 20th century History and criticism. 3. West (U.S.) Intellectual life. 4. West (U.S.) In literature. 5. Transnationalism in literature. 6. Cultural pluralism in literature. 7. Working class in literature. I. Dyck, Reginald. II. Ruetter, Cheli. PS271.C76 2009 810.9 35878 dc22 2008028393 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Macmillan Publishing Solutions First edition: March 2009 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents Acknowledgments vii Introduction: New Models for Western Literary Studies 1 Reginald Dyck Part I A Postnational West: New Challenges to Old Stories 1 Electronic Pioneers and Silicon Gunslingers: Constructing Histories of the U.S. Computer Industry 21 Jeffrey A. Sartain 2 From the Far Side of the Urban Frontier: The Detective Fiction of Chester Himes and Walter Mosley 37 Robert Crooks 3 American Outsiders at the Center: Mormons and the West 59 Rüdiger Heinze 4 Middlebrow Readers and Pioneer Heroines: Willa Cather s My Ántonia, Bess Streeter Aldrich s A Lantern in Her Hand, and the Popular Fiction Market 75 Melissa Homestead Part II Intersecting Stories: The Working-Class West 5 Indigenous Ways of Knowing Capitalism in Simon Ortiz s Fight Back 97 Reginald Dyck 6 Louis Owens s Representations of Working-Class Consciousness 117 Renny Christopher

vi Contents 7 The American West in Red and Green: The Forgotten Literary History of Social Justice Environmentalism 135 Steven Rosendale Part III Transnational Wests: Engaging the Hemisphere, Crossing the Ocean 8 Helen Hunt Jackson s Ramona: A Transnational Reading of the Old West 153 Robert McKee Irwin 9 Possessing La Santa de Cabora: The Union of Sacred, Human, and Transnational Identities 179 Desirée A. Martín 10 Manifold Destinies: Isabel Allende s Daughter of Fortune and Toni Morrison s Paradise 197 Cheli Reutter 11 The Lonesome German Cowboy: Negotiating German Skepticism about America, 1893 2001 215 Hubertus Zander Contributors 233 Index 237

Acknowledgments First we would like to thank our contributors for their rigorous dedication to this project. Cheli would like to acknowledge the Fulbright Commission, the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, and Wolfgang Hochbruck for their support in the development of this project. She would also like to thank Emory Elliott, Steve Axelrod, Susan Griffin, and Kwakiutl Dreher, and, of course, her mentor, Stanley Corkin. She gratefully acknowledges her family, and especially her children, Justin and Mindy, who have accompanied her in various adventures in pursuit of new views on the American West. Reg would like to acknowledge the support of Capital University, Office of the Provost. His role in the project began during his sabbatical and continued with the help of a Gerhold Research Grant. In addition, Reg would like to acknowledge his father, Ruben Dyck, who, although he taught biology, encouraged us children in the humanities; his mentor, John McKenna, who helped induct him into the pleasures of the discipline; and his brother Stan Dyck, history professor, who through many conversations introduced him to new ways of thinking about the West. Reg would also like to extend a special thank you to Kaori Fujishiro. Renny Christopher s Louis Owens s Representations of Working- Class Consciousness is reprinted from Louis Owens: Literary Reflections on His Life and Work, edited by Jacquilyln Kilpatrick (University of Oklahoma Press, 2004). Robert Crooks essay From the Far Side of the Urban Frontier: The Detective Fiction of Chester Himes and Walter Mosley first appeared in a somewhat different form in College Literature 22.3 (October 1995): 68 90. Robert McKee Irwin s Helen Hunt Jackson s Ramona: A Transnational Reading of the Old West adapted from his Ramona and Postnationalist American Studies: On Our America and the Mexican Borderlands, in American Quarterly 55.4 (2003): 539 67 ( The Johns Hopkins University Press. Adapted with permission of The Johns Hopkins

viii Acknowledgments University Press). Portions of Steven Rosendale s The American West in Red and Green: The Forgotten Literary History of Social Justice Environmentalism also appear in his City Wilderness: US Radical Fiction and the Forgotten Literary History of Social Justice Environmentalism (University of Iowa Press, forthcoming).