ENAM 802:
American Studies Colloquium I
Syllabus
v 1.0
last updated Texts:
- Summer Reading:
- Carl N. Degler, Out of Our Past: The Forces that Shaped Modern American Thought.
- Michael Kammen, Mystic Chords of Memory.
- Thomas Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree.
- Neill Howe and Bill Strauss,13th Gen: Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail?
- James Hunter, Culture Wars.
- Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
- Raymond Williams, Keywords
- Additional Texts:
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Calendar of Meetings
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08/29: Organization and Introduction
For Monday, choose the book from the summer reading you liked best. Identify an idea in the book that seems interesting, powerful, useful-- or all three. Write a brief but complete description of the idea as if you were explaining it to an intelligent peer who had not read the book.
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09/03: Summer Reading I
- Thomas Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree.
- Neill Howe and Bill Strauss,13th Gen: Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail?
- James Hunter, Culture Wars.
ASLAB
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09/10: Summer Reading II
- Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
- Carl N. Degler, Out of Our Past: The Forces that Shaped Modern American Thought.
- Michael Kammen, Mystic Chords of Memory.
- Raymond Williams,Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society.
- For next Monday, read the entry for Culture, Democracy History, or Nature. At the end of each of these
definitions is a series of pointers to related terms; read those as
well.
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09/17:American Studies: Getting the Lay of the Land I
- Geneology
- Gene Wise,"Paradigm Dramas" in American Studies: A
Cultural and Institutional History of the Movement.
- Gene Wise,From 'American Studies' to 'American
Culture Studies.'
- Robert F. Berkhofer, Jr.,A New Context for a New American Studies?
- Allen F. Davis,The Politics of American Studies.
- Gerald Graff, The Promise of American Literature Studies
- Henry Giroux, David Shumway, Paul Smith, and James Sosnoski,The Need for Cultural Studies: Resisting Intellectuals and Oppositional Public Spheres
- Sacvan Berkovitch, The Problem of Ideology in American Literary History
- Linda Kerber,Diversity and the Transformation
of American Studies.
- Philip Fisher,The New American Studies: From Myths to Rhetorics
- George Lipsitz,Listening to Learn and Learning to Listen: Popular Culture, Cultural Theory, and American Studies
- Elaine Tyler May,"The Radical Roots of American Studies"
- Not Everybody's Myth and Symbol:
- Henry Nash Smith,Can
American Studies Develop a Method?
- Leo Marx,American
Studies A Defense of an Unscientific Method.
- Frederick Lewis Dekker,Disassembling
the Machine in the Garden.
- Bruce Kucklich,Myth
and Symbol in American Studies
- Donald Pease,Visionary Compacts and the Cold War Consensus.
- Brian Atteberry,American Studies: A Not So Unscientific Method"
- Paul Lauter, The Literatures of America: A Comparative Discipline
- Jay Mechling, An American Culture Grid, With Texts
- Ian Finseth,Prefaceto the Hypertext Edition of Virgin Land.
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09/24: Getting the Lay of the Land II
The Social Sciences and the New Historicism
- Peter Berger, Society as Drama
- Dominick LaCapra,Intellectual History and its Ways
- Janice Radway, American Studies Reader Theory and the Literary Text
- R. Gordon Kelly,The Social Construction of Reality: Implications for the Future Direction of American Studies
- David Pace,Structuralism in History and the Social Sciences
- John G. Blair,Structuralism, American Studies, and the Humanities
- L.F. Place, et al,The Object as Subject: The Role of Museums and Material Culture Collections in American Studies
- Thomas J. Schlereth,Mirrors of the Past: Historical Photography and American History
- Clifford Geertz,Thick Description
- Clifford Geertz,Ideology as a Cultural System
- Peter Burke,The New History: Its Past and Future
- Robert Sklar,American Studies and the Realities of America
- David Simpson,Literary Criticism and the Return to History
- Robert Darnton,The
Great Cat Massacre in the rue Severain
Marxism, Postructuralism, and Postmodernism
- Michael Denning,The Special American Conditions: Marxism and American Studies
- Elaine Taylor May, The Radical Roots of American Studies
- Roland Marchand,The Parable of the Democracy of Goods
- Forum on Peter Novick'sThat Noble Dream:Gordon,Hexter,Hollinger,McGill,Novick,andRoss.
