Masculinities in Literature of the American West

Lydia R. Cooper is Assistant Professor of English at Creighton University, USA. She is the author of No More Heroes: Narrative Perspective and Morality in Cormac McCarthy, as well as numerous articles on McCarthy and other contemporary American and Native American writers.

"Lydia R. Cooper's Masculinities in Literature of the American West draws from contemporary scholarship in masculinity studies and Western American literary studies to convincingly argue that 'cowboy masculinity' in contemporary literature cannot be reduced to one, simple meaning or identity. Instead, Cooper demonstrates through lucid close readings that contemporary Westerns grapple with, reject, and offer alternatives to hegemonic manhood and the imperialist violence that underwrote the formation of the normative genre Western. This book offers an exciting account of how we can think about the Western today." - Daniel Worden, Associate Professor of English at the University of New Mexico, USA and author of Masculine Style: The American West and Literary Modernism

• Introduction: 'My American heart': How Contemporary Westerns Reimagine Masculinity 1. The Death of a Cross-Dressing Bear: Sexual Violence and Male Rape on the Frontier of Blood Meridian2. Of Sterility and Fertility: Feminine Masculinity and the Western in Ceremony3. Outlaw Geography: Place and Masculinity in Desperadoes and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford4. Savages and Citizens: Revisions of the Captivity Narrative in Gardens in the Dunes and The Heartsong of Charging Elk 5. The Un-Punishing of Anton Chigurh: Fraternity as the Final Frontier in No Country for Old Men6. Martial Masculinity and the Ethics of Heroism in Fools Crow