AccessMyLibrary provides FREE access to over 30 million articles from top publications available through your library.

Travels in the American Southwest.

Journal of the Southwest

| June 22, 2004 | Padget, Martin | COPYRIGHT 2004 University of Arizona. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)Copyright

On the licence plates in New Mexico it reads: 'The Land of Enchantment.' And that is it, by God! There's a huge rectangle which embraces parts of four states--Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona--and which is nothing but enchantment, sorcery, illusionismus, phantasmagoria. Perhaps the secret of the American continent is contained in this wild, forbidding and partially unexplored territory. It is the land of the Indian par excellence. Everything is hypnagogic, chthonian and super-celestial. Here Nature has gone gaga and dada. Man is just an irruption, like a wart or a pimple. Man is not wanted here. Red men, yes, but then they are so far removed from what we think of as man that they seem like another species.

--Henry Miller, The Air-Conditioned Nightmare

It is to see our past that thousands of tourists come to New Mexico: archaeologists, geologists, antiquarians, lovers of whatever is old or out-of-date or mysterious because of old age. Our history invites the photographer.

--J. B. Jackson, A Sense of Place, A Sense of Time

At the age of sixteen or so years, I bought a richly illustrated book for my father's birthday that celebrated wonders of nature throughout the world. I consumed the book, ostensibly a gift for my father' birthday, with eagerness, particularly the chapter on the Grand Canyon. For the most part I skipped over the text and looked at the vibrantly picturesque photographs that filled the book. The images seemed to offer the promise of adventurous experience beyond my home in suburban Hertfordshire, twenty miles north of London in England. At that point my travels abroad had been limited to family camping holidays in France, so when I came across a cache of discarded National Geographic magazines in the art classroom at my school, I was filled with a romantic longing to travel to places and experience cultures that were further removed from home. I cut out images from the magazines and juxtaposed them with my own poetry in what I wish I could report was a thrilling experiment with ekphrasis in the early Padget canon. Alas the poor meter, strained rhymes, and self-absorption of my writing were only too familiar to the legionary teachers of literature who have struggled to say complimentary words when pressed to read their adolescent pupils' heartfelt attempts at poetry. Later I would look back with discomfort at the hours I had spent attempting to refine those often crudely written stanzas. So too, after reading photographic criticism, would I learn to call into question the appeal of the imagery that I had come to prize in magazines, books, and other sources, such as the Sierra Club calendar and a pack of greeting cards illustrated with Ansel Adams's photographs. Nevertheless, such images did act as a powerful lure to hike through the Grand Canyon a few years after I purchased my father's book. And, I confess, the picturesque photography that continues to fill the pages of new coffee-table books on the Southwest and the pages of publications such as Arizona Highways and National Geographic still have a powerful sway over my imagination.

In this essay I delve into the appeal of contemporary travel and tourism in the Southwest. The subject matter complements my book Indian Country: Travels in the American Southwest, 1840-1935. (1) But whereas in that book I build authorial authority through reference to prior scholarship and extensive research in established archives, in this essay I take a rather different tack. Since first traveling to Taos and Santa Fe some fifteen years ago, I have often wondered what is the status of the experiences of place, community, and landscape that I have had as both tourist and scholarly critic. The words and images in this essay spring from an ambiguous space in which aspects of private and professional experience, personal and publicly accredited travel comingle. As I reflect on various journeys through the Southwest, a series of visual images emerges in my mind's eye. What, after all, does it mean to view a place fleetingly, at the periphery of vision, while traveling at seventy miles per hour in a car? How out of myriad impressionistic views does a certain sense of place emerge? Why is it that certain views, such as the view of the Rio Grande gorge, Taos Valley, and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains from the south, can create a powerful sense of epiphany?

By paying both written and photographic attention to locations that have become invested with meaning by generations of Anglo travelers and tourists who have journeyed through the Southwest, I wish to raise several interrelated questions. What experiences have visitors sought in their travels to the region? How have visitors' interactions with certain landscapes and native populations of the region changed over the past 130 years? As the Southwest as a whole has become more developed and urbanized, particularly in the post-World War II period, how has the popular iconography of the region changed? In particular, I am fascinated by the spectacle of tourism in the region and the ways in which today's visitors respond to and consume its different landscapes--the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Canyon de Chelly, the Red Rock country of Arizona, and so on. At the same time, I do not wish to comment only on the theme of travel to monumental landscapes where visitors enact their rituals of secular pilgrimage. Many of today's visitors have come to value--through the familiarity of film and television images--the experience not only of driving along interstate freeways and the region's blue highways but also of viewing the roadside architecture of the region, be it a mammoth-sized truck stop or an eye-catching design on a restaurant or shop.

