This module is an investigation of the origin myths of the U.S.A. It takes the Western as the paradigmatic form of United States literature and cinema, and examines the cultural fissures and influences that threaten and support the Megamyth of the founding of the United States.
Students will consider classic and contemporary westerns; 'outsider' westerns that trouble the hegemony of the grand narrative, and test the iconic western against a number of distinct narratives about the formation of the American identity, with a particular eye to the way that black, hispanic, latino, and aboriginal storytellers contribute counter-narratives of the settlement of the U.S.A. that nevertheless find themselves to be, over time, incorporated into the mythology of the Western - for better and for worse.
The module will address texts from across the history of the U.S.A., beginning with work produced on the frontier, and culminating in the present day. An interdisciplinary course of study, fiction and non-fiction writing and poetry sit alongside cinematic and theatrical texts, in order to foster a discussion of how, and why, the Myth of the West has gained the kind of mainstream cultural traction it has, and how it has not only survived, but continued to thrive into the present day.