124220 SE Cultural and Media Studies Seminar (2017S)

Aims: The aim of the course is to familiarize students with some famous Western movies and with how this genre has, over time, developed its own imaginary, visual language, ethos (good, bad, ugly?), and configuration of (often stereotyped) characters (the cowboy, the gunman, the rustler, the sheriff, the prostitute ...).

Content: In this seminar we will watch and discuss a "fistful" of "classic" (= trendsetting, paradigmatic, but also revisionist) Western movies:

- Hang 'em High (Ted Post, 1968)
- The Missouri Breaks (Arthur Penn, 1976)
- Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005)
- The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Andrew Dominik, 2007)
- Appaloosa (Ed Harris, 2008)

and perhaps
- Wyatt Earp (Lawrence Kasdan, 1994)
- Open Range (Kevin Costner, 2003)

While we will discuss the filmic language(s) of these works, the main focus of the seminar will be on typical Cultural Studies questions, such as:
- how are the political and social realities of the (post-Civil War) Western territories depicted?
- how are "non-white" ethnic populations (esp. Native Americans and Mexicans) portrayed?
- how is masculinity (all that gunslinging!) constructed?
- how are the female characters presented?

Methods: Multidisciplinary discussion of movies (and, in some cases, the literary texts they are based on) and presentations of students' papers in class.