Study States #3 – Mythmaking

Discussion

For this session, we look at how myths continue to endure, shape, build, and collapse in American culture, with particular focus minority groups and voices to whom American myths have often been deeply exclusionary. What does it mean to be an American? To pursue the American Dream? What does that dream look like exactly, and whose dream is it?

Gordon Parks’s photography represents some of the most striking and accomplished exposures on the 20th century, privileging the African American narrative in American life. Taking the gate keepers of this largely white art form, Parks’ work gives visual proof to the civil rights era.

Louise Erdrich’s writing is frequently concerned with Native American heritage and narratives, especially how these intersect with mainstream American culture. She reconciles the vast and anonymous landscape of the American Midwest, and presents writing as a mode for both creating and destroying American myths.

George Yancy’s excerpt considers his famous philsophies of race and draws together some of the bigger questions surrounding American hegemonic myth structures. What does it mean to be a perosn of colour in America, both past and present?