Cather Studies, Volume 12

Over the five decades of her writing career Willa Cather responded to, and entered into dialogue with, shifts in the terrain of American life. These cultural encounters informed her work as much as the historical past in which much of her writing is based. Cather was a multifaceted cultural critic, immersing herself in the arts, broadly defined: theater and opera, art, narrative, craft production. Willa Cather and the Arts shows that Cather repeatedly engaged with multiple forms of art, and that even when writing about the past she was often addressing contemporary questions. The essays in this volume are informed by new modes of contextualization, including the increasingly popular view of Cather as a pivotal or transitional figure working between and across very different cultural periods and by the recent publication of Cathers correspondence. The collection begins by exploring the ways Cather encountered and represented high and low cultures, including Cathers use of racialized vernacular in Sapphira and the Slave Girl. The next set of essays demonstrates how historical research, often focusing on local features in Cathers fiction, contributes to our understanding of American culture, from musicological sources to the cultural development of Pittsburgh. The final trio of essays highlights current Cather scholarship, including a food studies approach to O Pioneers! and an examination of Cathers use of ancient philosophy in The Professors House. Together the essays reassess Cathers lifelong encounter with, and interpretation and reimagining of, the arts.