The Virginians Cultural Clashes

Cultural clashes between East and West constitute a fundamental trait in any formula Western. The Virginians Cultural Clashes goes back to the genres beginning, studying this phenomenon as it is represented in the foundational text of the Western genre, Owen Wisters The Virginian from 1902. Through the perspective of literary transculturation, this work focuses on the ways in which cultural encounter is staged and acted out in Wisters novel. As The Virginian presents neither the East nor the West as static, but, rather, as in transition, undergoing transformative change, the journey of personal transformation we see in each character, as well as in the Western environment they live in, is a central part of the discussion. Can Wisters transcultural West help us understand how the mythic, idealized and iconic West of formula fiction came to be?

Karoline Aksnes has a degree in American Literature from the University of Bergen. Since graduating she has continued to do academic work within the Western genre, with particular regard to the study of cross-cultural influences, borrowings, and exchange.