The American adrenaline narrative / Kristin J. Jacobson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jacobson, Kristin J., 1973- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American literature--20th century--History and criticism.

American literature.

Prose literature, American--History and criticism.

Prose literature, American.

Environmentalism--United States.

Environmentalism.

Risk-taking (Psychology) in literature.

Outdoor life in literature.

Danger in literature.

Adventure and adventurers in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (284 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Athens : The University of Georgia Press, 2020.

Summary:

"The attempt to understand the desires related to radical, risky acts like climbing to 29,028 feet as well as the everyday participation in and fascination with extreme lifestyles lays at the heart of this book and the extreme adventure narratives it studies. The American Adrenaline Narrative identifies and examines such stories' desiring natures and considers how perilous outdoor adventure tales, what the author terms "adrenaline narratives," simultaneously promote and hinder ecological sustainability. To explore these interdepended desires, the manuscript defines and compares adrenaline narratives by a range of American authors writing after the first Earth Day in 1970, selected as a crucial watershed for the contemporary American environmental movement and for cultures of the extreme. The forty-plus years since the first Earth Day mark the rise in the popularity and marketing of all things extreme-including sports, jobs, travel, beverages, gum, makeovers, laundry detergent, and even the environmental movement itself. This book and the term "adrenaline narrative" provide a classification for and analysis of the rapidly growing and wildly popular collection of narratives-primarily nonfiction, autobiographical, or biographical accounts-focused on extreme sports, lifestyle, and travel that emerge into the popular consciousness during a time of environmental activism that, like the adrenaline narratives themselves, range from conservative to radical acts. While literary or artistic merit, as a result, is not Jacobson's primary impetus for identifying and studying adrenaline narratives, attention to narrative form plays a key role in understanding their ecological messages and the ways the accounts deftly exploit form to craft suspenseful, page-turning exploits. The author's methods to map the American eco-imagination via adrenaline narratives are grounded in the traditional literary practice of close reading analysis and in ecofeminism. The book surveys a range of popular and lesser-known primary texts by American authors, including bestselling books-such as Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air and Aron Ralston's Between a Rock and a Hard Place-and lesser-known and read texts-such as Patricia C. McCairen's Canyon Solitude, Eddy L. Harris's Mississippi Solo, and Stacy Allison's Beyond the Limits. Jacobson primarily focuses on book-length nonfiction narratives; however, adrenaline narratives may also be found in print and online articles and magazines, feature length and short films, television shows, amateur videos, social networking sites, fiction, advertising, and blogs. Jacobson contends that these stories-whatever their format-comprise a distinctive genre because-unlike traditional nature, travel, and sports writing-adrenaline narratives sustain heightened risk or the element of the "extreme" within a natural setting. Additionally, reading these narratives as a separate genre provides important insight into the American environmental imagination's connection to masculinity and adventure"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

1. DESIRING NATURES

2. CONQUERING NATURES

3. SPIRITUAL NATURES

4. EROTIC NATURES

5. RISKY NATURES

6. RESTORATIVE NATURES

Appendix : List of Contemporary American Adrenaline Narratives.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0-8203-5698-0