Date of Graduation

5-2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in English (PhD)

Degree Level

Graduate

Department

English

Advisor/Mentor

Cochran, Robert

Committee Member

Hinrichsen, Lisa A.

Second Committee Member

Lopez Szwydky, Lisette

Third Committee Member

Hurt, Bryan M.

Keywords

American West; Assemblages; Frontier; Myth; Nomadism; Territory

Abstract

The American West resists theoretical definition. As myth, ideal, region, contact zone, place, space, symbol, territory, home, assemblage, dream, and home, the West is continually changing. As a region, the West is not a closed space; it is an open, ongoing constellation of processes, an unfolding simultaneity of storied events or happenings. This dissertation, “Space and Subjectivity in the Emerging American West,” explores literature and cinema of the modern West. My project seeks to answer the question “What is the American West?” by examining the work of novelists, poets, filmmakers, cultural geographers, philosophers, and photographers who reimagine identity, locality, and cartography in new and challenging ways. Chapter One “Creating Cartographies” and Chapter Two “Exploring Trajectories” establish the methodological frameworks for the dissertation. These opening sections use Karen Tei Yamashita’s novel I Hotel (2010) and Edward Dorn’s poem Gunslinger (1974), along with the scholarship of cultural geographer Doreen Massey, to examine how cartographies and culturally mediated representations influenced perceptions of the American West in the post-WWII era. Chapter Three “Blurring Boundaries” considers nomadic subjectivity as a way of being. Rosi Braidotti and Gloria Anzaldúa’s work is foregrounded, and the chapter looks at Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Crossing (1994) to trace ways that borders, boundaries, maps, and fences permeate the West. A detailed literary analysis is undertaken in Chapter Four “Wandering Regions.” The notion of a region is considered through four lenses: social construct, assemblage, affective landscape, and territorial process. The fictional work of four decolonial authors – Percival Everett, Nina McConigley, Hernán Diaz, and Tommy Orange – is highlighted to show how regions and identities in the West are always open for reinterpretation. Cowboy and Outlaw archetypes are presented as symbols of ongoing cultural adaptation in Chapter Five “Adapting Icons.” The historical outlaw Jesse James and modern-day Sioux cowboy Brady Jandreau figure prominently. The Conclusion of the dissertation projects forward and speculates on digital geography and simulated landscapes in the West.

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