- T. J. Jackson Lears,The Concept of Cultural Hegemony: Problems and Possibilities
- Roland Marchand, Visions of Classlessness, Quests for Dominion: American Popular Culture, 1945-1960
- Amy Kaplan,Left Alone America: The Absence of Empire in the Study of American Culture
- Frederick Jameson,The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism
- Jacques Lacan,Preface and Seminar on The Purloined Letter
- Roland Barthes,Myth Today,Striptease,Toys,Wrestling,from Mythologies.
- Umberto Eco, Casablanca, or, The Cliches are Having a Ball
- George H. Lewis,From Common Dullness to Fleeting Wonder: The Manipulation of Cultural Meaning the the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Saga
- Andrew Wernick,Vehicles for Myth: The Shifting Image of the Modern Car
- Joan Kron,The Semiotics of Home Decor
- Jane Caputi,IBM's Charlie Chaplin: A Case Study
- Peter Giblan,The
Art of Being Off-Center: Shopping Center Spaces and Spectacles
Gender, Race, Ethnicity
- Grace Hale, Producing the Ground of Difference from Making Whiteness
- Eric Lott, White Like Me: Racial Cross Dressing and the Construction of American Whiteness.
- Linda Gordon, What's New in Feminist Studies?
- Richard Ruland,Art and a Better America
- Elizabeth Fox-Genovese,Between
Individualism and Fragmentation: American Culture and the New Literary
Studies of Race and Gender.
- Nina Baym,Melodramas of Beset Manhood: How Theories of American Fiction Exclude Women Authors
- Houston A. Baker, jr.,Figurations for a New American Literary History
- Diane Barthel,A Gentleman and a Consumer
- bell hooks,Madonna: Soul Sister or Plantation Mistress
- Sandra Gubar,What Ails Feminist Criticism?
- Harper,Black Men and the Aids EpidemicfromEloquence and Epitaph: Aids, Homophobia, and the Problematics of the Black Masculinity
- Kevin J. Mumford,Homosex Changes:
Race, Cultural Geography, and the Emergence of the Gay
- Mary Helen Washington,What Happens to American Studies If You Put African American Studies at the Center?
- Joyce Joyce,The
Black Canon
- David Johnson and Scott Johnson, Border Secrets
Suggested:
Christopher P. Wilson,Containing
Multitudes: Realism, Historicism, American Studies.
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10/01: Classic Paradigms I: In the Beginning.
- Hans Holbein the Younger,Map of the World (1515)
- William Bradford,SelectionfromOf Plymouth Plantation
- Captain John Smith,SelectionfromThe History of Virginia.
- Cotton Mather,A
General IntroductionandNehemius AmercanafromThe Magnalia
Christi Americana.
- Ben Franklin, fromThe
Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin,pp.5-29, pp. 81-92 andPoor
Richard Improved, 1758pp. 1295-1304.
- Thomas Jefferson,Draft
of The Declaration of Independence.andQuery 4pp. 142-149
andQuery 19pp. 290-291, fromNotes
on the State of Virginia.
- James Madison,The Federalist #10
- George Washington,Farewell Address.
- Hector St. Jean de Crevecoeur,Letter III: What is an American?,Letter IX: Description of Charles-Town, andLetter XII: Distresses of a Frontier ManfromLetters from an American Farmer
Suggested:
- Sacvan Bercovitch,The Puritan Origins of the American Self.
- Daniel Boorstin,The Americans: The Colonial Experience.
