Teaching Western American Literature

Brady Harrison is a professor of English at University of Montana. He is the author of The Dying Athabaskan and Agent of Empire: William Walker and the Imperial Self in American Literature. Randi Lynn Tanglen is an associate professor of English and director of the Robert and Joyce Johnson Center for Faculty Development and Excellence in Teaching at Austin College.

"Harrison (Univ. of Montana) and Tanglen (Austin College) have gathered an impressive selection of essays on teaching western American literature. They focus primarily on pedagogy, ranging from general education classes to writing classes at multiple levels. The exploration of the pedagogical practices can be extended to various courses in a variety of disciplines. The contextual subject matter is as enlightening as the pedagogical. The 13 essays are arranged in four categories: 'Teaching the Literary Wests'; 'Affect, Indigeneity, Gender'; 'Place and Regionality'; and 'Hemispheric/Global Wests.' The investigations are intersectional and include issues relevant to African American studies, American studies, border studies, critical race theory, cultural studies, disability studies, ecocriticism, gender studies, global studies, and, perhaps most important, human rights. The collection is timely in that it uncovers and discovers an American past that has been elided by the popular narratives of Hollywood and television. These narratives form the West in the American imagination as a trope of expansion and accumulation rooted in property and propriety, and manifest in the individual. The 'American West' in this collection is multivalent, with narrative borders beyond imagined walls."-R. T. Prus, Choice “A rich volume. . . . It provides teachers with valuable insight into how classroom teaching is informed by and sometimes advances scholarly conversations about western literature specifically and literary studies more generally, while also providing excellent practical strategies that readers can use to enhance student learning and engagement in their own classrooms.”-Jennifer S. Tuttle, coeditor of Charlotte Perkins Gilman: New Texts, New Contexts “Teaching Western American Literature will appeal to anyone involved in teaching western American literature at the post-secondary level, from the graduate student teaching a course for the first time to the seasoned instructor curious about how their teaching practice fits into the broader landscape or just looking for fresh ideas.”-Victoria Lamont, author of Westerns: A Women’s History

• List of TablesAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Teaching Western American LiteratureBrady Harrison, University of Montana, and Randi Lynn Tanglen, Austin CollegePart 1. Teaching the Literary Wests1. Teaching the Popular Western in the Second-Level Writing CourseChadwick Allen, University of Washington2. Quirky Little Things and Wilderness Letters: Using Wallace Stegner to Teach Cultural Studies and the Responsibilities of CitizenshipMelody Graulich, Utah State University3. Teaching the Black WestKalenda Eaton, University of Oklahoma, and Michael K. Johnson, University of Maine–FarmingtonPart 2. Affect, Indigeneity, Gender4. Gender, Affect, Environmental Justice, and Indigeneity in the ClassroomAmy T. Hamilton, Northern Michigan University5. Teaching Queer and Two-Spirit Indigenous Literatures, or The West Has Always Been QueerLisa Tatonetti, Kansas State University6. An Interdisciplinary Approach to Teaching Gender in Western American LiteratureAmanda R. Gradisek and Mark C. Rogers, Walsh UniversityPart 3. Place and Regionality7. Moving Beyond the Traditional Classroom and So Far from God: Place-Based Learning in the U.S. SouthwestKaren R. Roybal, Colorado College8. Quotidian Wests: Exploring Regionality through the EverydayNancy S. Cook, University of Montana9. Western Writers in the FieldO. Alan Weltzien, University of Montana Western10. Placing the Pacific Northwest on the Literary Map: Teaching Ella Rhoads Higginson’s Mariella, of Out-WestLaura Laffrado, Western Washington UniversityPart 4. Hemispheric/Global Wests11. National, Transnational, and Human Rights Frames for Teaching MarÍa Amparo Ruiz de Burton’s The Squatter and the DonTereza M. Szeghi, University of Dayton12. Able-Bodies, Difference, and Citizenship in the West: Teaching James Welch’s The Heartsong of Charging Elk in a Global ContextAndrea M. Dominguez, DeVry University, San Diego13. Teaching Western Canadian Literature in the Croatian Context: A Case StudyVanja Polić, University of ZagrebContributorsIndex