Related articles from newspapers, magazines, journals, and more
U. New Mexico: U. New Mexico anthropologist in National Geographic magazine.
News wire article from: The America's Intelligence Wire January 23, 2002 700+ words
...University of New Mexico Anthropology Professor...professor in the National Geographic Magazine Spain...second time. The National Geographic article focused...of the site for National Geographic. "The cave shows...
New Mexico University Professor Selected for National Geographic Fellowship.
News wire article from: Las Cruces Sun-News (Las Cruces, NM) May 1, 2001 700+ words
...photography in New Mexico State University...been selected by National Geographic for the 2001 faculty...program. Each year National Geographic selects one professor...dream to be at National Geographic." Trantham will...
National Geographic field guide to birds; Arizona & New Mexico.(Brief...
Magazine article from: SciTech Book News December 1, 2006 700+ words
0792253124 National Geographic field guide to birds; Arizona & New Mexico. Ed. by Jonathan Alderfer. Natl. Geographic Society 2006 271 pages $14.95 Paperback QL684 Like others in this publisher...
Boy's love of New Mexico enchants contest judges.
Newspaper article from: The Albuquerque Tribune (Albuquerque, NM) April 12, 2000 700+ words
...state for a National Geographic World contest...essay about New Mexico after the contest...version of National Geographic magazine...prize in a National Geographic World contest...essay about New Mexico.
New Mexico History Museum Grand Opening, Memorial Day Weekend 2009.
Press release article from: PR Newswire September 26, 2008 700+ words
...Levine, director of the New Mexico History Museum and...construction since 2006, the New Mexico History Museum is located...Institution and the National Geographic Museum. "We wanted...experience the stories of New Mexico's people, not just...
National Geographic Channel Sets Date for Inside a Cult Premiere.
Magazine article from: Entertainment Close-up April 21, 2008 700+ words
...21 April 2008-National Geographic Channel Sets Date...at 9 PM ET/PT, National Geographic Channel (NGC...Strong City cult in New Mexico believe him. For...with Channel 4 for National Geographic Channel. The producer...
National Geographic books focus on our place in natural world.(Outdoors &...
Newspaper article from: Albuquerque Journal (Albuquerque, NM) December 21, 2000 700+ words
...100 years, National Geographic Society has...tradition. The "National Geographic Expeditions...two days. New Mexico gains some...the gods." New Mexico and the great...Summit" $30, National Geographic, 224 pages...
National Geographic Reference Atlas to the Birds of North America.(Book Review)
Magazine article from: Birder's World Hunt, Susan June 1, 2004 700+ words
...dreams are made of National Geographic Reference Atlas...by Mel Baughman, National Geographic Society, 2003...expect from the National Geographic Society. More than...Rattlesnake Springs in New Mexico, you may be lucky...
National Geographic Society Executive Joins Digital Right Management Firm's...
Press release article from: PR Newswire August 22, 2001 700+ words
...Vice President of National Geographic Society to Elisar...experience at the National Geographic Society will help...first joined the National Geographic Society in 1996...in Albuquerque, New Mexico's "Silicon Mesa...
Journeys of a Lifetime: 500 of the World's Greatest Trips. National Geographic:...
Magazine article from: Library Journal Carlson, Joseph L. September 15, 2007 700+ words
...World's Greatest Trips. National Geographic: National Geographic Society. Oct. 2007. 400p...around the world as only National Geographic can present. This beautifully...the Indian country of New Mexico, Pennsylvania's Amish...
For more facts and information, see all results

Source: HighBeam Research, Travels in the American Southwest.

©2009 Gale, a part of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
About us | FAQs | Contact us | Privacy policy | Terms and conditions
Other Gale sites: Encyclopedia.com | HighBeam Research | Acquire Content | Books & Authors | Goliath | MovieRetriever | Smart QandA