There’s “western,” and then there’s “Western”—and where history becomes myth is an evocative question, one of several questions posed by Josh Garrett-Davis in What Is a Western? Region, Genre, Imagination. Part cultural criticism, part history, and wholly entertaining, this series of essays on specific films, books, music, and other cultural texts brings a fresh perspective to long-studied topics. Under Garrett-Davis’s careful observation, cultural objects such as films and literature, art and artifacts, and icons and oddities occupy the terrain of where the West as region meets the Western genre. One crucial through line in the collection is the relationship of regional “western” works to genre “Western” works, and the ways those two categories cannot be cleanly distinguished—most work about the West is tinted by the Western genre, and Westerns depend on the region for their status and power. Garrett-Davis also seeks to answer the question “What is a Western now?” To do so, he brings the Western into dialogue with other frameworks of the “imagined West” such as Indigenous perspectives, the borderlands, and environmental thinking. The book’s mosaic of subject matter includes new perspectives on the classic musical film Oklahoma!, a consideration of Native activism at Standing Rock, and surprises like Pee-wee’s Big Adventure and Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax. The book is influenced by the borderlands theory of Gloria Anzaldúa and the work of the indie rock band Calexico, as well as the author’s own discipline of western cultural history. Richly illustrated, primarily from the collection of the Autry Museum of the American West, Josh Garrett-Davis’s work is as visually interesting as it is enlightening, asking readers to consider the American West in new ways.

The great German novelist Thomas Mann implored readers to resist the persistent and growing militarism of the mid-twentieth century. To whom should we turn for guidance during this current era of global violence, political corruption, economic inequality, and environmental degradation? For more than two millennia, the worldÕs great thinkers have held that the ethically Ògood lifeÓ is the highest purpose of human existence. Renowned political philosopher Fred Dallmayr traces the development of this notion, finding surprising connections among Aristotelian ethics, Abrahamic and Eastern religious traditions, German idealism, and postindustrial social criticism. In Search of the Good Life does not offer a blueprint but rather invites readers on a cross-cultural quest. Along the way, the author discusses the teachings of Aristotle, Confucius, Nicolaus of Cusa, Leibniz, and Schiller, in addition invoking more recent writings of Gadamer and Ricoeur, as guideposts and sources of hope during our troubled times. Among contemporary themes Dallmayr discusses are the role of the classics in education, proper and improper ways of spreading democracy globally, the possibility of transnational citizenship, the problem of politicized evil, and the role of religion in our predominantly secular culture. Dallmayr restores the notion of the good life as a hallmark of personal conduct, civic virtue, and political engagement, and as the road map to enduring peace. In Search of the Good Life seeks to arouse complacent and dispirited citizens, guiding them out of the distractions of shallow amusements and perilous resentments in the direction of mutual learning and civic pedagogyÑa direction that will enable them to impose accountability on political leaders who stray from fundamental ethical standards.

This groundbreaking novel is considered by many to be one of the most important early entries in the western genre. Recounting in rich detail the daily life of a foreman on a vast ranch in Wyoming, this gripping tale has sparked imaginations for more than a century, inspiring at least six film and television versions.

FINALIST FOR THE PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST FOR THE PEN/FAULKNER AWARD WINNER OF THE WHITING AWARD WINNER OF THE SAROYAN INTERNATIONAL PRIZE FOR WRITING WINNTER OF THE VCU CABELL FIRST NOVELIST AWARD WINNER OF THE NEW AMERICAN VOICES AWARD A PUBLISHERS WEEKLY TOP 10 BOOK OF THE YEAR The first novel by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Trust, an exquisite and blisteringly intelligent story of a young Swedish boy, separated from his brother, who becomes a legend and an outlaw A young Swedish immigrant finds himself penniless and alone in California. The boy travels east in search of his brother, moving on foot against the great current of emigrants pushing west. Driven back again and again, he meets criminals, naturalists, religious fanatics, swindlers, American Indians, and lawmen, and his exploits turn him into a legend. Diaz defies the conventions of historical fiction and genre, offering a probing look at the stereotypes that populate our past and a portrait of radical foreignness.

