Writing the heavenly frontier [electronic resource] : metaphor, geography and flight autobiography in America 1927-1954 / Denice Turner.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Turner, Denice H., 1964-

Series:

Costerus ; new ser., v. 187.

Costerus ; new ser., 187

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Air pilots--United States--Biography.

Air pilots.

Flight--History.

Flight.

Aeronautics--Human factors--United States.

Aeronautics.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (219 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam : Rodopi, 2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Writing the Heavenly Frontier celebrates the early voices of the air as it examines the sky as a metaphorical and political landscape. While flight histories usually focus on the physical dangers of early aviation, this book introduces the figurative liabilities of ascension. Early pilot-writers not only grappled with an unwieldy machine; they also grappled with poetics that were extremely selective. Tropes that cast Charles Lindbergh as the transcendent hero of the new millennium were the same ones that kept women, black Americans, and indigenous peoples imaginatively tethered to the ground. The most popular flight autobiographies in the United States posited a hero who rose from the mundane to the miraculous; and yet the most startling autobiographies point out the social factors that limited or forbade vertical movement—both literally and figuratively. A survey of pilot writing, the book will appeal to flight enthusiasts and people interested in American autobiography and culture. But it will also appeal strongly to readers interested in the poetics and politics of place.

Contents:

Preliminary Material

WRITING THE HEAVENLY FRONTIER

IMAGINATIVE GEOGRAPHIES AND THE INVENTION OF THE AERIAL SUBJECT

FROM PILOT TO POET: THE TRANSFORMATION OF LINDBERGH

POLAR FRONTIERS AND PUBLIC FICTIONS: SKYWARD WITH RICHARD E. BYRD

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL DEMANDS AND HISTORICAL REALITIES

JIMMY COLLINS AND THE TETHERS OF MATERIALITY

FLIGHT AS EMANCIPATION: WILLIAM J. POWELL’S DREAM OF BLACK WINGS

THE FLYING BOUDOIR

THE SOUND OF WINGS: AUTOBIOGRAPHIES BY AMELIA EARHART

LOUISE THADEN AND THE TETHERS OF MOTHERHOOD

FLIGHT AS UPWARD MOBILITY: JACKIE COCHRAN AND THE STARS AT NOON

TRANSCENDENCE ABROAD

CULTIVATING THE GARDEN: ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY AND THE NOBLE STRUGGLE

ESCAPING THE WILDERNESS: ANNE MORROW LINDBERGH AND THE EPIC JOURNEY

LATE CENTURY METAPHORS: LARRY WALTERS AND THE RICH MAN’S WEDDING CAKE

INDEX.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-283-03458-1

9786613034588

90-420-3297-9

OCLC:

711871033

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9789042032972 DOI