American Mythologies: Homage to Roland Barthes

Roland Barthes was a major figure in 20th century French letters, a literary critic, photography theorist, semiologist, and writer on love, to name a few of his contributions. In his book, Mythologies, Barthes lays out the way in which myths, or ideological lies, infect culture in the most pervasive but invisible ways, residing in seemingly innocent objects. For Barthes, no object is innocent. Wine, for example, has a very distinct role in French culture; toys (like baby dolls) impose gendered norms.The task of his book is to break these myths down to their component parts, demonstrating how myth-making, in his specific sense, always involves a suppression of the stories that complicate and interrupt the functioning or imposition of ideology. In this course, we will translate Barthes’ project to North America, with a focus on the US. After studying Barthes seminal book, we will examine our own myths, taking up Barthes’ challenge to reconcile ideology and poetry. Because, in Barthes’ schema, the suppression of personal stories contributes to myth-making, we will both analyze myths, in formal academic papers, and explore our own relationship to them in the form of personal essays. Myths under consideration may include: cowboys, spandex, Barbies, superwomen, Disney, self-help, the big apple, the entrepreneur, beer and burgers, the supermarket and department store, Broadway, Ford, Jeep, RVs, apple pie. Each of these objects will be vehicles through which we will examine corresponding conceptual myths of identity, freedom, wholesomeness, health, etc.

Satisfies General Education Requirements:

• Group-Satisfying: Arts and Letters
• Multicultural Courses: International Cultures (IC)