Contemporary Cowboys: Reimagining an American Archetype in Popular Culture expands and develops an understanding of recent cultural shifts in representations of the American cowboy and "the West" as vital components of American identity and values. The chapters in this book examine they ways in which twenty-first century representations have updated the figure of the cowboy, considering not only traditionally analyzed sources, such as television, film, and literature, but also less studied areas such as comics, and music. The contributors probe the cowboy archetype and western mythology with critical theory, feminist critiques, philosophy, history, cultural analysis, and more.