What is the West?
A hot debate on the Westlit listserv this week is whether Houston is in the West. The listserv is mostly full of English professors, but clearly they need a social geographer of some sort. They're debating why attendance was down at last week's Western Literature Association conference in Houston, but what's really interesting is how they go about it.
How do you determine what's in the West? One fellow suggested looking at colleges that offer rodeo scholarships. Another looked at the freewheeling character of the '70s football team. Another pointed out that Houston is surrounded by small towns dominated by the cattle industry. People wear cowboy hats and string ties to the city's cultural events. But others say no, you can't assume that cowboys are the West, or rodeo, or cattle, or…
It's not a debate that can be solved. And it's not necessarily limited to the West -- I remember lengthy debates with Jeff Norris many years ago about what constituted the Midwest. (Jeff, an Iowan, was delighted to point out that in a national survey, the only state everyone could agree was Midwestern was Iowa.) But debates like these -- where it seems impossible to judge one opinion as better than another -- are often the debates where it's the most fun to issue an opinion. So, for the record, when I drove through Houston many years ago I saw the cowboys and the cattle and I thought it was the West. (Granted, I lived in Massachusetts at the time -- but if you say that's not the West, what is?)
To me the best answer came from a woman named Barbara Cook: "I don't know if this counts but Houston thinks it is the West." Hey, now, isn't that how the region has always defined itself?
What do YOU think constitutes the West? Drop a line to info@johnclaytonbooks.com. To receive these posts via email, write to johnclaytonoutreach-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. (You need not put any text in the message.)
How do you determine what's in the West? One fellow suggested looking at colleges that offer rodeo scholarships. Another looked at the freewheeling character of the '70s football team. Another pointed out that Houston is surrounded by small towns dominated by the cattle industry. People wear cowboy hats and string ties to the city's cultural events. But others say no, you can't assume that cowboys are the West, or rodeo, or cattle, or…
It's not a debate that can be solved. And it's not necessarily limited to the West -- I remember lengthy debates with Jeff Norris many years ago about what constituted the Midwest. (Jeff, an Iowan, was delighted to point out that in a national survey, the only state everyone could agree was Midwestern was Iowa.) But debates like these -- where it seems impossible to judge one opinion as better than another -- are often the debates where it's the most fun to issue an opinion. So, for the record, when I drove through Houston many years ago I saw the cowboys and the cattle and I thought it was the West. (Granted, I lived in Massachusetts at the time -- but if you say that's not the West, what is?)
To me the best answer came from a woman named Barbara Cook: "I don't know if this counts but Houston thinks it is the West." Hey, now, isn't that how the region has always defined itself?
What do YOU think constitutes the West? Drop a line to info@johnclaytonbooks.com. To receive these posts via email, write to johnclaytonoutreach-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. (You need not put any text in the message.)
