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The Demise of ‘International Relations’: America's Western Palimpsest

2005; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 10; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14650040590946566

1557-3028

Michael J. Shapiro,

Italian Fascism and Post-war Society

By the end of the nineteenth century, the map of the U.S. no longer revealed the historic encounter of nationhoods between Euro- and Native Americans. The changes in the map articulated the process though which what had been foreign policy on the continent had been displaced by various version of racial politics. Two films are the book ends of this analysis, whose middle section treats the way classis westerns, particularly those directed by John Ford, supply insights into the Euro American geo- and biopolitical "ethnogenesis," their ethnically privileged and territorially pervasive presence on the North American continent. I begin with Sean Penn's The Pledge (2001) and conclude with Wim Wenders's Paris, Texas (1984). While it is unlikely that the "international relations" that characterized the American continent will be restored, these two films (and other genres of popular culture) remind us of the politics of America's cartographic history.