The American West in Literature and Film 3301-LA1305
The course is concerned with literary and cinematic representations of the “West” as an American symbolic space. The West is defined here as an imaginative construct that can be ascribed to different physical spaces across time. The earliest narrative patterns describing the frontier life, such as captivity narratives, emerged in the colonial era; the survey of the narrative forms of representing the West begins with an analysis of such early texts. The early conventions were either solidified or modified in nineteenth-century novels by, among others, James Fenimore Cooper and Robert Montgomery Bird. The turn of the twentieth century saw the emergence of the Western as a variant of regional writing, derived from the so-called dime novel. In the course of the twentieth century the Western became conventionalized as a popular literary genre, on the one hand, and a variety of historical fiction, on the other. The postmodern turn brought about important reassessments of the ideological implications of the genre. Contemporary representations of the West are mostly connected with film therefore the course includes a discussion of three variants of the cinematic Western: the classical Western, the anti-Western and the post-Western.
Type of course
Course coordinators
Learning outcomes
Knowledge:
- acquires and develops his/her knowledge of the geographical, historical, political, economic, cultural and social conditions of English-speaking countries
- extends his/her knowledge of the symbolic dimensions of interactions within a single culture or between different cultures
Skills:
- applies the methodologies of literary studies
- presents his/her knowledge clearly and logically in written and oral forms
Social Competence:
- expresses his/her ideas in a coherent, lucid, logical and concrete way in order to develop meaningful relations with others
- understands the character of dilemmas, problems and conflicts and seeks the best ways of solving them
Assessment criteria
Metody i kryteria oceniania Permanent assessment based on attendance and participation; essay.
Bibliography
Literatura Bibliografia i filmografia
- Mary Rowlandson, „Narrative of Captivity and Restoration”
- fragmenty powieści Jamesa Fenimore’a Coopera, Catherine Sedgwick, Roberta Montgomery’ego Birda
- wybrane opowiadania Breta Harte’a i Stephena Crane’a
- Owen Wister, The Virginian, opowiadania Zane’a Greya
- Jack Schaefer, Shane
- opowiadania Dorothy Johnson, opowiadania Elmore’a Leonarda
- Charles Portis, True Grit
- Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses
- wybrane filmy Johna Forda, Sama Peckinpaha, Clinta Eastwooda
Opracowania krytyczne
- Henry Nash Smith, Virgin Land
- Richard Slotkin, The Fatal Environment
- Richard Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: