Storied Landscapes IRL to CHI: from St. Patrick to Derry Girls and Ferris Bueller

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

Storytelling allows us to make a place, and a past, come alive, and it is through narrative that certain people, locations, and experiences lodge themselves in our memories. How, and why, do we reshape our own environment to convey certain stories about our past, our accomplishments, and our collective experiences? Why is it that road-trips loom so large in American cultural memory, and what do they have in common with other placelore stories, such as those featuring Native Americans, Irish saints and TV characters like Northern Ireland's 'Derry Girls'? How can words, sounds and imagery be used to map out and draw us into new and often fantastic virtual geographies? In this class, we will think about how stories gain power by being anchored in evocative depictions of specific places, both real and imagined. We will examine verbal and visual stories, from medieval manuscripts like the Book of Kells and tales of St. Patrick's travels around Ireland, to contemporary animation ('Song of the Sea'), murals from Northern Ireland, place-based television series ('Derry Girls') and Chicago-based road-trip films ('The Blues Brothers', 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off'). We will contemplate how icons of ancient Ireland were used to create new spaces in Chicago, and we'll look at the massive 1893 World's Fair that put a newly rebuilt Chicago on the world map, as well as dramatic histories of Chicago and some of its murderous inhabitants (Devil in the White City). We will also turn to regional storytelling traditions and will study songs and stories about 'home' composed by those who experienced diaspora and migration.