WHAT IS THE STORY GRID? The Story Grid is a tool developed by editor Shawn Coyne to analyze stories and provide helpful editorial comments. It's like a CT Scan that takes a photo of the global story and tells the editor or writer what is working, what is not, and what must be done to make what works better and fix what's not. The Story Grid breaks down the component parts of stories to identify the problems. And finding the problems in a story is almost as difficult as the writing of the story itself (maybe even more difficult). The Story Grid is a tool with many applications: 1. It will tell a writer if a Story ?works? or ?doesn't work. 2. It pinpoints story problems but does not emotionally abuse the writer, revealing exactly where a Story (not the person creating the Story'the Story) has failed. 3. It will tell the writer the specific work necessary to fix that Story's problems. 4. It is a tool to re-envision and resuscitate a seemingly irredeemable pile of paper stuck in an attic drawer. 5. It is a tool that can inspire an original creation.

This novel of sorrow and suspense, set in rural Montana, is “a complex and powerful story—put Black River on the must-read list” (The Seattle Times). Wes Carver returns to his hometown—Black River, Montana—with two things: his wife’s ashes and a letter from the parole board. The convict who once held him hostage during a prison riot is up for release. For years, Wes earned his living as a correction officer and found his joy playing the fiddle. But the uprising shook Wes’s faith and robbed him of his music; now he must decide if his attacker should walk free. With “lovely rhythms, spare language, tenderness, and flashes of rage,” S. M. Hulse shows us the heart and darkness of an American town, and one man’s struggle to find forgiveness in the wake of evil (Los Angeles Review of Books).

Table of contents

The American West is a complex region that has inspired generations of writers and artists. Often portrayed as a quintessential landscape that symbolizes promise and progress for a developing nation, the American West is also a diverse space that has experienced conflicting and competing hopes and expectations. While it is frequently imagined as a place enabling dreams of new beginnings for settler communities, it is likewise home to long-standing indigenous populations as well as many other ethnic and racial groups who have often produced different visions of the land. This History encompasses the intricacy of Western American literature by exploring myriad genres and cultural movements, from ecocriticism, settler colonial studies and transnational theory, to race, ethnic, gender and sexuality studies. Written by a host of leading historians and literary critics, this book offers readers insight into the West as a site that sustains canonical and emerging authors alike, and as a region that exceeds national boundaries in addressing long-standing global concerns and developments.

There’s “western,” and then there’s “Western”—and where history becomes myth is an evocative question, one of several questions posed by Josh Garrett-Davis in What Is a Western? Region, Genre, Imagination. Part cultural criticism, part history, and wholly entertaining, this series of essays on specific films, books, music, and other cultural texts brings a fresh perspective to long-studied topics. Under Garrett-Davis’s careful observation, cultural objects such as films and literature, art and artifacts, and icons and oddities occupy the terrain of where the West as region meets the Western genre. One crucial through line in the collection is the relationship of regional “western” works to genre “Western” works, and the ways those two categories cannot be cleanly distinguished—most work about the West is tinted by the Western genre, and Westerns depend on the region for their status and power. Garrett-Davis also seeks to answer the question “What is a Western now?” To do so, he brings the Western into dialogue with other frameworks of the “imagined West” such as Indigenous perspectives, the borderlands, and environmental thinking. The book’s mosaic of subject matter includes new perspectives on the classic musical film Oklahoma!, a consideration of Native activism at Standing Rock, and surprises like Pee-wee’s Big Adventure and Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax. The book is influenced by the borderlands theory of Gloria Anzaldúa and the work of the indie rock band Calexico, as well as the author’s own discipline of western cultural history. Richly illustrated, primarily from the collection of the Autry Museum of the American West, Josh Garrett-Davis’s work is as visually interesting as it is enlightening, asking readers to consider the American West in new ways.

Showdown is a study of America's oldest, most representative film genre, the Western movie from the perspective of social allegory. It assesses scores of major and minor films to show how Westerns function as vehicles for contemporary social and political critiques of American life.