| FT-54176-06 | Research Programs: Summer Stipends | Ruth Ellen Gruber | Imaginary Wests and Wild West Spaces in Europe: What They Say about How Europeans View the United States | 7/1/2007 - 8/31/2007 | $5,000.00 | Ruth | Ellen | Gruber | | | | Unaffiliated Independent Scholar | Morre (TR) | | 05020 | Italy | 2006 | International Studies | Summer Stipends | Research Programs | 5000 | 0 | 5000 | 0 |
Continuing and consolidating ongoing on-site research for a book project on how (and why) contemporary Europeans imagine, adapt, appropriate and reinvent the American West. My aim is to show, in a hands-on, personal way, how Europeans have taken a national American myth, transformed it, and made it not only a myth of their own, but an integral part of European vision and vernacular in navigating an often uneasy attachment to the United States. I am documenting the phenomenon and analyzing it as a sometimes cracked mirror reflecting European understanding and misunderstanding of America. But I also see it as a prism through which to examine broader issues of cultural attraction, authenticity and identity-building. |