A West Texas Soapbox

By Jim Sanderson and Jim Sanderson

Whether sprawled on barstools or preaching from pulpits, people need to make sense of their world, and in Jim Sanderson's world of West Texas, pulpits and barstools are where many of them do so. Sanderson himself stood for many years at a podium, teaching at a community college in Odessa, Texas. There, tired of academic papers and sometimes losing the distinction between fiction and nonfiction, he turned to the world around him to figure out the meaning (or meanings) of education and of culture itself. In a series of autobiographical ruminations, Sanderson develops the theme that frontier wildness is still alive, especially in West Texas, though it may be repressed by fundamentalist religion and conservative politics. West Texans, he finds, have to reconcile the two sides of their contrary natures: the farmer, best represented by the fundamental church, and the frontiersman, best represented by the sleazy bar. Through this theme of internal conflict, Sanderson weaves his experiences of art and censorship, Texas myths in film and fiction, the interaction of Hispanic culture with the culture of West Texas, contradictions posed by academic interests in vocational teaching institutions, intellectual elitism versus the real world, and West Texas women's definition and self-definition. Through the examples of his students, he shows how the quest for the West Texas myth--freedom, liberation, and fulfillment--is always transforming, whether for good or bad. In the end, he recognizes that his insights may tell more about himself than about West Texas, but by trying to make meaning out of his experience, he tells us something about the way all of us learn and think about ourselves.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0890968195
• ISBN13: 9780890968192
• Release Date: April 1998
• Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Sanderson V/S Odessa For the Heavy Weight Belt

I'm taking this book with a grain of salt. Then I'm following that with a glass of water.(Salt always makes me thirsty) Mr. Sandersons book starts with Emerson. Here he adeptly seperates himself from the Sand-dwelling God-fearing, mesquite-huddling creatures of the Odessan West. All sense of 'Self Reliance' present in American cuture has been effectively weeded out in Odessa, replaced with a consuming sense of Jesus and an ill conceived moral sense. Mr. Sanderson by invoking Emerson, distants himself from these maddened desert people, and looks at them with--I hate to say contemp, but these bastards are quiet contemptable. In the end he too has to leave the Odessan west because he has challenged Jesus and the moral baggage he carries. Ironically he heads East towards self introspection, and not westard, the traditional route of Americans seeking the reason and purpose of a questioned life. I think he also sees how easy it would be to fall into the Odessan life, to not think, to only act. In the end to just accept what is presented to you, like so many do.

a cynical view of education and west texas

well, when i first started this book i was worried, it started out a bit slow, and the early essays were very academic, BUT the later essays were full of humor, sarcasm, cynicism, and wisdom. I know essay collections don't normally sell well, but this is one that you should definately pick up.