Spatial Imaginations and Counter-Geographies of Oregon and the Far West

Abstract

During the first half of the nineteenth century, the integration of the Oregon Country into the framework of the United States presented a profound challenge for American writers and policymakers. This paper proposes that the nation’s expansion into the Pacific Northwest and Asia-Pacific hemisphere was undermined by spatial practices, ideas, and imaginations that located Oregon within counter–geographies and resisted the homogenizing assumptions of American exceptionalism. The paper examines literary themes that address these outcomes by looking at popular works by Washington Irving and Francis Parkman, contrasting them with divergent views found in previously unstudied travel journals and memoirs of contemporary immigrants and travelers.

Biographical Note

Steffen Wöll (SFB 1199, Leipzig, Germany)

Steffen Wöll is a researcher at the SFB project C02 investigating (re)imaginations of nationality in the southern and western peripheries of the United States at the end of the nineteenth century, in which he pursues his PhD. He received his MA at the Leipzig University’s Institute of American Studies. His research interests include postmodern literature and its depiction of the (post)human body, agency and otherness, American foreign policy, interventionism, and transatlantic security communities.