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Instructors: Univ. Prof. Dr. Winfried Herget
Event type:
Lecture
Displayed in timetable as:
05.866.314
Hours per week:
2
Language of instruction:
Englisch
Min. | Max. participants:
- | -
Requirements / organisational issues:
THIS IS THE LECTURE AND NOT THE CULTURAL STUDIES COURSE: You can only attend one of the two. DO NOT REGISTER FOR BOTH!
Contents:
We are used to perceive the United States project a self-image which stresses an American sense of mission, America as “the city upon a hill” or the vanguard of democracy and freedom. Instead of addressing such time-worn images, the present lecture course will trace another discursive formation which has hitherto been largely overlooked, namely a recurrent tendency to justify its actions by insisting that Americans have been victimized by others. The sentimental pattern of innocent suffering on the part of the United States which justifies righteous retribution can be traced to the Puritans (victimized by the Anglican establishment) and the American Revolution (the colonists victimized by the British motherland). It can also be found in the treatment of the Natives (“Indians” attacking the settlers in the course of Western expansion) and in the justification in the American use of force in wars, i.e. the explosion of the Maine in Havana triggering the Spanish-American War with the help of the “yellow press,” the sinking of the Lusitania, and the attack on Pearl Harbor in the two major world wars. More recently, George W. Bush’s rhetoric of pursuing the “War on Terror” referred to 9/11 and the loss of so many innocent lives.
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