Worldviews and the American West : : the life of the place itself / / edited by Polly Stewart ... [et al.].

• TeilnehmendeR: Stewart, Polly, 1943-
• Year of Publication: 2000
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (257 pages):; illustrations

A diverse group of writers and scholars follow the lead of noted folklorist Barre Toelken and consider, from the inside, the ways in which varied cultures in the American West understand and express their relations to the world around them. As Barre Toelken puts it in The Dynamics of Folklore, ""'Worldview' refers to the manner in which a culture sees and expresses its relation to the world around it."" In Worldviews and the American West, seventeen notable authors and scholars, employing diverse approaches and styles, apply Toelken's ideas about worldview to the American West.

Table of Contents

Intro -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Personal Essay -- The Language of Animals -- Song -- Faith of Our Fathers -- Blue Shadows on Human Drama: The Western Songscape -- Objects -- A Diversity of Dead Helpers: Folk Saints of the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands -- Icons of Immor tality: Forest Lawn and the American Way of Death -- Ride 'Em, Barbie Girl: Commodifying Folklore, Place, and the Exotic -- Tall Tales and Sales -- Narrative -- Jesse James: An American Outlaw -- John Campbell 's Adventure, and the Ecology of Story -- Raven and the Tide: A Tlingit Narrative -- Groups -- "Two Moonlight Rides and a Picnic Lunch": Memories of Childhood in a Logging Community -- In Her Own Words: Women's Frontier Friendships in Le tters, Diaries, and Reminiscences -- The Concept of the West and Other Hindrances to the Study of Mormon Folklore -- The Coquelle Indians and the Cultural " Black Hole " of the Southern Oregon Coast -- Visible Landscapes/Invisible People: Negotiating the Power of Representation in a Mining Community -- Personal Essay -- Local Character -- References -- Notes on Contributors and Editors.