In 1893, Frederick Jackson Turner called the frontier “the line of most rapid and effective Americanization,” where settlers shed their European histories and became “American.”  This course will examine the ways in which notions of American identity have been historically dependent upon the concept of a “West.”  In addition to our reading, we will consider popular images of the American West ranging from landscape paintings to B-Westerns to the Marlboro Man.  In contrast to the “open space” myth of the West, we will examine the laws and land surveys that mapped out the West, from the Homestead Act to the reservation system—also looking at the impact of water, railroad, and cattle empires in the West.  On the one hand the “West” is a colonial myth of expansion and nation-building.  On the other hand, it is a multicultural environment that was settled by people not only from the American East, but also from the South (Mexico) and West (Asia)--who often supplanted the existing residents.  We will look at both the myth and reality of the West, reading literature ranging from Zane Grey to Sherman Alexie to Isabelle Allende.