Research Catalog
The American elsewhere : adventure and manliness in the age of expansion
- Title
- The American elsewhere : adventure and manliness in the age of expansion / Jimmy L. Bryan Jr.
- Author
- Bryan, Jimmy L.
- Publication
- Lawrence, Kansas : University Press of Kansas, [2017]
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| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building to submit a request in person. | Text | Use in library | JFE 17-10953 | Schwarzman Building - Milstein Division Room 121 |
Details
- Description
- x, 393 pages : illustrations; 24 cm
- Summary
- "Adventure is a common thread in the mythology of the American West. In the era of manifest destiny, mountain men and frontiersmen blazed trails across the continent in ways that still loom large in the American imagination. The life of mountain man Hugh Glass, for example, has inspired numerous books and movies, including Oscar-winner The Revenant. In folklore and popular culture, these men are typically portrayed as bold adventurers and American heroes. By contrast, scholars, especially in the past fifty years, tend to view them as villains, agents of violent conquest. In The American Elsewhere, Jimmy Bryan proposes a third view, a middle ground that considers the influence of Romanticism on the emotional motivations behind both the violent actions and self-aggrandizing views of adventurers in antebellum America. Bryan bases his study on "adventurelogues," novels and memoirs about the West written in the decades before the Civil War. He argues that these writings reveal the Romantic emotionalism adventurers brought to their time in the West as they sought escape from the Market Revolution and an Eastern world they perceived as dull and stifling. While Romantic artists and philosophers encountered the sublime in nature, these adventurers found the sublime in dangerous, violent interactions. They sought out situations where they could act boldly, experience profound emotions, and demonstrate their masculinity. And by then publishing accounts and fictionalizations of their adventures, these men created narratives of American manhood that viewed brutality, avarice, and chauvinism as noble--narratives that supported conquest and colonialism."--Provided by publisher.
- Alternative Title
- Adventure and manliness in the age of expansion
- Subjects
- Adventure and adventurers > West (U.S.)
- Masculinity in literature
- Frontier and pioneer life in literature
- Masculinity in popular culture > United States
- Adventure stories, American > History and criticism
- United States > Territorial expansion > Social aspects
- Masculinity > West (U.S.) > History
- United States > Territorial expansion > History > 19th century
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 295-375) and index.
- Contents
- Introduction -- The adventurous impulse -- The storyteller nation -- An aristocracy of buckskin -- Sentimental frontiers -- The companionship of peril -- Romantic invaders -- Epilogue : legacies of adventurous manhood.
- Call Number
- JFE 17-10953
- ISBN
- 9780700624782
- 0700624783
- LCCN
- 2017020133
- OCLC
- 985689539
- Author
- Bryan, Jimmy L., author.
- Title
- The American elsewhere : adventure and manliness in the age of expansion / Jimmy L. Bryan Jr.
- Publisher
- Lawrence, Kansas : University Press of Kansas, [2017]
- Type of Content
- text
- Type of Medium
- unmediated
- Type of Carrier
- volume
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 295-375) and index.
- Research Call Number
- JFE 17-10953