[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
. Morerecent analyses have also documented the degree to which social and cultural 196 RIDING BRONCS AND TAMING CONTRADICTIONS: REFLECTIONS ON THE USES OF THECOWBOY IN THE CALGARY STAMPEDEdifferences between Canada and the United States are considerably lesspronounced than the discourses of Canadian nationalism would suggest.See Jeffrey G.Reitz and Raymond Breton, The Illusion of Difference: Realitiesof Ethnicity in Canada and the United States (Toronto: CD Howe Institute,1994).I have made a similar argument regarding approaches to diversity inboth countries in Tamara Palmer Seiler, Melting Pot and Mosaic: Imagesand Realities, in Canada and the United States: Differences that Count,2nd ed., ed.David M.Thomas (Peterborough ON: Broadview Press, 2000),97 120.See also Jeffrey Simpson, Star Spangled Canadians: Canadians Livingthe American Dream (Toronto: Harper-Collins, 2000).Michael Adams,Fire and Ice: The United States, Canada and the Myth of Converging Values(Toronto: Penguin Canada, 2004) offers an interesting counterpoint toSimpson s line of argument.9.See Richard W.Slatta, Cowboys of the Americas (New Haven, CT: YaleUniversity Press, 1990), especially Chapter 1, Introduction, and Chapter2, From Wild-Cattle Hunters to Cowboys, 1 27.10.The following sources (among many others) discuss the role of various mediain constructing and purveying the cowboy image and the particular resonanceof this figure in the national mythology of the United States: Michael Allen,Rodeo Cowboys in the North American Imagination (Reno: University ofNevada Press, 1998); John Cawelti, Reflections on the Western Since 1970, in Gender, Language and Myth: Essays on Popular Narrative, ed.GlenwoodIrons (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992), 83 102; Kathryn C.Esselman, From Camelot to Monument Valley: Dramatic Origins of theWestern Film, in Focus on the Western, ed.Jack Nackbar (Englewood Cliffs,NJ: Prentice Hall, 1974), 9 18; William H.Forbis, The Cowboys (Alexandria,VA: Time-Life Books, 1973); Marcus Klein, The Westerner: Origins ofthe Myth, in Gender, Language and Myth: Essays on Popular Narrative, ed.Glenwood Irons (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992), 65 82; JohnShelton Lawrence and Robert Jewett, The Myth of the American Superhero(Grand Rapids, MI: William B.Eerdmans, 2002); Jack Weston, The RealAmerican Cowboy (New York: New Amsterdam, 1995).11.In his well-known book, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins andSpread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991), Benedict Anderson famouslydefines the nation as an imagined political community that is both limitedand sovereign.As he explains, the nation is imagined because the membersof even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members,meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the imageof their communion.& Communities are to be distinguished, not by theirfalsity/genuineness, but by the style in which they are imagined.& The nationis imagined as limited because even the largest of them& has finite, if elastic TAMARA PALMER SEILER 197boundaries, beyond which lie other nations.& It is imagined as sovereignbecause the concept was born in an age in which Enlightenment and Revolu-tion were destroying the legitimacy of the divinely-ordained, hierarchicaldynastic realm.& Finally, it is imagined as a community, because, regardlessof the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nationis always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship (pp.5 7).12.See, for example, Jack Weston, The Real American Cowboy.See also WilliamW.Savage Jr. s introduction to Cowboy Life: Reconstructing an American Myth(Niwot: University of Colorado Press, 1993), 3 16.Also relevant are: RichardSlotkin, Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-CenturyAmerica (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992); Philip R.Loy,Westerns and American Culture, 1930 1955 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland andCompany, 2001); Lawrence and Jewett, The Myth of the American Superhero,especially Chapter 3, Buffalo Bill: Staging World Redemption, 49 64, andChapter 5, John Wayne and Friends Redeem the Village, 89 105.13.Various fault lines in this debate are clearly apparent in John Cawelti s Reflections on the Western Since 1970 (1992), in which he refers to the Turnerian and post-Turnerian schools, the myth symbol school, andthe new structuralists.Michael Allen offers a more recent discussion of thisdebate in Rodeo Cowboys in the North American Imagination (1998) and, likeCawelti, calls for a productive synthesis of these various approaches.JaneTompkins, in West of Everything, in Gender, Language and Myth, 103 23,offers a fascinating feminist interpretation of the cultural significance of thecowboy and the Western.Rather than seeing the popularity of this figure andgenre as primarily reflecting a deep nostalgia for a lost pre-industrial world,Tompkins sees it as a reaction to the dominance in the nineteenth centuryof a feminine perspective in literature and the emerging feminist challengeto male hegemony during the period [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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. Morerecent analyses have also documented the degree to which social and cultural 196 RIDING BRONCS AND TAMING CONTRADICTIONS: REFLECTIONS ON THE USES OF THECOWBOY IN THE CALGARY STAMPEDEdifferences between Canada and the United States are considerably lesspronounced than the discourses of Canadian nationalism would suggest.See Jeffrey G.Reitz and Raymond Breton, The Illusion of Difference: Realitiesof Ethnicity in Canada and the United States (Toronto: CD Howe Institute,1994).I have made a similar argument regarding approaches to diversity inboth countries in Tamara Palmer Seiler, Melting Pot and Mosaic: Imagesand Realities, in Canada and the United States: Differences that Count,2nd ed., ed.David M.Thomas (Peterborough ON: Broadview Press, 2000),97 120.See also Jeffrey Simpson, Star Spangled Canadians: Canadians Livingthe American Dream (Toronto: Harper-Collins, 2000).Michael Adams,Fire and Ice: The United States, Canada and the Myth of Converging Values(Toronto: Penguin Canada, 2004) offers an interesting counterpoint toSimpson s line of argument.9.See Richard W.Slatta, Cowboys of the Americas (New Haven, CT: YaleUniversity Press, 1990), especially Chapter 1, Introduction, and Chapter2, From Wild-Cattle Hunters to Cowboys, 1 27.10.The following sources (among many others) discuss the role of various mediain constructing and purveying the cowboy image and the particular resonanceof this figure in the national mythology of the United States: Michael Allen,Rodeo Cowboys in the North American Imagination (Reno: University ofNevada Press, 1998); John Cawelti, Reflections on the Western Since 1970, in Gender, Language and Myth: Essays on Popular Narrative, ed.GlenwoodIrons (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992), 83 102; Kathryn C.Esselman, From Camelot to Monument Valley: Dramatic Origins of theWestern Film, in Focus on the Western, ed.Jack Nackbar (Englewood Cliffs,NJ: Prentice Hall, 1974), 9 18; William H.Forbis, The Cowboys (Alexandria,VA: Time-Life Books, 1973); Marcus Klein, The Westerner: Origins ofthe Myth, in Gender, Language and Myth: Essays on Popular Narrative, ed.Glenwood Irons (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992), 65 82; JohnShelton Lawrence and Robert Jewett, The Myth of the American Superhero(Grand Rapids, MI: William B.Eerdmans, 2002); Jack Weston, The RealAmerican Cowboy (New York: New Amsterdam, 1995).11.In his well-known book, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins andSpread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991), Benedict Anderson famouslydefines the nation as an imagined political community that is both limitedand sovereign.As he explains, the nation is imagined because the membersof even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members,meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the imageof their communion.& Communities are to be distinguished, not by theirfalsity/genuineness, but by the style in which they are imagined.& The nationis imagined as limited because even the largest of them& has finite, if elastic TAMARA PALMER SEILER 197boundaries, beyond which lie other nations.& It is imagined as sovereignbecause the concept was born in an age in which Enlightenment and Revolu-tion were destroying the legitimacy of the divinely-ordained, hierarchicaldynastic realm.& Finally, it is imagined as a community, because, regardlessof the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nationis always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship (pp.5 7).12.See, for example, Jack Weston, The Real American Cowboy.See also WilliamW.Savage Jr. s introduction to Cowboy Life: Reconstructing an American Myth(Niwot: University of Colorado Press, 1993), 3 16.Also relevant are: RichardSlotkin, Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-CenturyAmerica (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992); Philip R.Loy,Westerns and American Culture, 1930 1955 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland andCompany, 2001); Lawrence and Jewett, The Myth of the American Superhero,especially Chapter 3, Buffalo Bill: Staging World Redemption, 49 64, andChapter 5, John Wayne and Friends Redeem the Village, 89 105.13.Various fault lines in this debate are clearly apparent in John Cawelti s Reflections on the Western Since 1970 (1992), in which he refers to the Turnerian and post-Turnerian schools, the myth symbol school, andthe new structuralists.Michael Allen offers a more recent discussion of thisdebate in Rodeo Cowboys in the North American Imagination (1998) and, likeCawelti, calls for a productive synthesis of these various approaches.JaneTompkins, in West of Everything, in Gender, Language and Myth, 103 23,offers a fascinating feminist interpretation of the cultural significance of thecowboy and the Western.Rather than seeing the popularity of this figure andgenre as primarily reflecting a deep nostalgia for a lost pre-industrial world,Tompkins sees it as a reaction to the dominance in the nineteenth centuryof a feminine perspective in literature and the emerging feminist challengeto male hegemony during the period [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]