HIST 218 Rethinking the American West
No region of the country has been as saturated by mythology as the American West. It has been variously conceived as "empty," a "frontier," a "garden of the world," the divine realization of the nation's "manifest destiny" (emblazoned in Occidental's motto). That expansionist mythology not only ignored the environmental limits to what John Wesley Powell memorably described as an "impoverished landscape," it ran roughshod over the claims of indigenous peoples who lived there. This course will examine the various ways in which mapmakers, historians, writers and artists have tried to challenge that mythology by reimagining a different account (and future) of the American West. We will begin with reports from those on the scene like Hinmatoowyalahqit (Chief Joseph) and Powell, turn to the historiography of the region (from Turner to Limerick); and examine the efforts of photographers (Curtis, R. Adams, Misrach); artists (Heizer, Turrell, Martinez and Luna); writers (Muir, Solnit, Erdrich) and filmmakers (Zhao). Our investigation will linger on special regions and topics such as the efforts to map the West through early government surveys, the foundations of our national parks, the Nevada Test Site and the Cold War West, the damming of the Colorado River and Hetch-Hetchy, and the efforts by indigenous writers to rethink some of the West's most infamous episodes (Welch, Vizener). We will also devote some time to examining the approach taken to public history by nearby institutions like La Purisima Mission, the Autry Museum of the American West, and the very different Center for Land Use Interpretation. Our goal throughout will be to follow the strategies by which these activists, historians, writers and artists attempt to transform a mythological space of "heroic individualism" and boundless appetite, into a place with a distinctive history, tradition, community--a place, that is, with claims on us of stewardship and accountability.