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<p>List of Illustrations viii</p> <p>Notes on Contributors ix</p> <p>Acknowledgments xiv</p> <p>Introduction 1</p> <p><b>PART I History and Theory of Regionalism in the United States 5</b></p> <p>1 Contemporary Regionalism 7<br /><i>Michael Kowalewski</i></p> <p>2 The Cultural Work of American Regionalism 25<br /><i>Stephanie Foote</i></p> <p>3 Letting Go our Grand Obsessions: Notes toward a New Literary History of the American Frontiers 42<br /><i>Annette Kolodny</i></p> <p>4 Region and Race: National Identity and the Southern Past 57<br /><i>Lori Robison</i></p> <p>5 Regionalism in the Era of the New Deal 74<br /><i>Lauren Coats and Nihad M. Farooq</i></p> <p>6 Realism and Regionalism 92<br /><i>Donna Campbell</i></p> <p>7 Taking Feminism and Regionalism toward the Third Wave 111<br /><i>Krista Comer</i></p> <p>8 Regionalism and Ecology 129<br /><i>David Mazel</i></p> <p>9 The City as Region 137<br /><i>James Kyung-Jin Lee</i></p> <p>10 Indigenous Peoples and Place 154<br /><i>P. Jane Hafen</i></p> <p>11 Borders, Bodies, and Regions: The United States and the Caribbean 171<br /><i>Vera M. Kutzinski</i></p> <p><b>PART II Mapping Regions 193</b></p> <p>12 New England Literature and Regional Identity 195<br /><i>Kent C. Ryden</i></p> <p>13 The Great Plains 213<br /><i>Diane D. Quantic</i></p> <p>14 Forgotten Frontier: Literature of the Old Northwest 231<br /><i>Bev Hogue</i></p> <p>15 The Old Southwest: Humor, Tall Tales, and the Grotesque 247<br /><i>Rosemary D. Cox</i></p> <p>16 The Plantation School: Dissenters and Countermyths 266<br /><i>Sarah E. Gardner</i></p> <p>17 The Fugitive-Agrarians and the Twentieth-Century Southern Canon 286<br /><i>Farrell O’Gorman</i></p> <p>18 Romanticizing a Different Lost Cause: Regional Identities in Louisiana and the Bayou Country 306<br /><i>Suzanne Disheroon-Green</i></p> <p>19 The Sagebrush School Revived 324<br /><i>Lawrence I. Berkove</i></p> <p>20 Re-envisioning the Big Sky: Regional Identity, Spatial Logics, and the Literature of Montana 344<br /><i>Susan Kollin</i></p> <p>21 Regions of California: Mountains and Deserts 363<br /><i>Nicolas Witschi</i></p> <p>22 Regions of California: The Great Central Valley 379<br /><i>Charles L. Crow</i></p> <p>23 Los Angeles as a Literary Region 397<br /><i>David Fine</i></p> <p>24 North and Northwest: Theorizing the Regional Literatures of Alaska and the Pacific Northwest 412<br /><i>Susan Kollin</i></p> <p>25 Texas and the Great Southwest 432<br /><i>Mark Busby</i></p> <p>26 Hawai’i 458<br /><i>Brenda Kwon</i></p> <p><b>PART III Some Regionalist Masters 477</b></p> <p>27 Bret Harte and the Literary Construction of the American West 479<br /><i>Gary Scharnhorst</i></p> <p>28 Mark Twain: A Man for All Regions 496<br /><i>Lawrence I. Berkove</i></p> <p>29 Willa Cather’s Glittering Regions 513<br /><i>Robert Thacker</i></p> <p>30 “I have seen America emerging”: Mary Austin’s Regionalism 532<br /><i>Betsy Klimasmith</i></p> <p>31 “I have never recovered from the country”: The American West of Wallace Stegner 551<br /><i>Richard H. Cracroft</i></p> <p>Index 572</p>

“A <i>Companion to the Regional Literatures of America</i> is a significant achievement and could prove a powerful tool for those who wish to make considerations of space and place even more central to their disciplines.<i>” Jeremy Wells, Western American Literature</i><br /> <p>'In short, Charles L. Crow's volume is a must, an essential purchase.' <i>Reference Reviews</i></p>

<b>Charles L. Crow </b>is Emeritus Professor at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. He is co-editor of <i>The Haunted Dusk: American Supernatural Fiction, 1820-1920</i> (1984) and <i>The Occult in America: New Historical Perspectives</i> (1983), and editor of <i>American Gothic: An Anthology</i> (Blackwell Publishing, 1999). He has been president of the Frank Norris Society, and a member of the executive council of the Western Literature Association.

<p><i>A Companion to the Regional Literatures of America</i> is the most comprehensive resource yet published for study of this popular field. Containing more than 30 original essays from both established and up-and-coming scholars, the volume presents:</p> <ul> <li>A history of the concept of regionalism, from the early years of the republic through to the current renaissance of literature rooted in place.</li> <li>A broad spectrum of theoretical approaches, including those drawn from ecology, cultural studies, feminism, and Native American studies.</li> <li>Profiles of the literature of specific regions of the United States, from California to New England and from Alaska to Hawaii.</li> <li>Discussions of authors and groups who have been important in defining or promoting regional American literature.</li> </ul> <p>This wide-ranging <i>Companion</i> is both an exploration of the concept of regionalism, and a celebration of the diversity of American regional literatures.</p>

“A <i>Companion to the Regional Literatures of America</i> is a significant achievement and could prove a powerful tool for those who wish to make considerations of space and place even more central to their disciplines.<i>” Jeremy Wells, Western American Literature</i><br /> <p>'In short, Charles L. Crow's volume is a must, an essential purchase.' <i>Reference Reviews</i></p>

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