Description
Book SynopsisFrom Harriet Beecher Stowe's image of the Mississippi's bosom to Thoreau's Cape Cod as the bared and bended arm of Massachusetts, the American environment has been represented in terms of the human body. Exploring such instances of embodiment, Tichi exposes the historically varied and often contrary geomorphic expression of a national paradigm.
Trade ReviewIn this fascinating analysis of American geographical and topographical imagery, Cecelia Tichi demonstrates the many ways in which our history, as well as our cultural values, are embedded in our monuments and historical sites. Using interdisciplinary perspectives from literature, history, and visual and material cultural studies, Tichi shows us how to read our national mythology in our continually shifting interpretation of our national sites and places. -- Wendy Martin, author of
An American Triptych: Anne Bradstreet, Emily Dickinson, Adrienne RichA brilliant analysis of how the landscape and physical environment of the United States have been transformed physically and imaginatively by creative, but often destructive, projections of national bodily identities onto the land. Tichi demonstrates how technologies combine with political motives, social impulses, and historical developments to infuse spaces and places with national meanings, even bodily geo-identity. This is bold, original research. -- Emory Elliott, General Editor of
Columbia Literary History of the United StatesTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction I. Crania Americana 1. Mt. Rushmore: Heads of State and States of Heads 2. Walden Pond: Head Trips II. Frontier Incarnations 3. Pittsburgh at Yellowstone: Old Faithful and the Pulse of Industrial America 4. America's Moon: "A Dream of the Future's Face" III. Bon Aqua 5. Hot Springs: American Hygeia 6. Love Canal: Hygeia's Crisis Notes References Credits Index