- Oscar Handlin,The Uprooted.
- Howard Mumford Jones,O Strange New World
- Michael Kammen,The Machine that Would Run by Itself: The Constitution
in American Culture.
- Perry Miller,Errand into the Wilderness.
- David Potter,People of Plenty.
- Ernest Lee Tuveson,Redeemer Nation.
- Gary Wills,Inventing America: Jefferson's Declaration of Independence
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10/08: Classic Paradigms II: The Middle Ground
Note: Reading Days 10/13-10/16
- Alexis deTocqueville, from Democracy
in America
- Origin of the Anglo-Americans and the Importance of their Origins in
Relation to Thier Future Condition,
- The Necessity of Examining the Condition of hte States Before That of
the Union at Large,
- The Federal Constitution,
- Liberty of the Press in the United States,
- Government of Democracy in the United States
- Main Causes Tending to Maintain a Democratic Republic in the United
States,
- The Present and Probably Future condition of the Three Races that Inhabit
the Territory of the United States,
Influence of Democracy on the Action of Intellect in The United
States,
- Philosophical Method of The Americans
- Of the Principal Source of Belief Among Democratic Nations
- Why the Americans Show More General Aptitude and Taste for General Ideas
that their Forefathers, The English,
- Why the Americans have never been so Eager as the French for General
Ideas in Political Affairs,
- How Equality Suggests to the Americans the Indefinite Perfectibility
of Man,
- In What Spirit the Americans Cultivate the Arts,
- Literary Characteristics of Democratic Times,
- How American Democracy has Modified the English Language,
- Why Democratic Nations show a More Ardent and Enduring Love for Equality
than Liberty,
- Of Individualism in Democratic Countries,
- Of the Uses which Americans make of Public Associations,
- Of the Taste for Physical Well-being in America
- What Causes Almost All Americans to Follow an Industrial Calling,
- How an Aristocracy may be Created by Manufacures,
- How Customs are Softened as Social Conditions become more Equal,
- Influence of Democracy on the Family,
- How Americans Understand the Equality of the Sexes,
- Of Honour in the United States and in Democratic Communities,
- Why Democratic Nations Naturally Desire Peace and Democratic Armies
War,
- Why the Idea of Democratic Peoples about Government Naturally Favors
the Concentration of Political Power,
- What Sort of Despotism Democratic Nations have to Fear,
- General Survey of the Subject.
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10/17:The Middle Ground (continued)
- Noah Webster,PrefacetoThe American Dictionary of the English Language
- Edgar Allen Poe,The
Man of the Crowd,and The Man That Was All Used Up,
- Ralph Waldo Emerson,The
American Scholar
- Nathaniel Hawthorne,The
Maypole of Merrymount
- Nathaniel Hawthorne,Roger
Malvin's Burial
- Nathaniel Hawthorne,My
Kinsman, Major Molineaux
- Abraham Lincoln,The Gettysburg Address.
- Abraham Lincoln,Second
Inaugural Address.
- Walt Whitman, fromDemocratic
Vistas.
- Walt Whitman,The
Eighteenth Presidency
- Jacob Riis,IntroductionandGenesis
of the Tenementfrom How the Other Half Lives.
- William Graham Sumner,SelectionfromWhat the Social Classes Owe Each Other
- Frederick Jackson Turner,The Significance of the Frontier in American History.
- Thorstein Veblen,Industrial
Exemption and ConservatismfromThe Theory of the Leisure Classes
- Andrew Carnegie,Wealth
- George Santayana,Materialism
and Idealism in American LifefromCharacter and Opinion in
the United States.
- Henry Adams, Chicago and The Dynamo and the Virgin, fromThe
Education of Henry Adams.
