OSHER 980 - Zane Grey and the Southwest: Romances of the Border

In this course we will study four of Zane Grey's earliest writings about the Southwest, specifically those set on the Utah-Arizona border, the area that he explored during several backcountry expeditions from 1907 to 1915. Students should be prepared to read and discuss the following texts: The Last of the Plainsmen (1908,) The Heritage of the Desert (1910,) Riders of the Purple Sage (1912,) and The Rainbow Trail (1915). In these stories, the desert and canyon country is the primal force that molds and motivates character and precipitates action. The literary genre is that of the romance. Among the themes to be discussed are the regenerative power of the western landscape, the role of violence in the development of the West, male-female relationships (closely related to the quest for freedom and independence by the female characters,) the racial conflicts between whites and Native Americans, and the influence of religion.