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What is the American Dream? Every American citizen and those who dream of becoming one, have their own unique idea on what it might entail. “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” - these words immortalized by the Founding Fathers have become a cornerstone of the American Dream and its countless individual readings. The United States of America is a country of immigrants–dreamers, religious and political refugees, pragmatists and many more–who have come there in search of freedom and a better life. This conceptual idea of the American Dream is older than the U.S. itself. Even though the component of “rags to riches” is quite consistent, it is rather narrow-minded to define the American Dream nearly along those lines. In this seminar students will see that the American Dream is an idea so simple and yet so complex that it remains difficult to define what it exactly means to live/achieve the American Dream. Together we will look at a variety of texts showing that the concept changes depending on one’s social, political, economic, and ethnic background. Furthermore, this seminar will engage with the current political climate in the United States which, on the one hand, proposes a “golden age” for America, but, on the other hand, rather appears as living the American Nightmare for those targeted by President Trump’s ultra-conservative, right-wing agenda. |
