Sara L. Spurgeon

Rebecca M. Lush

Michael K. Johnson

Kerry Fine

This edited collection explores the role of sex and sexuality in the genre known as the weird western--a popular hybrid form that mixes western themes, iconography, settings, or conventions with elements drawn from horror, fantasy, supernatural, or science fiction genres.

Sex and Sexuality in the Weird Western

Hell-Bent for Leather

"Weird Westerns is an exploration of the hybrid genre of the weird western, analyzing movies, TV shows, and comic books such as Django Unchained, The Walking Dead, and Wynonna Earp"--

Race, Gender, Genre

Weird Westerns

David King Dunaway

The accompanying CD provides excerpts from the interviews with the authors.

Writing the Southwest

Kerry Kinney Fine

Michael Kyle Johnson

Weird Westerns is an exploration of the hybrid western genre--an increasingly popular and visible form that mixes western themes, iconography, settings, and conventions with elements drawn from other genres, such as science fiction, horror, and fantasy. Despite frequent declarations of the western's death, the genre is now defined in part by its zombie-like ability to survive in American popular culture in weird, reanimated, and reassembled forms. The essays in Weird Westerns analyze a wide range of texts, including those by Native American authors Stephen Graham Jones (Blackfeet) and William Sanders (Cherokee); the cult television series Firefly and The Walking Dead; the mainstream feature films Suicide Squad and Django Unchained; the avant-garde and bizarre fiction of Joe R. Lansdale; the tabletop roleplaying game Deadlands: The Weird West; and the comic book series Wynonna Earp. The essays explore how these weird westerns challenge conventional representations by destabilizing or subverting the centrality of the heterosexual, white, male hero but also often surprisingly reinforce existing paradigms in their inability to imagine an existence outside of colonial frameworks.

Sara L. Spurgeon

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