Ruth Ellen Gruber Unaffiliated Independent Scholar (Morre (TR) 05020 Italy)
FT-54176-06
Summer Stipends
Research Programs
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[Grant products][Media coverage]
Totals:
$5,000 (approved) $5,000 (awarded)
Grant period:
7/1/2007 – 8/31/2007
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Imaginary Wests and Wild West Spaces in Europe: What They Say about How Europeans View the United States
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.
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