Focuses on Los Angeles, golden city of cinema and myth, and more realistically, a multi-tiered transplanted society rife with internal tension. The course retraces some of the key phases of the development of the city, investigates how and the extent to which the myth of an “earthly paradise” was manufactured, and raises questions about the impact of the city's mythic status on its social fabric.Focuses on Los Angeles, golden city of cinema and myth, and more realistically, a multi-tiered transplanted society rife with internal tension. The course retraces some of the key phases of the development of the city, investigates how and the extent to which the myth of an “earthly paradise” was manufactured, and raises questions about the impact of the city's mythic status on its social fabric.