Worlding the Western: Contemporary US Western Fiction and the Global Community

by Neil Campbell

Overview

Worlding the Western views the fiction of the Western United States as a focal point for a reexamination of the consequences of the exceptionalism and closed borders of the Trump Era. At a time of bounded individualism, new nativism, climate emergency, and migration crises, author Neil Campbell argues that fiction offers opportunities to challenge the dark side of globalization. He proposes worlding as a different and more open form of politics.

Diversity, disparity, and opposition are central to the dynamic frictional fiction considered in this book. The American West provides a powerful test case in which these features are present and yet, historically, have often been masked or denied in the rush toward unanimity and nation building. Worlding is, therefore, a positive, critical concept through which to view the notion of a single world under pressure.
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781647790554
Publisher:	University of Nevada Press
Publication date:	09/13/2022
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	15 - 18 Years

About the Author

Neil Campbell is professor of American studies at the University of Derby and the author or coauthor of several books, including TheCultures of the American New West, American Cultural Studies, and The Rhizomatic West.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction. Enter West 3

Chapter 1 On Worlding 21

Chapter 2 "What West?" Hernan Diaz's In the Distance 44

Chapter 3 "What World We Making?" Sebastian Barry's Days Without End 65

Chapter 4 "The World in All Its Workings" Tea Obreht's Inland 85

Chapter 5 "A Land of Missing Things" C Pam Zhang's How Much of These Hills Is Gold 107

Chapter 6 To Remember Otherwise and Against-Tribalography, Robin Wall Kimmerer, LeAnne Howe, and Tommy Orange 128

Chapter 7 "The Story and the Archive of the Story" Valeria Luiselli's Lost Children Archive 152

Chapter 8 Exit West-Conclusions Perhaps 173

Notes 195

References 211

Index 229

About the Author 235

Editorial Reviews

This ambitious and wide-ranging text works to upend the Western and common discourses about Western American literature and representations of the American West. Campbell makes a major contribution to Western American Studies, transnational literary studies, contemporary literary studies, and a literary criticism that embraces social change and an ethic of care.” 
 —Nancy Cook, emerita professor of English, University of Montana, and a past president of the Western Literature Association
 
“Campbell is one of the leading scholars of Western American literature. One emerges from Worlding the Western recharged about the role of literature as a fundamental critique of and counter to US politics since 2016. The book will carry weight and cast a wide net of influence with the next generation of Western American literature scholars.”
—O. Alan Weltzien, professor emeritus of English, University of Montana Western, author of Savage West: The Life and Fiction of Thomas Savage
 

From the Publisher