Wild, Weird, West: Essays on Arid America

Ever since the Long Expedition labeled the plains west of the Mississippi the "Great American Desert," Americans have grappled with the radical differences between the humid East and the arid West. Wild, Weird, West: Essays on Arid America collects a diverse array of essays that weave together an image of this indelible region. Author Gary Reger's aim is to examine human interaction with desert spaces of the American Southwest through specific case studies that range from treatment of literary texts, sacred spaces, travelers' narratives, colonial topography, UFO encounters, and even the desert of Mars. Trained in Greek and Roman history, Reger brings a unique approach to theorizing desert spaces, which sifts together the sands of ecocriticism, materialism, and historical approaches. He argues that the southwestern desert imaginary orbits a series of tropes that echo across subject and across theoretical approach. In sum, Wild, Weird, West provides a transdisciplinary vision of desert literature, tracing the agency of the landscape itself and the human beings who have encountered it.