- V.L. Parrington, The Chief Stewards of Theocracy and The
Contributions of Independency fromMain Currents in American ThoughtVol. I(C)
- William Carlos Williams, Voyage of the Mayflower and The
May-Pole at Maerry Mount fromIn the American Grain
- Constance Rourke,Corncobs
Twist Your Hairand The
Gamecock of the WildernessfromAmerican Humor
- John Crowe Ransom,A
Statement of Principles
- Lionel Trilling,Reality
in America
- Reinhold Niebuhr,Where
Have We Been? Where are We Going?
Suggested:
- Daniel Boorstin,The Americans: The National Experience.
- F.O. Matthiessen,American Renaissance
- Arthur M. Schlesinger,The Age of Jackson
- Gary Wills,The Gettysburg Address
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10/22: Henry Nash Smith
Suggested:
- Robert Berkhofer,The White Mans' Indian.
- Frank Prucha,Americanizing the American Indian.
- Richard Slotkin,Regeneration Through Violence.
- Tompkins, Jane P.West of Everything : The Inner Life of Westerns.
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10/29: Leo Marx, The Machine in the Garden
- Gary Cross,Technology and American Society : A History.
- Thomas Parke
Hughes, American Genesis : A Century of Invention and Technological Enthusiasm,1870-1970.
- Lewis Mumford,Technics and Civilization
- Cecelia Tichi, Shifting Gears :Technology, Literature, Culture in Modernist
America.
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11/05: Allen Trachtenberg,The Incorporation of America.
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11/12: Miles Orvell, The Real Thing
Suggested:
- Lawrence H. Levine,William Shakespeare in America,fromShakespeare
in America.
- Tom Gunning,Tracing the Individual Body: Photography, Detectives, and
Early Cinemain Leo Charney
and Vanessa R. Schwartz, eds., Cinema and the Invention of Modern Life (C)
- Ben Singer,Modernity, Hyperstimulus, and the Rise of Popular Sensationalism,in Charney and
Schwartz. (C)
- Erika D. Rappaport,'A New Era of Shopping;' The Promotion of Women's
Pleasure in London's West End, 1909-1914in Charney and Schwartz. (C)
- Alexandra Keller,Disseminations of Modernity: Representation and Consumer
Desire in Early Mail-Order Catalogsin Charney and Schwartz. (C)
- Miriam Bratu Hansen,America, Paris, the Alps: Kracauer (and Benjamin)
on Cinema and Modernity,in Charney and Schwartz. (C)
- Walter Benjamin, Art in the Age of Mechanical
Reproduction.
- Daniel Boorstin, The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-events
in America.
- Neil Harris, Humbug: The Art of P. T. Barnum.
- T. J. Jackson Lears, Fables of Abundance : A Cultural
History of Advertising in America.
- Susan Sonntag, On Photography.
- Susan Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed: The Making
of the American Mass Market
- Alan Trachtenberg, Brooklyn Bridge: Symbol and Fact.
- Alan Trachtenberg, Reading American Photographs.
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| 11/19: Stephen Fjellman, Vinyl Leaves
Suggested:
- The World's Columbian
Exposition.
- John Cawelti,America on Display: The Worlds' Fairs of 1876, 1893, 1933,in F. Jaher, ed.,The Age of Industrialism in America.
- Sigfried Gideon,Mechanization Takes Command.
- John Higham,Strangers in the Land.
- Oscar Handlin,The Uprooted.
- Howard Mumford Jones,The Age of Engergy.
- Neil Harris,Grand Illusions : Chicago's World's Fair of 1893
- T.J. Jackson Lears and Richard W. Fox, eds.,The Culture of Consumption.
- David Noble,America by Design.
- Alan Trachtenberg,Brooklyn Bridge: Fact and Symbol.
- Sam Bass Warner,The Urban Wilderness.
- Mike Wallace,Mickey Mouse History
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11/26: Workshop I
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| 12/03: Workshop I
Note: Classes end 12/07;
Revisons of Yellow Pages due 12/05; hypertext extensions to Virgin Land due 12/17.
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Vacation Reading: TBA.
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