The 'Journey of Life' in American Life and Literature

[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

 > The papers collected in this volume were presented at a conference on 
“The Journey of Life” which took place at Paderborn University in 
October 2013. They focus on a perennially recurring archetype of the 
human imagination which, for obvious reasons, is especially influential 
in the U.S. The articles offer exemplary insights into the 
manifestations and functions of the ‘journey of life’ concept in both 
American life and literature. Some contributions deal with ‘real’ 
journeys ranging from the westward travels of pioneer women physicians 
in the nineteenth century through Jack London’s ‘journeys of life’ to 
the attempts at tinkering with the human journey of life in the age of 
biotechnology. Other contributions present a taxonomy of journey types 
in American fiction, and they analyze literary journeys from the 
omnipresent journeys in Thomas Pynchon’s novels and the post-apocalyptic 
journey in Cormac McCarthy’s ‘The Road’ through the journey plot in 
Robert Kirkman’s serial comic ‘The Walking Dead’ and the various kinds 
of journeys in Western films to the journeys of initiation in Sherman 
Alexie’s ‘The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian’ and José 
Antonio Villarréal’s ‘Pocho’. <

https://www.winter-verlag.de/en/detail/978-3-8253-7518-8/Freese_Ed_The_Journey_of_Life_PDF/

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