New Wests and Post-Wests: Literature and Film of the American West

by Paul Varner (Editor)

The writers of these chapters are often working with changing assumptions about literary and media interpretations of an American West. Here we see critical approaches to a West that never was, a West of myth so enduring that the myth dominates nearly all artistic representation about this place that never was. In this collection, we see critical approaches to a New West, a West that is a state of mind, not a geographical place but a mythic space with no boundaries and no political inevitabilities. These New Western studies accept the idea of a West that includes Canada, Mexico, Alaska, and, in the case of the US, every geographic and historical point west of the historic founding settlements. The West we study today is a post-West, an idea of the West past the traditional views of an old West dominated by white US nationalism and gendered as uncompromisingly masculine. The idea itself of a single West no longer holds validity. We now understand that all renderings of the West are renderings of multiple Wests; Wests constructed by American nationalists, Wests constructed by EuroAmerican writers and filmmakers, Wests constructed by native peoples, or Wests constructed outside the geographical boundaries of the US. This collection presents an eclectic array of new scholarship ranging freely over the New Wests and Post Wests, dealing with issues such as the literature of a 1950s California West; eco-crime genre fiction; the West of Edward Dorn and the Beat Movement; images of prostitution in California Gold Rush literature; European perspectives on film representations of the first peoples; the six shooter and the American West; German Westerns and Italian Westerns; The Authentic Death of Hendry Jones, by Charles Neider; and films such as The Treasure of Sierra Madre, Into the Wild, There Will Be Blood, and The Last Picture Show. A unique aspect of this collection is the range of writers interpreting the American West in film and literature; besides those writing from within the United States, five of the writers provide international perspectives from the United Kingdom, and the Universities of Tunis, Vienna, and Rome. Each chapter includes a review of scholarship on its subject and an extended bibliography for further research.

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Announcement: Cambridge Scholars Press has just published my latest book : Beatniks and Coaboys: Edward Dorn, Charles Olson, and the American West (Summer 2020). Dorn and Olson, of course were key figures in early American postmodern/avant garde poetics. Dorn's Gunslinger is arguably the most important epic poem to come out of the Beat Movement in the West. This is my third book with Cambridge Scholars.

I was born in West Texas. After completing my undergraduate studies at Oklahoma Christian University in 1973, I attended the University of Tennessee in Knoxville from 1973 to 1981 where, along with my wife, Jeanine, I completed my MA and my PhD in English; Jeanine and I received our PhDs the same day.

Over the years I taught at Rochester College, Oklahoma State University–Oklahoma City, and Oklahoma Christian University, and for a number of years served as the Scholar-in-Residence for the English Department at Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas. Since my primary duties as Scholar-in-Residence involved research, writing, and teaching in areas of my research, I managed to write a number of books and to be active in organizations like the Western Literature Association and the Southwest and Texas Popular Culture Association.

Jeanine and I have two adult children—Bart, a musician, and Tess, a philosopher. Most of my books have been about popular Westerns--novels and movies. But I have also published widely on 18th-century English literature, current American poets, literature of the Beat Generation, and the Romantic Movement.

My books on Westerns are:
New Wests and Post-Wests: The American West in Literature and Film (Cambridge Scholars Press 2013)
Historical Dictionary of Westerns in Literature (Rowman & Littlefield, 2010)
Sooner Cinema, contributor (Forty-sixth State Press, 2009)
Historical Dictionary of Westerns in Cinema (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008) ; Also issued in paperback as Westerns A-Z.
Westerns: Movies from Hollywood and Paperback Novels (Cambridge Scholars Press, 2008)

Other books include:
Historical Dictionary of Romanticism in Literature (Rowman & Littlefield, 2014)
Historical Dictionary of Literature of the Beat Movement (Rowman & Littlefield, 2012)

My Amazon Authors Page: amazon.com/author/paulvarner