Topics in the Literature of American Cultures

If Los Angeles, at the center of the culture industry, is charged with representing America to the world, it is also obsessed with representing itself. According to its own mythology, there is no better place than L.A. to realize the quintessentially American dream of leaving the past behind and making one’s own destiny. And if L.A. considers itself the ideal setting for American self-fashioning, it also bills itself as the product of such a process: a city of big dreams and endless possibilities, built against the blank canvas of the desert.

Yet this utopian portrayal of Los Angeles obscures its long history as a site of imperial conquest, racial oppression, class struggle, and environmental devastation. This course aims not only to elucidate the various myths associated with the city—from the Hollywood dream of the postwar period to the contemporary celebration of L.A. as global city of the future—but also to allow a more critical understanding of these myths by asking how they intersect with racial and ethnic categories. To whose experiences does each myth give preference? By whom is it created, and for whom? Whose experiences does it exclude?

Most of our conversations will be devoted to specific neighborhoods of L.A. (like Hollywood and Watts) and particular traditions of representing the city (as white middle-class fantasy, as border community, as global city). However, we’ll also discuss how a critical understanding of the mythology of L.A. might allow us to reevaluate American myths of newness and self-fashioning more generally.

The course asks students to consider the extent to which our perception of a city is shaped not only by physical geography, but also by cultural representation. Accordingly, although the syllabus includes readings in history and urban studies, our discussions will focus primarily on fictional depictions of the city. The course devotes special attention to film, a medium with unique ties to L.A.; students should plan to devote up to 6 hours per week to viewing the films.

Required viewing:

Thom Andersen, Los Angeles Plays Itself

Charles Burnett, Killer of Sheep

Haile Gerima, Bush Mama

Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, Quinceañera

Howard Hawks, The Big Sleep

Gregory Nava, El Norte

Roman Polanski, Chinatown

Ridley Scott, Blade Runner

John Singleton, Boyz n the Hood

Required text:

Karen Tei Yamashita, 60 (Coffee House Press, 1997)

All other readings will appear in a course reader available for purchase at Zee Zee Copy, 2431 Durant Avenue (in the alley between Bancroft and Dana).

We will also discuss works in other media, particularly music (including tracks by N.W.A., 2Pac, Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg, and others) and visual art (including a number of murals and Sam Rodia’s Watts Towers installation). Links to images and music will be posted to bCourses.