Sacred Places and the American Western

3 credits · Undergraduate

This class will explore the central themes of the American Cultures curriculum through the concept of place, specifically the "West". The Western landscape gives the Western genre its name, but the concepts that inform the portrayal of that landscape are not interrogated by the genre. The class will unpack the theoretical framework behind that depiction. Each section of the class will be framed by texts that offer a theory of place that, when closely examined, will reveal previously invisible concepts of race and class.