Title data
Mayer, Sylvia:
Oil fiction as risk fiction : inhabiting risk in Linda Hogan’s Mean Spirit.
In: Green Letters.
Vol. 23
(2019)
Issue 2
.
- pp. 168-178.
ISSN 2168-1414
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14688417.2019.1650660
Abstract in another language
This essay discusses Linda Hogan’s Mean Spirit as environmental risk narrative. The novel contributes to the literary history of oil in the United States by exploring from a risk perspective an infamous period of Native American history in the 1920s, the catastrophic events that developed from the discovery of oil in Northern Oklahoma’s ‘Indian Territory.’ Reading Mean Spirit as risk narrative provides a specific way of knowing about oil, about its economic, social, and cultural meanings. The novel’s focus on how oil-related risks shape its characters’ lives shows that oil cultures must be regarded as risk cultures in which various risks unfold their shaping power – risks that are voluntarily taken and risks that must involuntarily be endured. Through its focus on risk, Mean Spirit draws attention to the fact that uncertainty and instability have always marked the cultural history of oil in the United States.
Further data
Item Type: | Article in a journal |
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Refereed: | Yes |
Institutions of the University: | Faculties > Faculty of Languages and Literature > Chair American Studies/ Anglophone Literatures and Cultures > Chair American Studies/ Anglophone Literatures and Cultures - Univ.-Prof. Dr. Sylvia Mayer Profile Fields > Emerging Fields > Cultural Encounters and Transcultural Processes Research Institutions > Research Centres > Bayreuth Institute for American Studies - BIFAS Faculties Faculties > Faculty of Languages and Literature Faculties > Faculty of Languages and Literature > Chair American Studies/ Anglophone Literatures and Cultures Profile Fields Profile Fields > Emerging Fields Research Institutions Research Institutions > Research Centres |
Result of work at the UBT: | Yes |
DDC Subjects: | 800 Literature > 810 American literature in English |
Date Deposited: | 18 Nov 2019 08:03 |
Last Modified: | 18 Nov 2019 08:03 |
URI: | https://eref.uni-bayreuth.de/id/eprint/53236 |