Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Introduction: Regionalism and the Humanities: Decline or Revival? -- Part One: Sensing Place: The Authority of Nature -- 1. Dangerous Ground: Landscape in American Fiction -- 2. The Ec(h)ological Conscience: Reflections on the Nature of Human Presence in Great Plains Environmental Writing -- 3. "I Don't Know, but I Ain't Lost": Defining the Southwest -- 4. A Border Runs through It: Looking at Regionalism through Architecturein the Southwest -- Part Two: Constructing Place: The Possibility of Local Representation -- 5. Willa Cather's Case: Region and Reputation -- 6. Dwelling within the Place Worth Seeking: The Midwest, Regional Identity, and Internal Histories -- 7. Gendered Boosterism: The "Doctor's Wife" Writes from the New Northwest -- 8. "With Powder Smoke and Profanity": Genre Conventions, Regional Identity, and the Palisade Gunfight Hoax -- Part Three: Place Is a Relationship: Regionalism, Nationalism, and Transnationalism -- 9. Regionalism and the Realities of Naming -- 10. The Midwest as a Colony: Transnational Regionalism -- 11. Transcending the Urban-Rural Divide: Willa Cather's Thea Kronborg Goes to Chicago -- 12. Preaching the Gospel of Higher Vaudeville: Vachel Lindsay's Poetic Journey from Springfield,Illinois, across America, and Back -- Part Four: Place is Political: Creating Regional Cultures -- 13. State Pieces in the U.S. Regions Puzzle: Nevada and the Problem of Fit -- 14. Imagining Place: Nebraska Territory, 1854-1867 -- 15. Architecture Crosses Region: Building in the Grecian Style -- 16. Societies and Soirees: Musical Life and Regional Character in the South Atlantic -- Contributors -- Index.