This course is a consideration of the West in American Imagination. The primary documents and focus will be Western films. However the themes of the Western arise out of cultural and artistic traditions pre-existing film, and we will consider the shaping of the Myth of West in popular literature and social discourse as it, in turn, is manifested and reinforced in visual art, both elite and commercial. The Western will be considered in this tradition as an artistic creation shaping and mediating themes of American identity through the continuation and alteration of pre-film constructions of "The West" in visual art, literature and social discourse. The underlying intention behind this course is to explore the way that cultural narratives and ideologies shape and are shaped by artistic creations.