The University of Wisconsin Press
Autobiography / Women's Studies / American Studies / Literature & Criticism
Maverick
Autobiographies In contrast to the traditional frontiers
and pioneers focus of western studies, Maverick Autobiographies
looks at women writers who came not to but from the West. Cathryn
Halverson offers an alternative history of American women's autobiography
and a new view of western women's literature. Mary MacLane, Opal
Whiteley, and Juanita Harrison, she argues, rewrote frontier
myths to make a space for themselves as female iconoclasts from
the West. Creating an ardent readership for western women's "naked"
desires, they became best-selling celebrity authors. After their
intense early fame, though, they virtually disappeared. Halverson
examines why, and brings their texts back to light through a
richly textured weaving of biography, literary analysis, and
cultural history—in the process, urging us to reformulate
our notions of what it means to be a "western writer."
|
|
|||||||||
Cathryn
Halverson is associate professor
of English at Kobe City College of Foreign Studies, Japan.
|
|
If you have trouble accessing
any page in this web site, contact our Web manager.
Updated June 14, 2011 © 2011, The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System |