Tentative Class Plan

Week 1 (October 4)

Introduction: The Myth of the Frontier

Week 2 (October 11)

Reading: Frederick Jackson Turner: “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” (1893)

Walter Prescott Webb: The Great Plains (1931) - extracts

Week 3 (October 18)

Pioneers and Trailblazers

Reading: J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, Daniel Boone narrative (John Filson), J. F. Cooper (ch. 3)

Week 4 (October 25)

Native Americans as Noble Savages

Reading: selections of Romantic texts on Native Americans

Photographs: Edward Curtis

Week 5 (November 1)

Guest Talk by the Czech novelist Jáchym Topol (date subject to change)

Week 6 (November 8)

Native Americans as Demons: Captivity Narratives

Reading: selections from captivity narratives

Film: The Searchers (1956)

Week 7 (November 15)

Native Americans Re-Imagined

Reading: James Welch: Fools Crow (selections)

Film: Dances With Wolves (1993, Kevin Costner)

Week 8 (November 22)

Soldiers

Reading: selections from George Armstrong Custer: My Life on the Plains, Elizabeth Custer: Boots and Saddles, newspaper articles on the Battle of Little Big Horn

Film: Custer’s Last Fight (a 1912 black-and-white silent film)

Week 9 (November 29)

Golddiggers, Gamblers and Whores with the Heart of Gold

Reading: Bret Harte (selected stories), Mark Twain (selections from Roughing It)

Film: Stagecoach (1936, John Ford)

Week 10 (December 6)

Outlaws

Reading: selections from Hough, Pat Garrett, Burns, Borges, Ondaatje

Film: Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973, Sam Peckinpah)

Week 11 (December 13)

The Wild West Revised

Reading: Cormac McCarthy: Blood Meridian (selections)

Week 12 (December 20)

Essay topics presentation and discussion

Week 13 (January 3)

Transnational West

Films: Limonádový Joe, Winnetou (Apache Gold), Once Upon a Time in the West