Seminar: Understanding the Origins of US National Identity - Aufbaumodul: Kulturwissenschaft I - Details

Seminar: Understanding the Origins of US National Identity - Aufbaumodul: Kulturwissenschaft I - Details

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General information

Course name Seminar: Understanding the Origins of US National Identity - Aufbaumodul: Kulturwissenschaft I
Subtitle Understanding the Origins of US National Identity
Course number ANG.05272.04
Semester SoSe 2026
Current number of participants 19
maximum number of participants 30
Home institute Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik
Courses type Seminar in category Offizielle Lehrveranstaltungen
Next date Wednesday, 01.07.2026 10:15 - 11:45, Room: Seminarraum 7 (R.1.32) [EA 26-27]
Pre-requisites keine
Learning organisation seminar + home study of primary and secondary sources
Performance record Studienleistung: moderation of one session on a selected topic
Prüfungsleistung: 120 min written exam: systematic analysis of primary texts and an interpretation of your findings. Further info will be provided in class.
Lehrsprache(n) Englisch
Studiengänge (für) alle Studiengänge
SWS 2
ECTS points 5

Module assignments

Comment/Description

This seminar examines the myths that have shaped the United States as nation, empire, and settler colony. Drawing on a selection of literary, cultural, historical, political, and popular examples, we will explore how foundational narratives of “America” have been produced, circulated, and contested over time. The seminar asks what national myths do: how they create a “usable past” (Brooks; Commager), how they define ideas of Americanness, and how they help imagine the United States as a coherent “imagined community” (Anderson). At the same time, the seminar investigates how such myths have justified exclusions, conquests, settler colonialism, and unequal access to citizenship and belonging.

Topics may include competing origin stories of the United States, myths of discovery and virgin land, the Pocahontas story, the Puritan “promised land” and "city upon a hill," the Founding Fathers, the melting pot, the American West, Manifest Destiny, and the frontier, the myth of Thanksgiving and Santa Claus, the self-made man, and American exceptionalism. We will also consider how these narratives have been reinterpreted in recent debates, for instance in discussions surrounding the 1619 Project and the 1776 Report. Through a critical examination and evaluation of the power and the instability of national myths, participants will gain a deeper understanding of how the United States has narrated itself in the past and how these stories continue to shape political and cultural narratives in the present and possible future.

Required Texts:

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. 1925. Penguin, 2000. ISBN 9780141182636. (Please make sure to buy this exact edition)

Paul, Heike. The Myths That Made America: An Introduction to American Studies. Transcript, 2014. (Open Access: https://www.jstor.org/content/oa_book_monograph/j.ctv1wxsdq)

Pocahontas. Directed by Mike Gabriel and Eric Goldberg, Buena Vista, 1995.

Additional texts will be made available on StudIP and ILIAS.

NB: Please read the Introduction to Paul's text (pp. 11-42 https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1wxsdq.4) before attending the first session.

Studienleistung: Regular class contribution and participation, weekly readings, short reflections, and research paper proposal (Exposé)
Modulleistung: TBA Klausur oder Hausarbeit

Admission settings

The course is part of admission "Beschränkte Teilnehmendenanzahl: Aufbaumodul Kulturwissenschaft I SoSe26".
The following rules apply for the admission:
  • A defined number of seats will be assigned to these courses.
    The seats will be assigned in order of enrolment.
  • The enrolment is possible from 23.03.2026, 00:00 to 26.04.2026, 23:59.
  • This setting is active from 23.03.2026 00:00 to 26.04.2026 00:00.
    Enrolment is allowed for up to 1 courses of the admission set.
Assignment of courses: