User:Ecorbie/sandbox

Article Evaluation: Ethnohistory


 * Some grammatical errors - …"with creating a multiple volumes..."
 * "The study of American Indian communities..." could be changed to "Native American communities."
 * No citations for paragraph beginning, "In the United States, the field arose..."
 * "Florida Indians" should be changed
 * "postcontact" should be "post-contact"
 * "Ethnohistory grew organically..." paragraph appears to be questionable with regards to its tone. May not be independent.
 * "Finally Simmons..." no link to Simmons or description of who he is/was
 * No citation given for Simmons' first quote.
 * No link or description for Harkin.
 * Last paragraph is a run-on sentence
 * "...legal history in North-American in the mid-20th century..." - grammatical error
 * Historical Development section does not flow chronologically. Stars off with Mexico, then moves on to the United States, then it goes on to describe the development of the subject as a whole.

= William Least-Heat Moon =

Cultural Impact of Blue Highways
Blue Highway Motorcycle Lodge : Vacation experience for motorcycle enthusiasts located in Wisconsin. It is dedicated to traveling particular back roads in the area known as "blue highways." The "About" page of the website introduces the concept of 'blue highways" via a quote from Least-Heat Moon's book.

 Blue Highways Revisited : Written and photographed by Edgar I. Ailor III, and Edgar I. Ailor IV, Blue Highways Revisited is an unofficial 30 year sequel to Least-Heat Moon's original book. The Ailors re-travel the routes of Least Heat-Moon and seek out the sites he visited, as well as the people he interacted with along the way.

Robert W. Cole Jr. and Midwestern Schools : Influenced by Least-Heat Moon's Blue Highways, Cole a then-editor of the Phi Delta Kappan magazine, decided to take leave in order to study rural and small-town schools in the American Mid-West.

Blue Highways and Forbes: Listed as number nine of fifteen books that are recommended to readers.

Ecocentrism
Almost as a rule, Heat-Moon’s works focus very heavily upon the theme of Ecocentrism. In fact, due to the nature of some of his most well-known novels which center on different methods of traversing the North American landscape, one might say that the ecosystem serves as a necessary foundation for Heat-Moon’s writings. Jonathan Levin, provost of the University of Mary Washington, even goes so far as to label Heat-Moon a “literary naturalist." However, it would be inaccurate to state that Heat-Moon follows the ecocentric model “to a tee.” Rather, he attempts to illustrate a hybrid relationship between humans and the environment and how each entity influences the other. Nature is presented more as an active character in Heat-Moon’s narratives as opposed to a backdrop. As a result, Heat-Moon calls into question the nature of how society defines its own geographical boundaries. Renee Bryzik, a professor at UC Davis, likens Heat-Moon’s method of illustrating this socio-environmental interaction to a reinvigorated analysis of Bioregionalism.  According to Bryzik, what seems most fascinating to Heat-Moon are instances where the line dividing society and nature becomes blurred, and it is difficult to tell whether society has influenced the environment or vice-versa.

Heat-Moon’s writings are also not lacking in their share of critiquing how societal progress has negatively affected the ecosystem. The insights that Heat-Moon gained in his travels along the blue highways were two-fold in that while he was able to come to terms with his own personal growth, he was simultaneously able to contemplate upon how he as a human being fit into the greater fabric of the universe. In essence, his ability to comment on the state of the ecosystem post-Blue Highways stemmed from his acquired understanding of how humans interact with their physical surrounding, and how they should interact with their environment. River Horse is particularly effective as a medium for commentary on contemporary environmental resource management as his travels are reliant upon the conditions of a different kind of blue highway: the rivers of North America.

Psychology of Self
Although Heat-Moon’s Blue Highways is remembered primarily for the physical trek which covers about 38 of the 50 states in the U.S., the quintessence of the book is the internal journey that Heat-Moon takes. The blue highways allow Heat-Moon the space and the freedom to be able to reflect upon who he is, who he wants to be, and how he fits into the greater world around him. Initiated by the loss of his job and the unraveling of his marriage, his own search for “self” quite literally takes him down the road less traveled. While his van gradually allows him to expand his horizons he also draws from his travel experiences to expand his own personal growth. Blue Highways has been likened to a cross between John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley, and Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. Apart from Heat-Moon’s own admission that Travels with Charley partially influenced the decision to travel and write Blue Highways, the literary tones of both books also parallel each other. Both authors are around the same age, and they both are interested in exploring the U.S. as thoughtful and reflective observers. On the other hand, Heat-Moon’s circumstances mirror those of Kerouac’s protagonist and as such moves in a more spiritual direction reminiscent of “Beat” culture. He was himself influenced by Beat writers such as Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and admitted to re-working the concept of Kerouac’s On the Road.

What is significant about Blue Highways as a travel narrative in particular is that it is a snapshot of American culture that echoes the sentiments of Beat Generation writings and even Romantic Era travelogues, but does so in the late 1970s. The very nature of his decision to strike out on the open road in search of spiritual truths continues a tradition that captured the cultural outlook of a certain era in U.S. history (namely the 1950s-1970’s) that was  not shared to the same degree by the generations which followed it.

Although Heat-Moon’s works carry Transcendentalist nuances in terms of non-religious spiritual philosophies, Heat-Moon has explicitly stated that he does not consider himself to be a “Transcendentalist.”

Cartography
See deep mapping.