Presents scholarly views on the comparison of the Canadian and American Wests and the various methodologies involved.

This reader explores the problems, importance and results of comparing the Canadian and American Wests, critically examining how we conceptualize the history and development of the West and how that influences our perceptions. This volume will provide an excellent introduction to this burgeoning area of study as it endeavors to engage the imaginations of those who are new to the subject.

In this volume experienced and new college- and university-level teachers will find practical, adaptable strategies for designing or updating courses in western American literature and western studies. Teaching Western American Literature features the latest developments in western literary research and cultural studies as well as pedagogical best practices in course development. Contributors provide practical models and suggestions for courses and assignments while presenting concrete strategies for teaching works both inside and outside the canon. In addition, Brady Harrison and Randi Lynn Tanglen have assembled insights from pioneering western studies instructors with workable strategies and practical advice for translating this often complex material for classrooms from freshman writing courses to graduate seminars. Teaching Western American Literature reflects the cutting edge of western American literary study, featuring diverse approaches allied with women’s, gender, queer, environmental, disability, and Indigenous studies and providing instructors with entrée into classrooms of leading scholars in the field.

The central aim of "The West and Beyond" is to evaluate and appraise the state of Western Canadian history, to acknowledge and assess the contributions of historians of the past and present, to showcase the research interests of a new generation of scholars, to chart new directions for the future, and stimulate further interrogations of our past.-- The book is broken into five sections and contains articles from both established and new scholars that broadly reflect findings of the conference "The West and Beyond:-- Historians Past, Present and Future" held in Edmonton, Alberta in the summer of 2008.-- The editors hope the collection will encourage dialogue among generations of historians of the West and among practitioners of diverse approaches to the past.-- The collection also reflects a broad range of disciplinary and professional interests suggesting a number of different ways to understand the West.

This book investigates the meanings and iconography of the Stampede: an invented tradition that takes over the city of Calgary for ten days every July. Since 1912, archetypal "Cowboys and Indians" are seen again at the chuckwagon races, on the midway, and throughout Calgary. Each essay in this collection examines a facet of the experience – from the images on advertising posters to the ritual of the annual parade. This study of the Calgary Stampede as a social phenomenon reveals the history and sociology of the city of Calgary and a component of the social construction of identity for western Canada as a whole.

An exploration of modern regionalism and senses of place developing among generations of settler colonial society on North America’s northern grasslands.

The North American entertainment industry is rapidly consolidating, and new modes of technological delivery challenge Canadian content regulations. An understanding of how Canadian culture negotiates its rapport with American genres has never been more timely. West/Border/Road offers an interdisciplinary analysis of contemporary Canadian manifestations of three American genres: the western, the border, and the road. It situates close readings of literary, film, and television narratives from both English Canada and Quebec within a larger context of Canadian generic borrowing and innovation. Katherine Ann Roberts calls upon canonical works in Canadian studies, theories of genre, and a wide range of scholarship from border studies, cultural studies, and film studies to examine how genre is appropriated and sometimes reworked and how these cultural narratives engage with discourses of contemporary Canadian nationhood. The author elucidates Guy Vanderhaeghe’s rewriting of the codes of the historical western to include the trauma of Aboriginal peoples, Aritha van Herk’s playful spoof on American western iconography, the politics and perils of the representation of the Canada-US border in CBC-produced crime television, and how the road genre inspires and constrains the Québécois and Canadian road movie. A reminder of the power and limitations of American genres, West/Border/Road provides a nuanced perspective on Canadian engagement with cultural forms that may be imported but never foreign.

The Borderlands of the American and Canadian Wests is the first collection of interdisciplinary essays bringing together scholars from both sides of the forty-ninth parallel to examine life in a transboundary region. The result is a text that reveals the diversity, difficulties, and fortunes of this increasingly powerful but little-understood part of the North American West. Contributions by historians, geographers, anthropologists, and scholars of criminal justice and environmental studies provide a comprehensive picture of the history of the borderlands region of the western United States and Canada. The Borderlands of the American and Canadian Wests is divided into six parts: Defining the Region, Colonizing the Frontier, Farming and Other Labor Interactions, the Borderlands as a Refuge in the Nineteenth Century, the Borderlands as a Refuge in the Twentieth Century, and Natural Resources and Conservation along the Border. Topics include the borderlands environment; its aboriginal and gender history; frontier interactions and comparisons; agricultural and labor relations; tourism; the region as a refuge for Mormons, far-right groups, and Vietnam War resisters; and conservation and natural resources. These areas show how the history and geography of the borderlands region has been transboundary, multidimensional, and unique within North America.

At the dawn of the last century a shift in direction emerged among education policy-makers in Saskatchewan. Prior to 1905, the territories that would become Saskatchewan and Alberta maintained a school system largely modelled after Ontario's British-inspired system. Between 1905 and 1937 however, the shared geography and culture of the continental plains that span the border between the United States and Canada became the primary influence on education in the Canadian prairies. In Border Crossings, Kerry Alcorn examines Saskatchewan's embrace of the culture of farmer revolt and populist and progressive democratic thought that originated south of the border. He argues that as a consequence Saskatchewan education developed in resistance to eastern Canadian forms, with education policy makers - some brought in from the United States - consciously looking to their southern neighbours for direction in developing educational models. Alcorn's detailed portrait of University of Saskatchewan president Walter C. Murray and his "Wisconsin Idea," further highlight the influence of the north-south axis. A challenge to standard histories of Canadian education, Border Crossings encapsulates the development of the meaning, practice, and language of Saskatchewan education in the early twentieth century.

In some ways, Canadian history has always been international, comparative, and wide-ranging. However, in recent years the importance of the ties between Canadian and transnational history have become increasingly clear. Within and Without the Nation brings scholars from a range of disciplines together to examine Canada’s past in new ways through the lens of transnational scholarship. Moving beyond well-known comparisons with Britain and the United States, the fifteen essays in this collection connect Canada with Latin America, the Caribbean, and the wider Pacific world, as well as with other parts of the British Empire. Examining themes such as the dispossession of indigenous peoples, the influence of nationalism and national identity, and the impact of global migration, Within and Without the Nation is a text which will help readers rethink what constitutes Canadian history.