Tentative Working Schedule

Test and Semester Control

Tentative Presentation Topics

1. American flag as a cultural mythologem.
2. American national anthem (history, functioning).
3. American national emblem: decoded symbolic semantics.
4. Puritan mythology in American literature (e.g. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, etc.).
5. American founding fathers as mythological characters (Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, others).
6. Native American characters in US fiction, art and film (to analyze one or several examples).
7. African American characters in US fiction, art and film (to analyze one or several examples).
8. “Self-made man” as a character in US fiction, art and film (to analyze one or several examples).
9. Frontier mythology in American folklore and present culture.
10. (De)mythologizing cowboys in American cinema.
11. The “Southern myth” in Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind: the book and its screen version.
12. The “Southern myth” in T.Williams’ play The Glass Menagerie.
13. Popular film genres (thriller, action, catastrophe, SF, “whodunit”, romance etc.).
14. Hollywood as a myth producer.
15. Comic strips as a hybrid genre of popular culture.

The final written test consists of two tasks covering the course material: first – explanation of certain key concepts; second – commenting upon a statement or quotation relevant to the issues under discussion.

Test Task Sample:

1. Explain the following concepts:

- popular culture

- Founding Fathers

2. Proceeding from the course material, comment upon the following:

“It is impossible to conceive of a nation existing without mythology” (F.W.J.Schelling)

Class 1. What is national mythology? What are its functions in national self-identification?

Class 2. Puritan Myth as the Background for American National Mentality

Class 3. American Enlightenment as Passage from Religious to Secular Mythology

Class 4. Mythologizing Native American as a Part of American National Mythology

Class 5. African Americans as an Important Source of National Mythology

Class 6. Mythology of American Individualism and Its Transformation in Mass Consciousness

Class 7. US Regional Mythology: frontier and the “Wild West”.

Class 8. US Regional Mythology: the Southern Myth

Class 9. Decline of US fundamental cultural mythologem (melting-pot) due to multicultural turn in the national self-identification.

Class 10. New ethnic mythologies in the US.

Class 11. US popular culture as a source of neo-mythology.

Class 12. Recapitulation, Writing Course Test Paper.

Class 13. Students’ Power Point Presentations.

Class 14. Students’ Power Point Presentations

Class 15. Students’ Power Point Presentations

Дата добавления: 2015-06-27