The Frontier Hero in Vietnam - Reconstruction of a Myth

The Frontier Hero in Vietnam - Reconstruction of a Myth PDF Author: Henrik Brendel
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3656128782
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 29

Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject History - America, grade: 1,0, University of Cape Town (Department of Historical Studies ), course: Hollywood & the Vietnam War, language: English, abstract: In terms of methodology it will be worthwhile first to take a closer look at the theory of collective memory in order to understand its relevance for a nation's self-understanding and the way that society's individual members rely on it. In a next step, the concepts of Turner's frontier myth thesis as well as Kennedy's New Frontier will be outlined in order to point out the contents of the nation's mythology and to determine elements to look out for in films. As we will see, the figure of the individual frontier hero will be of paramount importance. Finally, the main part will focus on the way in which the U.S. frontier myth and particularly the frontier hero actually figure within some Hollywood representations of the war. What is the appearance of the frontier heroes and what experiences do they make on the New Frontier in Vietnam? How can these experiences be characterized and set against the traditional qualities of the frontier myth? Within the framework of this paper, the choice of films must necessarily be exemplary. The three films that will be discussed here are among the most widely distributed films dealing with the Vietnam War. Moreover, as I hope to demonstrate in this paper, they are exemplary for three different ways of responding to the threat that this war posed to the frontier myth: its assertion, its transformation and its dismissal.

American Myth and the Legacy of Vietnam

American Myth and the Legacy of Vietnam PDF Author: John Hellmann
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231515382
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 260

Book Description
American Myth and the Legacy of Vietnam

Killing the Indian Maiden

Killing the Indian Maiden PDF Author: M. Marubbio
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 081312414X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 314

Book Description
Killing the Indian Maiden examines the fascinating and often disturbing portrayal of Native American women in film. M. Elise Marubbio examines the sacrificial role in which a young Native woman allies herself with a white male hero and dies as a result of that choice. In studying thirty-four Hollywood films from the silent period to the present, she draws upon theories of colonization, gender, race, and film studies to ground her analysis in broader historical and sociopolitical context and to help answer the question, “What does it mean to be an American?” The book reveals a cultural iconography embedded in the American psyche. As such, the Native American woman is a racialized and sexualized other. A conquerable body, she represents both the seductions and the dangers of the American frontier and the Manifest Destiny of the American nation to master it.

Regeneration Through Violence

Regeneration Through Violence PDF Author: Richard Slotkin
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1504090357
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 816

Book Description
National Book Award Finalist: A study of national myths, lore, and identity that “will interest all those concerned with American cultural history” (American Political Science Review). Winner of the American Historical Association’s Albert J. Beveridge Award for Best Book in American History In Regeneration Through Violence, the first of his trilogy on the mythology of the American West, historian and cultural critic Richard Slotkin demonstrates how the attitudes and traditions that shape American culture evolved from the social and psychological anxieties of European settlers struggling in a strange new world to claim the land and displace Native Americans. Using the popular literature of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries—including captivity narratives, the Daniel Boone tales, and the writings of Hawthorne, Thoreau, and Melville—Slotkin traces the full development of this myth. “Deserves the careful attention of everyone concerned with the history of American culture or literature. ”—Comparative Literature “Slotkin’s large aim is to understand what kind of national myths emerged from the American frontier experience. . . . [He] discusses at length the newcomers’ search for an understanding of their first years in the New World [and] emphasizes the myths that arose from the experiences of whites with Indians and with the land.” —Western American Literature

Projecting the Shadow

Projecting the Shadow PDF Author: Janice Hocker Rushing
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226731667
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Book Description
Acknowledgements Introduction 1: The Intellectual Landscape 2: The Transmodern Frontier 3: The Hunter Myth 4: Jaws: Faces of the Shadow 5: The Deer Hunter: The End of Innocence 6: The Manchurian Candidate: The Human as Weapon 7: Blade Runner: On the Edge 8: The Terminator: Future-Perfect Tense 9: Terminator 2: Judgment Day: Effacing the ShadowConclusion Notes Index Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

American Exceptionalism

American Exceptionalism PDF Author: Deborah L. Madsen
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 9781578061082
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 200

Book Description
American Exceptionalism provides an accessible yet comprehensive historical account of one of the most important concepts underlying modern theories of American cultural identity. Deborah Madsen charts the contribution of exceptionalism to the evolution of the United States as an ideological and geographical entity from 1620 to the present day. She explains how this sense of spiritual and political destiny has shaped American culture and how it has promoted exciting counter arguments from Native American and Chicano perspectives and in the contemporary writings of authors such as Thomas Pynchon and Toni Morrison.

The Fatal Environment

The Fatal Environment PDF Author: Richard Slotkin
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1504090365
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 994

Book Description
A two-time National Book Award finalist’s “ambitious and provocative” look at Custer’s Last Stand, capitalism, and the rise of the cowboys-and-Indians legend (The New York Review of Books). In The Fatal Environment, historian Richard Slotkin demonstrates how the myth of frontier expansion and subjugation of Native Americans helped justify the course of America’s rise to wealth and power. Using Custer’s Last Stand as a metaphor for what Americans feared might happen if the frontier should be closed and the “savage” element be permitted to dominate the “civilized,” Slotkin shows the emergence by 1890 of a mythos redefined to help Americans respond to the confusion and strife of industrialization and imperial expansion. “A clearly written, challenging and provocative work that should prove enormously valuable to serious students of American history.” —The New York Times “[An] arresting hypothesis.” —Henry Nash Smith, American Historical Review

To Reason Why

To Reason Why PDF Author: Jeffrey P. Kimball
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1597523879
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 374

Book Description
This book is about the past and continuing debate over the causes of United States involvement in the Vietnam War. It brings together readings that best exemplify the widely varying answers that historians, political scientists, social scientists, policymakers, journalists, and novelists have given to the essential question of American involvement: why did the U.S. intervene diplomatically and militarily in Vietnam between 1945 and 1975?Ó --from the Preface To Reason Why breaks new ground in covering and analyzing this issue. Kimball has gathered together thirty-eight readings -- including speeches, interviews, and articles -- that best exemplify the conflicting ideas and theories about the U.S. intervention in Vietnam. Among these thirty-eight readings are excerpts from David Halberstam, Daniel Ellsberg, Frances FitzGerald, Henry Kissinger, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon.

Sartre's Life, Times and Vision du Monde

Sartre's Life, Times and Vision du Monde PDF Author: William L. McBride
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135631549
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 392

Book Description
First Published in 1997. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Challenging Genres

Challenging Genres PDF Author: Paul L. Thomas
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 946091361X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 243

Book Description
Challenging Genres: Comic Books and Graphic Novels offers educators, students, parents, and comic book readers and collectors a comprehensive exploration of comics/graphic novels as a challenging genre/medium.