The American West and the Canadian North are not only at the heart of North America’s national self-imaginaries, they are also among the most famous place-based myths in the world. Countless literary works and other cultural artifacts from North America and elsewhere have contributed to solidifying these myths and, later, to deconstruct them again. In this class we will particularly focus on textual, audio-visual, and spatial representations of the American West and the Canadian North that critically engage with these myths, including short stories by Stephen Crane and Margaret Atwood, Aritha van Herk’s postmodern “geografictione” Places Far from Ellesmere (1990), Ang Lee’s movie Brokeback Mountain (2005), Willa Cather’s novel O Pioneers! (1913), and HBO’s hit show Westworld (2016-). We will also talk about Disney’s Frontierland and take a trip to Erlebnis-Zoo Hannover, where we will explore one of the very few theme park spaces dedicated to the Canadian North.
Texts for acquisition: Willa Cather, O Pioneers!; Aritha van Herk, Places Far from Ellesmere. All other texts will be made available in class.
- Lehrende(r): Florian Freitag