Předměty

The course will introduce the students to the essential American cultural myth: the myth of the American frontier, or the Wild West. We will examine the historical and cultural sources of the myth and follow the creation of the major stereotypes, examining not only the role it has played in American culture, but also its reflection in other cultures and subcultures.
The material for the course will be chosen from across various art forms: we will read some of the basic works of the earlier frontier literature (captivity narratives, Cooper, dime novels, etc.) and also modern reflections and rewritings of the myth in the U.S. and elsewhere (Cormac McCarthy, James Welch, M. Ondaatje, J. L. Borges); we will discuss visual representations of the myth (paintings, posters, photographs, Native “ledger art”) and, occasionally, songs and ballads ; we will examine selected seminal western films (Stagecoach, The Searchers), some revisionist westerns (Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Brokeback Mountain, and look into transnational takes at the western genre (Limonádový Joe – a Czech musical parody, Winnetou – an “Ostern”, Once Upon a Time in the West – a Spaghetti western). Part of the course is a guest lecture by the eminent Czech novelist Jáchym Topol, the author of Trnová dívka (Thorn Girl), a book of Native American folk tales (the lecture will be in Czech).
The course is taught in English (with the exception of the guest lecture) / Předmět je vyučován v anglickém jazyce (s výjimkou přednášky J. Topola).

Poslední úprava: Machová Mariana, doc. PhDr., Ph.D. (19.09.2024)

Assessment

The main credit requirements are:

1. Active in-class participation – maximum of three absences.

2. Readings (or viewings) of the materials assigned for each class.

3. Final essay of 2000 words (detailed requirements for the essay will be specified in the course of the semester).

Poslední úprava: Machová Mariana, doc. PhDr., Ph.D. (18.09.2022)

Bibliography of Selected Secondary Sources

Brown, Dee. Bury My Hear at Wounded Knee. An Indian History of the American West. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1970.

Campbell, Neil. The Rhizomatic West: Representing the American West in a Transnational Global, Media Age. Lincoln, NE: Nebraska University Press, 2011.

Deverell, William (ed.) A Companion to the American West. Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2004.

Ellingson, Terry Jay. The Myth of the Noble Savage. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001.

Frye, Steven. The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of the American West. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016.

Fussell, Edwin. Frontier. American Literature and the American West. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965.

Kollin, Susan, editor. A History of Western American Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.

Roosevelt, Theodore. The Winning of the West. New York: G. P. Putnam, 1889-1896.

Slotkin, Richard. Gunfighter Nation. The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998.

Slotkin, Richard. Regeneration Through Violence. The Mythology of the American Frontier 1600–1860. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000.

Slotkin, Richard. The Fatal Environment. The Myth of the Frontier in the Age of Industrialization, 1800–1890. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998.

Weidensaul, Scott. The First Frontier: The Forgotten History of Struggle, Savagery and Endurance. New York: Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt, 2012.

Poslední úprava: Machová Mariana, doc. PhDr., Ph.D. (19.09.2024)

Class Plan

1. The Myth of the Frontier (Frederick Jackson Turner: “The Significance of the Frontier in American History”, 1893)

2. Pioneers and Trailblazers (J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, Daniel Boone narrative, Lord Byron, Seth Jones)

3. Noble Savages (Thomas Jefferson, J. F. Cooper, William Cullen Bryant, photographs by Edward Curtis)

4. Indian Fighters (George Armstrong Custer: My Life on the Plains, Elizabeth Custer: Boots and Saddles, James Welch: Killing Custer)

5. Captives (captivity narratives by Mary Rowlandson, John King and John Slover, Rachel Plummer Parker)

6. Outlaws (The Saga of Billy the Kid, J. L. Borges, M. Ondaatje, Sam Peckinpah: Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid)

7. The Searchers (John Ford’s The Searchers Robert B. Pippin: “What is a Western?”)

8. Cowboys (and Queer Cowboys) (Walter Prescott Webb, Marlboro Commercials, Annie Proulx: “Brokeback Mountain”)

9. Transnational West (Limonádový Joe, Winnetou - Apache Gold, Once Upon a Time in the West)

10. Wild West Revised (Cormac McCarthy: Blood Meridian)

11. Guest Talk by the Czech novelist Jáchym Topol (in Czech)

Poslední úprava: Machová Mariana, doc. PhDr., Ph.D. (19.09.2024)