HISTORY OF NORTH-AMERICAN CULTURE

The course aims at introducing students to American cultural studies through the acquisition of concepts and methodologies and the analysis of heterogeneous materials examined and contextualized from a historical/cultural perspective. Students are expected to develop autonomous ability to analyze cultural materials through a specific critical vocabulary of medium-advanced level.

The learning outcomes of these course entail developing:
1. Good knowledge of the some basic elements in American cultural studies;
2. Ability to apply such knowledge to the critical analysis of cultural products;
3. Ability to formulate critical hypotheses and judgments;
4. Communication skills and appropriate terminology;
5. Autonomous reading of handbooks and suggested materials.

Good knowledge of English (≥ B2).

The American West
This course will focus on how American culture has historically imagined the West as a geography of privileged mobility, and how the mythic status of the West has transformed into the creation of the western, a genre that embodies mainstream ideas of masculinity and imperialism. The course will make use of a diachronic approach: it will provide an overview of the cultural nexus between the West/ern and mobility by starting with the American Renaissance and Walt Whitman, to continue with the turn of last century, when American society experienced the so-called “end of the frontier” (Turner) and a progressive urbanization, the mid-1950s classic period (The Searchers), the counter-culture of the 1960s and 1970s (Easy Rider), till the revisions of the turn of the millennium, when racial, queer, and ecological instances redefined the meaning of the American West. The course will make use of different cultural products such as poetry, political speeches, films, paintings, novels.

PRIMARY SOURCES
John O’Sullivan, “The Great Nation of Futurity”
Turner, “The Significance of the Frontier” (1893)
John Ford, The Searchers
Easy Rider
Louise Erdrich, “Dear John Wayne”
Sherman Alexie, “My Heroes Have Never Been Cowboys”
Sean Penn, Into the Wild (2003)
Ang Lee, Brokeback Mountain
Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained (2012)
Meek’s Cutoff

SECONDARY SOURCES
- Elisa Bordin, “On Westerns and Settler Migration: A Reading of Meek’s Cutoff by Kelly Reichardt”, Iperstoria.
- Susan Kollin, A History of Western American Literature. Essays by David Warden, Andrew Patrick Nelson, David Agruss and Christine Bold.
- 2 essays on Django (see Moodle)
- Heike Paul, Chap. 6 (see Moodle)

ORAL EXAM (in English, 30 minutes):
1) assessment of students' general knowledge of the syllabus
2) identification and analysis of excerpts with the purpose of assessing skills for communication, analysis and contextualization
3) further questions on the extra-readings for non-attending students

Students who cannot attend must inform the professor and study some further material (see folder on Moodle)

Lectures and class discussion are the teaching modalities of this course. Students who cannot attend classes must contact Prof. Bordin for alternative readings.

English

All students (both attending and non-attending ones) are required to subscribe to the Moodle page of the course.

oral

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Poverty and inequalities" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development