{"product_id":"westernness-alan-williamson-9780813925110","title":"Westernness: A Meditation","description":"\u003cp\u003eA first-person meditation on the literary and visual arts of the American West, \u003ci\u003eWesternness: A Meditation\u003c\/i\u003e explores how this region has developed its own distinct culture, in literature and painting, from the point of view of someone who has been, at different times in his life, both a westerner and an easterner. An engaging and astute reader and observer, Alan Williamson uses his poetic lens to examine the new connections, notably with the Far East, that have been forged in the West, but also the fear, anxiety, and sense of cultural vacancy that western artists have had to overcome in confronting their new landscape, much as the writers of the American Renaissance did a century earlier.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWriting as a displaced easterner with significant western roots, Williamson looks at writers and poets such as Cather, Lawrence, Steinbeck, Jefferes, Silko, and Snyder, as well as artists such as the Yosemite painters, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Wayne Thiebaud, to show how, despite the inflated optimism of many western patriots, the work of these individuals relates to the anxieties suffered by their eastern predecessors. By revealing what he sees as the repetition of the evolution of American literature in the rise of western literature, Williamson provides us with a fresh vantage point from which we can appreciate western literature, art, and culture and simultaneously dismantle the literary war between East and West.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA tribute to the author's lifelong engagement with a particular landscape and its writers, Westernness speaks to the general reader who is curious about his or her native place and relationship to it, as well as to scholars in literary and ecocritical studies.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Alan Williamson\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0813925118\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780813925110\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Virginia Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 03\/10\/2006\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 200\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.04lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.28h x 6.34w x 0.77d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eReference and Research Bk News\u003c\/i\u003e 08\/01\/2006 pg. 312\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eChoice\u003c\/i\u003e 11\/01\/2006 pg. 468","brand":"Alan Williamson","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":44449942503679,"sku":"9780813925110","price":32.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_574e627f-c1f7-4459-ae8c-12bad91c9b28.jpg?v=1698501877","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/westernness-alan-williamson-9780813925110","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}