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White T L E Thesis Office 5 THE LAST EDUCATIONS: GENRE, PLACE, AND THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY A Dissertation by LOWELL MICK WHITE Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY August 2010 Major Subject: English The Last Educations: Genre, Place, and the American University Copyright 2010 Lowell Mick White THE LAST EDUCATIONS: GENRE, PLACE, AND THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY A Dissertation by LOWELL MICK WHITE Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Approved by: Chair of Committee, Paul N. Christensen Committee Members, Jerome Loving Larry Heinemann John J. McDermott Head of Department, M. Jimmie Killingsworth August 2010 Major Subject: English iii ABSTRACT The Last Educations: Genre, Place, and the American University. (August 2010) Lowell Mick White, B.A., University of Texas at Austin; M.A., Texas A&M University Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. Paul N. Christensen The Last Educations: Genre, Place, and the American University consists of three interlocking novellas dealing with themes of change and dislocation in contemporary Texas, focused on the institution of the modern university, an institution that itself is undergoing rapid and irreversible change. Crucial to the dissertation is a thorough understanding and demonstrated proficiency of the genre of the novella. The creative text will illustrate how the novella can be used to achieve narrative depth and insight into the changing social context of the contemporary individual; the critical introduction will discuss the history of the genre and its emergence in recent years as a powerful vehicle for the depiction of change. The overall subject of the creative text is change, and the ways in which individuals react to change—changes to the institutions to which they devote their lives, and changes in the localities and regions they inhabit. The immediate setting for the novellas is the contemporary university, an institution currently undergoing transformations which will have implications for all of American society. iv DEDICATION To the memories of Glen Lowell White, Ph.D. (1928-1976) and Carol Mick White, Ph.D (1933-1988) v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many people helped this dissertation become what it is. Pamela Booton provided crucial support at all times, and wise advice was offered by Patricia Bjorklund, Abigail Bowers, Alysa Hayes, Chuck Taylor, and Javier Van Wisse. My committee chair, Dr. Paul Christensen, was always a source of wisdom and enlightenment, and the members of my committee—Dr. Jerome Loving, Larry Heinemann, and Dr. John J. McDermott—were very generous with their advice, time, and encouragement. Special gratitude is extended to Frederick Von Drasek for giving me the initial idea to go to graduate school, and to my students, for providing much encouragement and amusement along the way. Thanks to everyone. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………. iii DEDICATION…………………………………………………………………. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS………………………………................................... v TABLE OF CONTENTS………………………………………........................ vi CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION……………………………………………….. 1 The Novella………………………………………………….. 3 The University as Place……………………………………… 14 Regional Literatures and Southwestern Literatures…………. 32 The Last Educations…………………………………………. 47 II FATE……………………………………………………………. 61 III THE CONSOLATIONS OF EMPIRE………………………….. 126 IV INCOMPLETE………………………………………………….. 191 V SUMMARY……………………………………………………... 250 WORKS CITED……………………………………………………………….. 252 VITA…………………………………………………………………………… 259 1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION My dissertation, The Last Educations: Genre, Place, and the American University , consists of three interlocking novellas dealing with themes of change and dislocation in contemporary Texas, focused on the institution of the modern university, an institution that itself is undergoing rapid and irreversible change. Crucial to the dissertation is a thorough understanding and demonstrated proficiency of the genre of the novella. The creative text will illustrate how the novella can be used to achieve narrative depth and insight into the changing social context of the contemporary individual; the critical introduction will discuss the history of the genre and its emergence in recent years as a powerful vehicle for the depiction of change. The overall subject of the creative text is change, and the ways in which individuals react to change—changes to the institutions to which they devote their lives, and changes in the localities and regions they inhabit. The immediate setting for the novellas is the contemporary university, an institution currently undergoing transformations which will have implications for all of American society. Increasing corporatism on the part of administrators, along with the consumerist demands of the public, are displacing traditional areas of scholarship and changing the way that knowledge is transferred—in many cases ___________ This dissertation follows the style of Southwestern American Literature. 2 actually transforming “knowledge” itself into “information,” and altering conventional forms of pedagogy. By setting The Last Educations on a university campus, I attempt to show these changes through the actions of individuals who are also stressed, caught at moments of deep personal dislocation and anomie. The larger setting of the novellas will be the southwestern United States, with a focus on the state of Texas. Texas, in the midst of a population boom that will increase its national political and cultural power, is, at the same time, through changing demographics within the population boom, undergoing an alteration of its own ethnic self-image. Through its location at the border between the United States and Mexico, Texas has always been a shatterbelt of competing cultures and values: Native Americans and Mexicans were overrun by Anglo Americans, who were followed in the later 19 th century by waves of immigrants from Central Europe, and in the 20 th century by internal migrants from the American Midwest, and by immigrants from Latin America. By the turn of the 20 th century, a regional myth developed that valorized the Anglo frontier and its associated white-male political supremacy; however, that mythic world no longer exists (whether it ever did is another question), for the state that is emerging in the 21 st century is urban, disassociated from the region and its history, and increasingly non-white. This diverse present is engaged in a constant dialogue with the mythic past, a dialogue in which meaning and status are undergoing a continual redefinition. This tumult of dislocative change is an aspect of the setting of The Last Educations . This introduction contains four sections detailing the scope and objectives of the dissertation project. Part One discusses the evolution of the novella as a genre primarily concerned with societal change. Parts Two and Three discuss how changes in the 3 contemporary university and the southwest can be efficiently depicted by novellas. Part Four offers a short discussion of the three novellas which comprise the creative portion of the dissertation. The Summary which follows the creative text briefly discusses my personal and professional relationship to the dissertation. The ultimate questions this dissertation responds to are complex: How much loyalty do individuals owe institutions? What is the proper reaction to change? What does it mean to be educated? How do people relate to their location? The answers, I think, are demonstrated in the lives enacted by the people of the Southwest, in the almost innumerable choices they make every day: choices in housing, education, employment, in the basic construction of their lives. The Last Educations is intended to exhibit the form of the novella and a deep understanding of how the novella is used to depict societal and institutional change. The Novella In recent years the genre of the novella has enjoyed a renaissance both in terms of popular readership and critical interest. Numerous st`ory collections are anchored by a novella, collections of linked novellas are marketed as novels, and at least two publishers have emerged in recent years specializing in the publication and promotion of novellas. Writing in a recent issue of Poets and Writers , novellist Josh Weil says that the form has been “reborn around the world,” giving readers a reading experience “just long enough to lose [oneself] in” (31). In an essay listing her favorite novellas, Rene Gladman asks: 4 …to venture into the writing of our own novellas, we have to, in a sense, define what is at stake. What is it about our subject, or our relation to that subject, our thinking of it, that demands this particular form? (Gladman essay) For me, it has become clear that the novella’s combination of compositional brevity and narrative depth make it a particularly useful vehicle in which to depict the psychology of the individual in a rapidly changing world, as well as the relationships between individuals and locational space. The novella is a form whose roots stretch a surprisingly long way back into Western literary history. In Anatomy of the Novella , Robert J. Clements and Joseph Gibaldi trace the term back to the classic world and the Latin novellus , meaning “young or new,” which was used to refer to treatises on animal husbandry; by the 14 th century the word had acquired additional meanings in Italian, including
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