Evento

The Myth of the Frontier--The Western as History, Genre and Myth -- Vic Lewis

Thursdays, January 7, 14, 21, 10:00am - 12:00pm

San Luis Obispo Museum of Art

Three Sessions

$15 for LLCC members, $30 for non-members.

Register Soon for this course on Brown Paper Tickets

Western genre claims to represent what is most important about the history of America and the American character since the Civil War. In this course, Vic Lewis will show you how the western epoch has been Myth-represented to justify American continental expansion, define gender roles and race relations and establish the violent cowboy as a dominant cultural ideal. This course will reveal the hidden assumptions of American myth-history and its pervasive influence on present domestic and foreign policy.

At the first session you will learn about the historical background and the cowboy hero version of the frontier.

At The second session your focus will be on the Pioneer Farmer frontier.

Finally, at the third session you will see how frontier history has been mythologized in art, text, and motion pictures and how the frontier myth continues to influence American identity, thought and policy.

Each session will be supported by movie clips, the most from the 1929 version of The Virginian starring Gary Cooper. Each session will also contain segments of the Teaching Companys The American West: History, Myth, and Legacy.

Other sources that you will be exposed to are these alternative expressions of the Myth of the Frontier:

-- the cowboy hero version expressed in The Virginian by Owen Wister and its motion picture adaptation(s)

-- the Pioneer Farmer version in Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder and her recent biography Prairie Fires by Caroline Frazer.

-- Regeneration Through Violence, by Richard Slotkin

-- New History of the American West, Its Your Misfortune and None of My Own by Richard Whites

Victor Lewis is a retired Air Force Lt. Col. who has broad interests in American history, military and foreign policy. Previously he has presented courses on Steinbecks Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden

If you would like to have the password for the member price for this course, go to www.lifelearnerscc.org for information on how you can become a member.