INT 490 - (University Wide) Lies, Deception and Heroification

Explores the theme of “heroification” as it is developed in the 1998-99 University of Maine Class Book, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. In this book, author James Loewen maintains that the creation of sanitized heroic figures in high school history textbooks, social archetypes rather than human beings, creates not only “culture-serving distortion” but boring and inaccurate history. Students will explore how lies in history, education, government, business and society in general create “cultural distortion.” Emphasizes history as interpretation, the elusive nature of truth in history, and the dynamic variables contributing to moral and ethical tensions swirling around identity, race, gender, freedom, privacy, censorship, governance, propaganda, sexuality and ethnicity.

Satisfies the General Education Cultural Diversity and International Perspectives and Social Context and Institutions Requirements.

Credits: 3