May 9, 2016
 Dr. Richmond Adams |
A Northwestern Oklahoma State University assistant professor of English plans to publish an article in late 2016 or early 2017 on the subject of masculinity in western genre films.
Dr. Richmond B. Adams will be publishing an article titled “’They Taught Us to be Men’: Cigarettes, Westerns and (mostly) John Ford” in a collection of essays titled “Iconography and Archetypes in Western Film and Television” through MacFarland Press.
Adams examines the relationship between the use of cigarettes, and tobacco more generally, in the American Western film genre as an expression of how American masculinity has come to a different and more complex understanding of itself.
Adams will focus his article on four films by the American director John Ford made between 1939 and 1962. In addition to those earlier works, Adams will also discuss “Appaloosa,” the 2008 film directed by and starring the long-time character actor Ed Harris that derives from the Robert B. Parker novel of the same name to explore the ways in which cigarettes and tobacco have continued to inform the idea of American masculinity.
For more information on Adams’ writings contact him at (580) 327-8428 or rbadams@nwosu.edu.
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