Return of the Western: Refracting Genre, Representing Gender in the Twenty-First Century, (Paperback)

Transmitting the crisis that Frederick Jackson Turner and Theodore Roosevelt feared when the frontier closed, the Western has returned to reveal a cultural watershed at work in twenty-first century America, revitalized with horror, terror and the peccant. Darkened and dystopic, contemporary Westerns point to a national bankruptcy, upending the notion that regenerative, civilizing impulses direct nation-building. Exploring films like <i>Open Range</i> (2003), <i>Yah&amp;#351;i Bat&amp;#305; </i>(2010), <i>The Keeping Room</i> (2015), <i> Little Woods </i>(2018), and <i>First Cow</i> (2019), as well as television series like <i>Justified</i> (2010-1015), <i>Longmire </i>(2012-2017), <i>Westworld</i> (2016-2022), and <i>Yellowstone </i>(2020 -), this thought-provoking collection examines re-constituted masculinities, feminine re-fashioning and new directions in Western filmmaking. Covering a wide range of aesthetic and thematic concerns, <i>Return of the Western: Refracting Genre, Representing Gender in the Twenty-First Century</i> reminds us how deeply this versatile genre is grounded in the American psyche.

• Return of the Western: Refracting Genre, Representing Gender in the Twenty-First Century, (Paperback)
• Author: Edinburgh University Press
• ISBN: 9781399524735
• Format: Paperback
• Publication Date: 2026-08-31
• Page Count: 368