HSP 135
Great Issues in the Humanities:
Outlaws, Heroes and National Identities

Prof. Andrew Bethune

Course Description:
In this course we will examine the various ways in which people represent in film and writing outlaws and heroes of national significance. To narrow our focus we will look at figures traditionally characterized as outlaws or heroes from the United States, Australia and India: some key players in the American Revolutionary War, and Jesse James, legendary figure of the American Wild West; Ned Kelly, the Outback outlaw, and the Australian forces who fought at the battle of Gallipoli; Mohandis Gandhi and his followers at the time of the partitioning of the Indian subcontinent, and Phoolan Devi, India’s Bandit Queen. Our goal will be to understand how writings and films about heroes and outlaws participate in the perpetuation of a national identity and a consciousness of belonging to a nation.

This course satisfies the Historical and Cultural Analysis Mode.

Required Texts:
Desmond Barry, The Chivalry of Crime.
Peter Carey, The True History of the Kelly Gang.
Phoolan Devi, I Phoolan Devi NB: this book is currently unavailable in the United States. I will put two or three copies on reserve in the next few weeks or you can order it directly from the UK at www.amazon.co.uk
Mohandis Gandhi, The Essential Gandhi. Ed. Louis Fischer.
Selected shorter texts in handouts.