This thesis examines 20th century American writer Mary Austin's last novel, Starry Adventure (1931), a work unjustly ignored by most Austin scholars, yet touted by the photographer Ansel Adams (in a letter to Austin) as \"the greatest thing I have ever read.\" This thesis will be particularly concerned with the concept of vision in the novel and the connections between Austin's fiction and the New Mexican modernism/primitivism movement in the visual arts. I explore what I call Austin's \"optic of enchantment,\" a visual experience of divinity that is uniquely tied to the New Mexican landscape. I break down this optic of enchantment into three distinct and definitive facets: First - a visual understanding of the landscape which is directly informed by the then-contemporary movements of visual artists in Taos and Santa Fe, and more widely, in New York and Europe. Second, I discuss how the visual experience of the landscape is derived from a primitivist sense of indigenous experience: Indian artistic culture and its deep, non-lingual understanding of the land, and the ritual and mysticism of Penitente and chicano culture. Finally, I complicate literary studies of Austin with theories of modern visual culture, relying on the work of visual studies critics and modernist art historians to illustrate how American vision was changing at the turn of the 20th century, and how the Southwestern landscape played a role in determining national concepts of modernity and modernism in art, letters and beyond.
","abstract_html":"<p>This thesis examines 20th century American writer Mary Austin's last novel, <em>Starry Adventure</em> (1931), a work unjustly ignored by most Austin scholars, yet touted by the photographer Ansel Adams (in a letter to Austin) as "the greatest thing I have ever read." This thesis will be particularly concerned with the concept of vision in the novel and the connections between Austin's fiction and the New Mexican modernism/primitivism movement in the visual arts. I explore what I call Austin's "optic of enchantment," a visual experience of divinity that is uniquely tied to the New Mexican landscape. I break down this optic of enchantment into three distinct and definitive facets: First - a visual understanding of the landscape which is directly informed by the then-contemporary movements of visual artists in Taos and Santa Fe, and more widely, in New York and Europe. Second, I discuss how the visual experience of the landscape is derived from a primitivist sense of indigenous experience: Indian artistic culture and its deep, non-lingual understanding of the land, and the ritual and mysticism of Penitente and chicano culture. Finally, I complicate literary studies of Austin with theories of modern visual culture, relying on the work of visual studies critics and modernist art historians to illustrate how American vision was changing at the turn of the 20th century, and how the Southwestern landscape played a role in determining national concepts of modernity and modernism in art, letters and beyond.</p>","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Mann, Olivia Jayne"],"institution":null,"degree_name":"M.A.","degree_level":"Masters Thesis","degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Eric Gould, Ph.D.","Eleanor McNees","Annette Stott"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2017,"date_issued":"2017-01-01T08:00:00Z","date_published":"2017-01-01T08:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T02:02:11Z","subjects":["Enchantment","Mary Austin","New Mexico","Santa Fe","Starry Adventure","Taos","American Art and Architecture","Literature in English, North America"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.
"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd/1379","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Eric Gould, Ph.D.","Eleanor McNees","Annette Stott"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Mann, Olivia Jayne"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.available","label":"Dc Date Available","values":["2019-12-22T08:00:00Z"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Masters Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["M.A."]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Enchantment","Mary Austin","New Mexico","Santa Fe","Starry Adventure","Taos","American Art and Architecture","Literature in English, North America"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.
"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd/1379"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["This thesis examines 20th century American writer Mary Austin's last novel, Starry Adventure (1931), a work unjustly ignored by most Austin scholars, yet touted by the photographer Ansel Adams (in a letter to Austin) as \"the greatest thing I have ever read.\" This thesis will be particularly concerned with the concept of vision in the novel and the connections between Austin's fiction and the New Mexican modernism/primitivism movement in the visual arts. I explore what I call Austin's \"optic of enchantment,\" a visual experience of divinity that is uniquely tied to the New Mexican landscape. I break down this optic of enchantment into three distinct and definitive facets: First - a visual understanding of the landscape which is directly informed by the then-contemporary movements of visual artists in Taos and Santa Fe, and more widely, in New York and Europe. Second, I discuss how the visual experience of the landscape is derived from a primitivist sense of indigenous experience: Indian artistic culture and its deep, non-lingual understanding of the land, and the ritual and mysticism of Penitente and chicano culture. Finally, I complicate literary studies of Austin with theories of modern visual culture, relying on the work of visual studies critics and modernist art historians to illustrate how American vision was changing at the turn of the 20th century, and how the Southwestern landscape played a role in determining national concepts of modernity and modernism in art, letters and beyond.
"]},{"key":"dc:format","label":"Dc Format","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Seeing the God of New Mexico: Mary Austin's Starry Adventure and the Optic of Enchantment"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Eric Gould, Ph.D.","Eleanor McNees","Annette Stott"],"dc:creator":["Mann, Olivia Jayne"],"dc:date.available":["2019-12-22T08:00:00Z"],"dc:description.abstract":["This thesis examines 20th century American writer Mary Austin's last novel, Starry Adventure (1931), a work unjustly ignored by most Austin scholars, yet touted by the photographer Ansel Adams (in a letter to Austin) as \"the greatest thing I have ever read.\" This thesis will be particularly concerned with the concept of vision in the novel and the connections between Austin's fiction and the New Mexican modernism/primitivism movement in the visual arts. I explore what I call Austin's \"optic of enchantment,\" a visual experience of divinity that is uniquely tied to the New Mexican landscape. I break down this optic of enchantment into three distinct and definitive facets: First - a visual understanding of the landscape which is directly informed by the then-contemporary movements of visual artists in Taos and Santa Fe, and more widely, in New York and Europe. Second, I discuss how the visual experience of the landscape is derived from a primitivist sense of indigenous experience: Indian artistic culture and its deep, non-lingual understanding of the land, and the ritual and mysticism of Penitente and chicano culture. Finally, I complicate literary studies of Austin with theories of modern visual culture, relying on the work of visual studies critics and modernist art historians to illustrate how American vision was changing at the turn of the 20th century, and how the Southwestern landscape played a role in determining national concepts of modernity and modernism in art, letters and beyond.
"],"dc:format":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier":["https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd/1379"],"dc:language":["en"],"dc:rights":["Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.
"],"dc:subject":["Enchantment","Mary Austin","New Mexico","Santa Fe","Starry Adventure","Taos","American Art and Architecture","Literature in English, North America"],"dc:title":["Seeing the God of New Mexico: Mary Austin's Starry Adventure and the Optic of Enchantment"],"thesis:degree_level":["Masters Thesis"],"thesis:degree_name":["M.A."]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T02:02:11Z"}