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Stephens, Liz 10-25-12 The Days Are Gods: A Life in Place A dissertation presented to the faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy Liz Stephens December 2012 © 2012 Liz Stephens. All Rights Reserved. 2 This dissertation titled The Days Are Gods: A Life in Place by LIZ STEPHENS has been approved for the Department of English and the College of Arts and Sciences by Dinty W. Moore Professor of English Robert Frank Dean, College of Arts and Sciences 3 ABSTRACT STEPHENS, LIZ, Ph.D., December 2012, English The Days Are Gods: A Life in Place Director of Dissertation: Dinty W. Moore “Theorizing voice as a construct in life writing,” Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson write, “has not yet been the focus of sustained critical attention.” They whittle the myriad ways this idea might be approached down to two elemental questions: “How might we understand our attribution of a particular ‘voice’ to life writing?” and “And how do we theorize the relationship of voice to autobiographical acts?” In plainer language, what factors influence an author’s construction of a voice in tone and syntax for a particular piece or ouvre; and how might we as theorists and readers examine the author’s choices across any given work, from whole book to specific event? In this work, Stephens includes her dissertation memoir, as well as a critical examination of her use of first-person narration in that body of work. 4 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Portions of this work have appeared, in different form, in Fourth Genre and South Dakota Review. I am grateful to the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies for a research grant on the dude ranch portion of this work. I thank Ohio University for their outstanding fellowship (and Catherine Taylor, who on a key year said “this one”) which allowed me time to write, earn a PhD, and raise a daughter concurrently without having my head entirely pop off. Thanks to Dinty W. Moore for his ongoing support and for helping me as I learned to navigate departmental and professional work even with my own foot so often in my mouth. I thank Utah State University faculty for blowing my mind at a crucial time in my life, namely Evelyn Funda and Melody Graulich, the influence of both of whom I can hardly find the words to credit. Thanks to Ladette Randolph for walking up and handing me her card, when she was acquisitions editor at UNP, the very first time I read a portion of this in public, spawning the saga of these last years. Thanks to Kristen Rowley of UNP for continuing to carry the torch. Thanks to the readers of my manuscript, the anonymous ones as well as Judith Kitchen and Mary Clearman Blew. Every bit of what I was told was helpful. I’d like to also acknowledge the Western Literature Association for being my professional touchstone, both in terms of scholarship and conduct. By conduct I mean deep listening, fond and engaged intellectual respect for others, an ingrained tendency toward interdisciplinary thinking, and using hotel sinks for wine buckets. 5 Thanks to my parents, Wyatt and Dixie Stephens, and my in-laws, Tom and Fritch Martin, for their belief in this project and their support, financial and emotional. Thanks to Christopher for coming along for every ill-conceived notion I get up to. Thanks to Birdie, for making me aim to be a better person, when I might otherwise have given up and taken a nap on the couch, with a book across my chest, forever. Finally, to the animals. Thanks for teaching me everything else. 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract ............................................................................................................................... 3 Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................... 4 Prologue .............................................................................................................................. 8 Critical Introduction: “The Days Are Gods” .................................................................... 11 A Consciousness of Consciousness: On Voice and Narrating Self in Memoir ............ 11 Chapter 1: Los Angeles ..................................................................................................... 37 Hot Air .......................................................................................................................... 37 So Manifest It, Man ...................................................................................................... 49 Chapter 2: Utah ................................................................................................................. 57 Utah Looked Like This ................................................................................................. 57 Checking Fence ............................................................................................................. 67 Wary .............................................................................................................................. 70 Audell’s Carpenter’s and Builder’s Guide .................................................................... 73 Powwow at the Ball Field ............................................................................................. 77 Winter ........................................................................................................................... 82 Suddenly, What You Do is What You Do .................................................................... 84 Table of Contents .......................................................................................................... 89 Process .......................................................................................................................... 90 The Magic Trick ........................................................................................................... 95 Groundwork .................................................................................................................. 97 Gardening .................................................................................................................... 104 The History of Other People ....................................................................................... 106 Spring .......................................................................................................................... 109 The Box C ................................................................................................................... 111 Student Teaching ........................................................................................................ 118 Memorial Day ............................................................................................................. 119 Yoked .......................................................................................................................... 123 Chapter 3 This is the Place .............................................................................................. 127 7 That Bright Summer ................................................................................................... 127 Gus .............................................................................................................................. 133 Chicken Lessons ......................................................................................................... 135 Heavy is the Crown ..................................................................................................... 150 The Night Life Around Here ...................................................................................... 151 The Windows of Wellsville ........................................................................................ 153 Notches ....................................................................................................................... 156 Chapter 4: The Memory Cairns ...................................................................................... 158 Honey .......................................................................................................................... 158 The Local .................................................................................................................... 160 Finding Oklahoma ...................................................................................................... 165 Oh Country Roads ...................................................................................................... 179 Wednesday Night Lights Across from the Stop-n-Go ................................................ 181 Avoiding Jackson Hole ............................................................................................... 184 The Re-enactors .......................................................................................................... 189 Lots Four and Five, Range One West of the Salt Lake Meridian ............................... 192 In My Defense ............................................................................................................ 198 Vision Upon Vision .................................................................................................... 200 Cowboy Up ................................................................................................................. 205 Founder’s Day ............................................................................................................. 207 Monument to Belief, Middle
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