This dissertation analyzes the interactive relationship between narrative and spatiality in contemporary novels and films set in the southwestern region of the United States. While space and place have sometimes been regarded as static backgrounds of narrative events, what supports the entire study is the view of spatiality as an essential constitutive element of every fictional narrative and as a dynamic product of intersecting relations observed at the intratextual, intertextual, and extratextual levels. In Larry McMurtry’s and Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show, the circular pattern repeated in the narrative prevents it from developing into a Bildungsroman and constructs a claustrophobic space, which can be opposed to the open space of freedom often identified with the West. Max Evans, in Bobby Jack Smith, You Dirty Coward!, constructs a parodic post-Western narrative and remaps the mythic West by juxtaposing various social relations that have often been repressed in classic Westerns. Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of the Dead merges historiography with cartography in its attempt to retrieve the fragmented past and construct a space in which everything converges in the present. While the narrative space of Cormac McCarthy’s The Crossing emerges as a meshwork of intersecting lines of narrative that is always in the state of becoming, McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men and its film adaptation by Joel and Ethan Coen create a closed space of which there is no way out by mapping the narrative space with various signs, signals, and traces that always point at what remains off the map. And the U.S.-Mexico borderlands in Tommy Lee Jones’s The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada are an uncanny space in which the familiar and the strange, the homely and the unhomely, and the real and the imaginary become inseparable. By juxtaposing these heterogenous fictional cartographies, this study aims to map the polyphonic narrative space of the contemporary Southwest. The reading of individual texts here is partly informed by theories of spatiality developed in various fields. This study hopes to situate itself in the growing interdisciplinary field of literary geography as well as to make a contribution to the understanding of the individual works.

This senior thesis has two major purposes: One, to investigate and critique how experts characterize contemporary American post-westerns, second, to demonstrate, and suggest a more inclusive perspective through an analysis of Jim Jarmusch`s Dead Man (1996).Experts from the fields of film and American studies claim that there is a new phase in the genre’s development where post-western films move away from the conventions of the old, racist westerns. Accomplished authors have suggested that these films do not rely on the mythical west or on the regionalist culture but examine the west closely to determine the ways in which it differs from the representations and themes of the classical western. However, the films do not challenge the systematic misrepresentation of the crimes committed against Native Americans during the westward expansion which means that the films have not fully moved away from the old westerns. This cinematic perspective sickens the American conscience through the national narrative, as these films explore the early days of U.S. history. Nevertheless, Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man provides a new, much fuller perspective on the west, and faces the genocidal forces that America has thus far avoided within the western genre. Dead Man is a revisionist western that can help the genre to evolve even further, to include Native Americans and the truth of their history.

C’est après deux opus sur l’immigration turque en Allemagne que le réalisateur turc-allemand Fatih Akin décide d’explorer la période la plus sombre de son pays d’origine. Avec le film The Cut (2014), il clôt la trilogie Liebe, Tod und Teufel. Ce mémoire réfléchit sur l’utilisation du genre Western dans la représentation du génocide arménien. Nous ferons tout d’abord un court historique du genre Western et de la représentation génocidaire au cinéma, pour ensuite analyser le film d’après la notion de genre et voir dans quelle mesure l’utilisation d’un genre connu universellement permet à Fatih Akin de ne pas justifier ses choix esthétiques. Au cours de cette analyse, nous nous baserons sur quatre éléments clés afin d’établir un lien avec le genre Western: la figure du héros, les paysages, le mythe de la frontière ainsi que le titre du film lui-même. Le but de ce travail ne sera pas d’être comparatif, mais bien de déterminer dans quelle mesure le film s’inscrit dans le mouvement Postwestern. Enfin, la notion d’identité nous permettra de comprendre de quelle manière le film The Cut s’insère au sein de la trilogie d’Akin. / It is after his second opus on Turkish immigration in Germany that Turkish-German director Fatih Akin decided to explore the darkest period of his country of origin. With the film The Cut, he ends the trilogy Liebe, Tod und Teufel. This master’s thesis reflects on the use of the Western genre in the representation of the Armenian Genocide. We will start with a short history of the Western genre and the representation of genocide in cinema. Then we will analyse the film as per the notion of genre and see under which measure the use of a universally known genre enables Fatih Akin to justify his aesthetic choices. During this analysis, we will use four key elements as the groundwork to establish a link with the Western genre. They are the figure of the hero, the landscapes, the myth of the frontier and the title of the film itself. The intention of this research is not to be comparative, but to situate the film within the movement that is the Post-western. Finally, the notion of identity will allow us to understand how the film The Cut exists within Akin’s trilogy. / Nach seinem zweiten Opus zur türkischen Immigration entschied sich der türkisch-deutsche Regisseur Fatih Akin, die dunkelste Periode seines Heimatlandes zu verfilmen. Mit dem Film The Cut beendet er seine Trilogie Liebe, Tod und Teufel. Diese Magisterarbeit analysiert die Verwendung des Westerngenres in der Darstellung des armenischen Völkermordes in The Cut. Begonnen wird mit einem kurzen Überblick über die Geschichte des Westerngenres, bevor auf die Darstellung des Völkermords im Film eingegangen wird. Im Anschluss wird untersucht, inwiefern die Verwendung des Genres Western Fatih Akin seine filmästhetischen Entscheidungen ermöglicht. Diese Untersuchung basiert auf der Grundlage von vier Schlüsselmotiven: der Heldenfigur, der Landschaft, des Mythos des Grenzlandes sowie des Filmtitels selbst. Die Intention dieser Analyse ist jedoch nicht vergleichender Natur. Es wird vielmehr versucht, den Film in seine Einzelteile zu zerlegen, um ihn in die Post-Western-Bewegung einbetten zu können, ohne dabei das Identitätsstreben der ersten beiden Filme der Trilogie außer Acht zu lassen. In diesem Kontext lässt sich eine Verbindung mit dem Heimatfilm herstellen und es wird ein besseres Verständnis für die Rolle von The Cut innerhalb der Trilogie ermöglicht.