%0 Journal Article 
%A Ach, Jada
%T Land “under the Ditch”: channeling water through Owen Wister’s "The Virginian"

%D 2018
%@ 2171-9594
%U http://hdl.handle.net/10017/33224
%X This paper combines envirotech history with elemental ecocriticism to examine the lively presence of water infrastructure in Owen Wister’s "The Virginian" (1902). In Wister’s novel, humans and animals assemble around channels of water, and the fight to divert and control water systems initiates both violence and new alliances. Instead of relegating water infrastructures to the inconsequential background, this paper asks what ditches, water storage containers, and reservoirs can contribute to our understanding of gender and human-environmental relations at the turn of the twentieth century. It argues that Progressive Era water development places “manliness” at risk at the same time that it defines it. Since thirst, aridity, and mobility contribute to the making of hard, manly men in Wister’s view, irrigation emerges as a potent challenge to the novel’s hard logic.

%K Ecocriticism
%K Infrastructure studies
%K Owen Wister
%K Nineteenth and twentieth century American literature
%K New materialism
%K Ecocrítica
%K Estudios de infraestructura
%K Literatura norteamericana del siglo diecinueve y veinte
%K Nuevo materialismo
%K Literatura
%K Literature
%K Medio ambiente
%K Environmental science
%~ Biblioteca Universidad de Alcala