If you are a student of this class, you should return to this blog at least once a week beginning in mid-January 2024. Class materials, announcements and course information will be posted HERE.
Before emailing me, please read this course blog carefully in its entirety!! I MEAN everything I write here (and elsewhere): please do not email to confirm things I have already written. Ignorance of the course rules and syllabus is NOT an excuse for not following the Syllabus/Rules. Each student is responsible for understanding and following these rules.
STUDENTS WISHING TO TAKE AND COMPLETE THIS COURSE MUST READ AND FULLY UNDERSTAND ALL INFORMATION BELOW. THERE WILL BE NO EXCEPTIONS TO THESE RULES. THANK YOU.
COURSE TITLE: “THE AMERICAN WEST, PAST AND PRESENT”
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
In his seminal “Creating the West”, historian Gerald D. Nash has defined the U.S. West “as a frontier, a region, as an urban civilisation, and as a mythical utopia”. This course will interrogate Nash’s “four ecologies” of the American West, and will study the modes and forms under which the notion of the West has been created and transformed over the last two centuries.
We will study literary and visual texts (art, film, TV series), as well as scholarly investigations from various disciplines (history, urban studies, architecture, anthropology, cultural studies), interrogating the transformations of the abstract concept of the West as well as of the West as a physical place, by looking at some of its most significant transformations – from American frontier to new frontier of the American Dream (the desert, the frontier, westward migration), from utopian space (Hollywood, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, national parks) to site of new cultural, economic and social horizons (Silicon Valley, Seattle)
REQUIREMENTS:
Good proficiency in written and spoken English, a desire to learn and participate in classroom activity, and a curiosity for all things American highlight the ideal profile of students in this course.
This course is fully taught in English.
SEMINAR SESSIONS, SCHEDULE, VENUE:
This course is taught in the second semester of 2023-24, 6 hours per week, beginning in February. The course calendar in the post above (available by late January) provides a week by week breakdown of the course materials. Please review this course blog on updates on the publication of lectures and discussion sessions.
COURSE REGISTRATION:
Students attending this course MUST sign up using the link in one of the posts above. Unregistered students will not be admitted to the Moodle materials nor to the final examinations.
REQUIRED TEXTS:
A. STUDENTS MUST PURCHASE and study
1. Hampton Sides. Blood and Thunder. An Epic of the American West (Anchor Books)
2. Nathaniel West. The Day of the Locust (Penguin)
3. Sandra Cisneros. The House on Mango Street (Knopf)
4. Joan Didion, The White Album (FSG) — this book is a REQUIREMENT only for non attending students.
Any full edition (in English) of the above novels will do. Students, please make sure you purchase these books BEFORE the start of classes.
PLEASE NOTICE: E-books are not suitable for university study. Students must own PRINT COPIES of these books BEFORE the start of classes.
B. STUDENTS MUST DOWNLOAD and study a course reader (parts 1 and 2, available from the course blog at the start of weeks 1 and 6) containing essays and other materials relevant to the course.
C. STUDENTS MUST WATCH films and other video excerpts. These will be presented during class, listed in the course calendar and included in the examination questions.
STUDENT EVALUATION AND GRADING:
Course syllabus is the same for ALL students and consists of 2 written tests (mandatory for all) and one oral interview. Students must pass both written tests in order to be admitted to the oral interview. The oral interview is waived for those students giving a CLASSROOM PRESENTATION during week 9 (see course calendare, above). Written tests are offered during the course (as “esoneri”) to students atttending regularly (minimum attendance: 70%) or as official written exams, once per examination session (May, September, January). Both tests are taken at the same time – except for “esoneri”, when tests are taken one at a time. After the January 2025 session, examinations for this course will NO LONGER BE OFFERED and my syllabus will change.
NON ATTENDING STUDENTS:
A non attending is ANY student who has not attended AT LEAST 70% of IN PERSON sessions. Non attending students MUST:
1. meet with the professor during office hours at least one month before taking the written exam (and preferably BEFORE the start of classes) AND
2. attend at least TWO CLASSROOM SESSIONS during the semester.
Students who do not comply with these two, simple requirements are not admitted to take the final written and oral exams.
EXCHANGE STUDENTS wishing to complete this course must attend regularly and must request to be admitted to the course by writing to me BEFORE the start of the course.
HAVE A GREAT SEMESTER,
A. Carosso