My three dads : patriarchy on the Great Plains /

My three dads : patriarchy on the Great Plains /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:	Crispin, Jessa, author.
Imprint:	Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2022.
Description:	1 online resource (230 pages)
Language:	English
Subject:	Patriarchy -- Middle West -- History. Women -- Middle West -- Social conditions. Patriarchy. Social conditions. Women -- Social conditions. Middle West -- Social conditions. Middle West. Electronic books. History.
Format:	E-Resource Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/13481008

Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:	9780226600703 022660070X 9780226820101 0226820106 9780226600673 022660067X
Notes:	Includes bibliographical references. Print version record.
Summary:	"Jessa Crispin melds personal narrative with history and current events to explore the dark side of Kansas, where she grew up. She meditates on why the American Midwest still enjoys an esteemed position in the US's imagination about itself, why its foundational myths are the myths of what it means to be "American." And while we may romanticize aspects of Midwestern life-the nuclear family, the pioneering attitude, the small town friendliness-the realities, she argues, are harsher: so-called Midwestern values cover up a long history of oppression and control over Native Americans, over women, over the economically disadvantaged. Her subjects range from The Wizard of Oz to the White race, from chastity to rape, from radical militias and recent terrorist plots to Utopian communities; from the murders of the Clutter family made famous in Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, to her own horror when a beloved art teacher inexplicably one night slaughtered his wife and three daughters and killed himself. Her pursuit takes her back to the Civil War, John Brown, and the immigration of German religious communities to the Midwest; she then ferries across the Atlantic Ocean to Amsterdam to visit a lay seminary for women where, since the Reformation, they have found sanctuary from violence and domestic abuse. Yet, despite the darkness, which is Crispin's stock in trade, there is a kind of bleak redemption at the heart of this project, the insight that, no matter where you go, no matter how far from home you roam, the place you came from is always with you, "like it or not.""--
Other form:	Print version: Crispin, Jessa. My three dads. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2022 9780226820101

Description
Summary:	Sharp and thought-provoking, this memoir-meets-cultural criticism upends the romanticism of the Great Plains and the patriarchy at the core of its ideals. <br> <br> For many Americans, Kansas represents a vision of Midwestern life that is good and wholesome and evokes the American ideals of god, home, and country. But for those like Jessa Crispin who have grown up in Kansas, the realities are much harsher. She argues that the Midwestern values we cling to cover up a long history of oppression and control over Native Americans, women, and the economically disadvantaged.<br> <br> Blending personal narrative with social commentary, Crispin meditates on why the American Midwest still enjoys an esteemed position in our country's mythic self-image. Ranging from The Wizard of Oz to race, from chastity to rape, from radical militias and recent terrorist plots to Utopian communities, My Three Dads opens on a comic scene in a Kansas rent house the author shares with a (masculine) ghost. This prompts Crispin to think about her intellectual fathers, her spiritual fathers, and her literal fathers. She is curious to understand what she has learned from them and what she needs to unlearn about how a person should be in a family, as a citizen, and as a child of god--ideals, Crispin argues, that have been established and reproduced in service to hierarchy, oppression, and wealth.<br> <br> Written in Crispin's well-honed voice--smart, assured, comfortable with darkness-- My Three Dads offers a kind of bleak redemption, the insight that no matter where you go, no matter how far from home you roam, the place you came from is always with you, "like it or not."<br>
Physical Description:	1 online resource (230 pages)
Bibliography:	Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN:	9780226600703 022660070X 9780226820101 0226820106 9780226600673 022660067X