@article{465089,
      recid = {465089},
      author = {Patin, Thomas,},
      title = {Observation points the visual poetics of national parks /  [electronic resource] :},
      publisher = {University of Minnesota Press,},
      address = {Minneapolis :},
      pages = {xxvi, 296 p. :},
      year = {2012},
      abstract = {" National parks are the places that present ideas of  nature to Americans: Zion, Yosemite, Grand Canyon,  Yellowstone bring to mind quintessential and awe-inspiring  wilderness. By examining how rhetoric--particularly visual  rhetoric--has worked to shape our views of nature and the  "natural" place of humans, Observation Points offers  insights into questions of representation, including the  formation of national identity.As Thomas Patin reveals, the  term "nature" is artificial and unstable, in need of  constant maintenance and reconstruction. The process of  stabilizing its representation, he notes, is unavoidably  political. America's national parks and monuments show how  visual rhetoric operates to naturalize and stabilize  representations of the environment. As contributors  demonstrate, visual rhetoric is often transparent,  structuring experience while remaining hidden in plain  sight. Scenic overlooks and turnouts frame views for  tourists. Visitor centers, with their display cases and  photographs and orientation films, provide their own points  of view--literally and figuratively. Guidebooks, brochures,  and other publications present still other ways of seeing.  At the same time, images of America's "natural" world have  long been employed for nationalist and capitalist ends,  linking expansionism with American greatness and the  "natural" triumph of European Americans over Native  Americans.The essays collected here cover a wide array of  subjects, including park architecture, landscape painting,  public ceremonies, and techniques of display. Contributors  are from an equally broad range of disciplines--art  history, geography, museum studies, political science,  American studies, and many other fields. Together they  advance a provocative new visual genealogy of  representation.Contributors: Robert M. Bednar, Southwestern  U, Georgetown, Texas; Teresa Bergman, U of the Pacific;  Albert Boime, UCLA; William Chaloupka, Colorado State U;  Gregory Clark, Brigham Young U; Stephen Germic, Rocky  Mountain College; Gareth John, St. Cloud State U,  Minnesota; Mark Neumann, Northern Arizona U; Peter Peters,  Maastricht U; Cindy Spurlock, Appalachian State U; David A.  Tschida, U of Wisconsin, Eau Claire; Sabine Wilke, U of  Washington. "--},
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/465089},
}