Ever since the first interactions between Europeans and Native Americans, the "West" has served as a site of complex geographical, social and cultural transformation. American literature is defined, in part, by the central symbols derived from these points of contact. By the end of the nineteenth century, the Western frontier was declared "closed," a demise solidified by Frederick Jackson Turner's influential essay "The Significance of the Frontier in American History (1893). At the same time, "naturalism" was popularized by the writings of Frank Norris, Stephen Crane, Jack London, Willa...

The Native American casino and gaming industry has attracted unprecedented American public attention to life on reservations. Other tribal public venues, such as museums and powwows, have also gained in popularity among non-Native audiences and become sites of education and performance.In "Public" "Native America, "Mary Lawlor explores the process of tribal self-definition that the communities in her study make available to off-reservation audiences. Focusing on architectural and interior designs as well as performance styles, she reveals how a complex and often surprising cultural dynamic is...

Fighter Pilot's Daughter: Growing Up in the Sixties and the Cold War details author and Professor Mary Lawlor s unconventional upbringing in Cold War America. Memories of her early life as the daughter of a Marine Corps and then Army father reveal the personal costs of tensions that once gripped the entire world, and illustrate the ways in which bold foreign policy decisions shaped an entire generation of Americans, defining not just the ways they were raised, but who they would ultimately become. As a kid on the move she was constantly in search of something to hold on to, a longing that led...