Newfoundland village.The Shipping Newswon nu-
merous awards, including a 1994 Pulitzer Prize, and
was adapted into a 2001 film. InAccordion Crimes
(1996), Proulx traces the adventures of an accor-
dion as it moves from owner to owner over the
course of a century. Though each of the nine own-
ers is a member of a different ethnic group and lives
in a different part of America, they are all new im-
migrants and thus subject to harassment, discrimi-
nation, and cruelty.
In 1999, Proulx returned to short fiction with
Close Range: Wyoming Stories, in which ranchers and
cowhands are pitted against nature and their own
frailties. One of the stories in the collection, “Broke-
back Mountain,” was made into a 2005 film.
Impact Unlike many earlier women writers, Proulx
does not focus merely on issues related to gender.
The subject of her novels is the heroism of ordinary
human beings, both women and men, whether
they are confronted by an inhospitable natural envi-
ronment or, as in the case of the immigrants, by an
equally inhospitable social order. This breadth of fo-
cus, along with her masterful characterization and
her brilliant style, guarantee Proulx’s standing as
one of the most significant writers of the 1990’s.
Further Reading
Bilton, Alan.An Introduction to Contemporar y American
Fiction. New York: New York University Press, 2003.
Rood, Karen Lane.Understanding Annie Proulx.Co-
lumbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2001.
Steinberg, Sybil. “E. Annie Proulx: An American Od-
yssey.”Publishers Weekly243, no. 23 (June 3, 1996):
57-58.
Rosemar y M. Canfield ReismanSee also Literature in the United States. Psychology
Definition The scientific study of human mental
processes and behaviors
With its myriad specialties and branches, psychology in the
1990’s explored a range of topics, including language ac-
quisition; emotional intelligence; prescription privileges;
memor y acquisition, retention, and retrieval; and social in-
fluences on cognition.
In the waning years of the 1980’s, President George
H. W. Bush encouraged American citizens to become
more involved in giving back to their communities, a
call to action that the psychology community em-
braced. In 1990, psychology professionals began us-
ing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) on the brain
to study human cognition; in the same year, a com-
mittee from the American Psychological Association
(APA) discussed possibilities for the up-and-coming
branch of psychology called phar-
mapsychology, or behavioral biol-
ogy. Interdisciplinary approaches
began forming during the early part
of this “Decade of the Brain,” a time
when psychologists researched cog-
nition, language acquisition, mem-
ory, and aging. Mental health profes-
sionals began studying a cluster of
illnesses, known as Gulf War syn-
drome, that some Gulf War combat
veterans experienced.
During the early 1990’s especially,
psychology became more accepting
of the possibility of genetic influences
on human cognition, so much so
that some psychologists needlessly
worried that focus would shift away
from social dynamics toward genetic
factors, and social influences would
become irrelevant. In truth, socialThe Nineties in America Psychology 689
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Proulx on her property in Vershire, Vermont, in
April, 1994.(AP/Wide World Photos)