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20C US History and Culture

Quarta -Sala 1.1

Sexta -   PN11

Susana Araújo

History and culture are made of narratives, images, fantasies. This course aims to examine myths, realities and discourses associated with US from the beginning of the 20C to our days. We will analyze texts which are literary, visual and musical, aiming to approach and revise US culture from a wide, critical and flexible perspective. Rather than focusing merely on dates, chronologies or systematic accounts of ‘big’ events, we will depart from specific texts and documents in order to examine the main questions and debates raised by certain historical and cultural episodes and to analyze how certain images, words, and sounds have helped to build certain ideas of the USA during the twentieth century. We will explore how these have circulated from media to media, from decade to decade, within and outside the US. We will attempt to interrogate and revise such constructions and to understand to what extent desire and fear have shaped American, European and ‘other’ constructions of the US in the 20C.

We will pay particular attention to the following theoretical issues:

-          To understand how representations of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, race, class, status, age and religion have shaped 20C US culture;

-           To examine how foundation myths such as captivity narratives, the idea of manifest destiny, the myth of the self-made man, notions of American exceptionalism etc. continue to subvert and/or rewrite certain historical episodes in the twentieth century;

-          To bear in mind how transatlantic circulations have shaped “our” view of U.S. history and culture; what kind of images and narratives travel from the US to Europe and vice versa; what stays ‘away’ from this circuit, “other” narratives outside the U.S. nexus;

-          To consider how notions of home and (home)land have been transformed or maintained throughout the twentieth century;

All texts signalled with & are compulsory reading; films signalled with¸ are compulsory viewing; musical texts signalled with  are also compulsory.  

EVALUATION – COMPULSORY:

- Overall participation of students in class  

- Group presentation by 2 or 3 students

- Exam (Exercício Presencial)  

- Essay max. 2000 words (topics will be given to you to choose from, after the exam)

Office Hours: time/place previously agreed by email