University of Mississippi eGrove Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 2019 Road Trippin': Twentieth-Century American Road Narratives from On The Road to The Road Scott M. Obernesser University of Mississippi Follow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Obernesser, Scott M., "Road Trippin': Twentieth-Century American Road Narratives from On The Road to The Road" (2019). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1652. https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/1652 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of eGrove. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. ROAD TRIPPIN’: TWENTIETH CENTURY AMERICAN ROAD NARRATIVES AND PETROCULTURES FROM ON THE ROAD TO THE ROAD A Dissertation Presented in partial fulfillment of requirements For the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy In the Department of English The University of Mississippi by SCOTT M OBERNESSER December 2018 Copyright Scott M Obernesser 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ABSTRACT “Road Trippin:’ Twentieth-Century American Road Narratives and Petrocultures from On The Road to The Road ” examines late-twentieth century U.S. road narratives in an effort to trace the development of American petrocultures geographically and culturally in the decades after World War II. The highway stories that gain popularity throughout the era trace not simply how Americans utilize oil, but how the postwar American oil ethos in literature, film, and music acts upon and shapes human interiority and vice versa. Roads and highways frame my critique because they are at once networks of commerce transportation and producers of a unique, romantic national mythos that impacts American literary and extra-literary textuality throughout the late-twentieth century.