‘Maysville? That’s a white town’: “The Harder They Fall” and Blackness in the Western Landscape

This article is part of the USSO special series Resilience/Renewal: Shifting Landscapes in American Studies The popularity of the Western as a genre solidified the frontier mythology as one of the building myths of the American nation and its cultural iconography. However, the Western carries sinister implications in its ‘good… Continue reading

Video Games and American Studies: Weirding the Empire in West of Loathing and Other Digital Games

Stepping beyond the game’s comical and surrealist façade affords a closer look at the ways West of Loathing de-mythologizes and parodies the US West in a subtle, pun-oriented sub-generic rendering of the Wild West, that is, the Weird West.    Continue reading