The invention of the American desert : art, land, and the politics of environment /

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Bibliographic Details
Imprint:	Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2021]
Description:	viii, 246 pages : illustrations, maps ; 27 cm
Language:	English
Subject:	Deserts in art. Geographical perception -- West (U.S.) Geographical perception in motion pictures. Place (Philosophy) in art. Earthworks (Art) -- West (U.S.) Deserts in art. Geographical perception. Geographical perception in motion pictures. Place (Philosophy) in art. West United States.
Format:	Print Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/12700224

Hidden Bibliographic Details
Other authors / contributors:	Massey, Lyle, 1961- editor. Nisbet, James, 1981- editor.
ISBN:	9780520306691 0520306694
Notes:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary:	"Long viewed as a tabula rasa, the deserts of the American West have played a distinct role in the projection of American cultural identities. Historically represented through fantasies of individualism, frontier ruggedness, and land acquisition, the desert is also the site of extreme social and environmental violence. The Invention of the American Desert brings together a wide-ranging group of interdisciplinary essays that explore, through diverse perspectives, dialectical problems posed by an environment that has served as a testing ground for modernist experimentation, military-industrial incursions, and ecological disasters throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In light of the urgent climate crisis and the planet's increasing desertification, this volume reflects on the nature and legacy of the desert as a crucible for competing visions of land, environment, and art"--

Table of Contents:

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part 1. Contamination
1. Desolate Dreams
2. Air, Wind, Breath, Life: Desertification and Will Wilson's AIR (Auto-Immune Response)
Part 2. Fabrication
3. Notes from Bioteknika
4. Troglodyte Modernists
5. Explosive Modernism: Hiram Hudson Benedict's Bouldereign and Zabnskie Point at Fifty
Part 3. Invisibility
6. Point Omega / Omega Point: Desert in Three Parts
7. The Desert in Fine Grain
Part 4. Dystopia
8. The Desert as Black Mythology
9. On the Recalcitrance of the Desert Island, by way of Andrea Zittel's A-Z West
Coda
10. Four Theses for the Coming Deserts
List of Contributors
List of Illustrations
Index

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