The Western and Political Thought: A Fistful of Politics

ISBN-13: 9783031272837 / Angielski / Twarda / 2023 / 262 str.

Damien Picariello

Opis

The Western and Political Thought: A Fistful of Politics offers a variety of engaging and entertaining answers to the question: What do Westerns have to do with politics? This collection features contributions from scholars in a variety of fields—political science, English, communication studies, and others—that explore the connections between Westerns (prose fiction, films, television series, and more) and politics. 

Spis treści

Introduction:      "Thus in the beginning all the World was America"

Part I: Law and Lawlessness

1.     "Virtue, Tyranny, and Political Rule in David Milch's Deadwood"

2.     "Happiness is a Warm Camera: Cinema of Violence and Lawlessness"

3.     "Simmering Madness: Mob Justice and The Ox-Bow Incident"

Part II: John Ford's America

4.     "On John Ford's Legendary Western Ambiguity"

5.     "'This is Our Town': Political Community in High Noon and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance"

6.     "Print the Legend: Violence, Virtue, and the Social Contract in Hang 'Em High and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance"

Part III: The Western as Mirror and Teacher

7.     "The Loner on the 'Frontier of Unfilled Hopes and Unfilled Threats': Serling's Old West in Kennedy's New Frontier"

8.     "No Man's Land: Film Cycles, Femininity, and Female Empowerment in the Modern Western"

9.     "Performance as Historiographic Disruption in Cultural Representations of the Black Cowboy"

10.  "'Comedy Too Knows About Justice': Blazing Saddles and the Western as Attic Comedy"

Part IV: The Adaptable, International West

11.  "Assimilationist Politics on the Frontier: Mid-Twentieth Century Westerns in America and Australia"

12.  "Ideological Uses of the Western in Film Depictions of Post-War Polish Borderlands"

13.  "Cowboy Sutures and the Real America"

O autorze

Damien K. Picariello is Associate Professor of Political Science and Williams Brice Edwards Professor of Social Sciences at the University of South Carolina Sumter, USA. He is the editor of Politics in Gotham: The Batman Universe and Political Thought (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019) and The Politics of Horror (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).

Blurb

“Political theory explores the concepts (law, violence, property) and principles (share necessities, don’t back down, but do get along) that animate western civilization.  Picariello’s set of studies engage these politics through the colorful characters and exciting scenes in popular westerns.  The yield is a great range of insights about well-known classics, provocative additions, and productive connections.  Riding this range is a real pleasure — and education!”

—John S. Nelson, Emeritus Professor of Political Theory and Communication, University of Iowa, USA and author of Cowboy Politics

 

“Picariello and his colleagues have prepared a treat for students of political theory and fans of Western movies. Beginning from the premise that Westerns demonstrate the frontier where law, order, justice, equality, freedom, obedience, and violence intertwine, the chapters included analyze a wide range of Westerns building on insights from Plato, Hobbes, Aristotle, and Locke, among others. Readers will find themselves rewatching movies and rereading these essays for years to come.”

—Anthony P. Spanakos, Professor of Political Science and Law, Montclair State University, USA

 

“For teachers and students of American politics and cultural studies, political philosophy and theory, American literature and cinema and popular culture, this volume…constitutes an indispensable resource.”

—Jeffrey J. Poelvoorde, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Converse University, USA

 

The Western and Political Thought: A Fistful of Politics offers a variety of engaging and entertaining answers to the question: What do Westerns have to do with politics? This collection features contributions from scholars in a variety of fields—political science, English, communication studies, and others—that explore the connections between Westerns (prose fiction, films, television series, and more) and politics.

 

Damien K. Picariello is Associate Professor of Political Science and Williams Brice Edwards Professor of Social Sciences at the University of South Carolina Sumter, USA. He is the editor of Politics in Gotham: The Batman Universe and Political Thought (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019) and The Politics of Horror (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).