Spaces of the mind
Subtitle: narrative and community in the American West
By: Elaine A. Jahner
Series: Frontiers of narrative
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Lincoln [Neb.]
Language: eng
Format: [electronic resource] :
Number of pages: 191
ISBN-13: 9780803204256
Subjects: Communities in literature; Narration (Rhetoric); American Authors; Homes and haunts; American literature; History and criticism; In literature; Intellectual life
Other titles: Project Muse UPCC books.
Description: "Spaces of the Mind" reveals how both immigrant European and modern Native communities and individuals use oral and written narratives to define and center themselves in time and space. Elaine A. Jahner skillfully weaves together years of fieldwork among the Standing Rock Sioux in North Dakota, her own memories of growing up in a German-Russian town across the Missouri River from the Standing Rock Sioux, and an illuminating set of narrative concepts. "Spaces of the Mind" proposes a theory of cognitive style that emphasizes the ways in which distinct cultural identities are expressed through the structure of a narrative and the unfolding of its performance, telling, or reading. Themes of creativity and survival amid loss pervade the stories told by Natives about themselves and their past when discussing the inundation of the original Standing Rock Sioux village during the Oahe Dam construction in the 1950s. Immigrant Germans and Alsatians struggled to reconcile the hardships of the northern Plains with what they left behind in the Old World, and the narratives of a German-Russian community reflect and encourage survival in the face of transition. Jahner also studies how two prominent novelists - James Welch, a member of the Blackfeet community, and Mildred Walker, who left her native New England for the West - perceive a single landscape, the state of Montana, and how it has influenced their thought and narratives. "Spaces of the Mind" provides a fresh understanding of Western literature and culture, encourages a reconsideration of the formation and modern character of the American West, and contributes to a fuller appreciation of the significance of narrative. Elaine A. Jahner (1942-2003) was a professor of English at Dartmouth College. She is the co-editor of "Lakota Myth" and "Lakota Belief and Ritual", by James R. Walker, both available in Bison Books editions.
Notes: Issued as part of UPCC book collections on Project MUSE.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [179]-184) and index.

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Description based on print version record. Description based on print version record.

Description based on print version record.
Table of contents: title: 1. Theoretical Foundations; title: 2. The Narrating Community; title: 3. Narrative in Transit; title: 4. Narrative Redirected; title: 5. The Stranger's Language; title: Conclusion.