124220 SE Cultural and Media Studies Seminar (2023S)

Myths, in US-America much like in any other societies, are stories that bind people together through a presumably shared history, identity, and values. Many American myths – from the Pilgrims to Pocahontas, the American West or the American Dream – circulate today in popular culture; sometimes they are focused explicitly (for example in Disney’s Pocahontas), sometimes they form the cultural background for other stories (any story “from rags to riches,” for example). In this course, we will examine some of the major myths in popular culture (film, TV) that significantly impact what people living inside and outside of US-America believe that American identity, American values, American history, and American culture are. We will analyze some of the best-known myths and counter-myths about America in popular culture: the Pilgrim story, Pocahontas, Abolition, the American Dream, the American West etc. We will analyze how popular culture affirms, distributes, and co-creates these and other myths, and how they circulate through popular culture globally. Furthermore, we will analyze how myths about certain groups of minoritized US citizens, for example Black women or Black men, are constructed to safeguard unequal social structures. Through an intersectional perspective, we will focus on how myths are interwoven with and confirm racial, sexual, gendered and ableist stereotypes, ideologies and hierarchies. Additionally, we will analyze how popular culture critically questions myths and mythmaking, potentially offering venues for critique and resistance to cultural hegemony.

BA students will be assisted in developing relevant research questions for theses that use basic methodology and theoretical background. MA students are expected to rely on their more advanced knowledge of texts, theories and methodologies to develop a more independent and more critical research project, also as a way of further developing skills and competences for their Master theses.