Ingebretsen (Georgetown)

General Information

Abstract

Goals:

a. Methodological self-awareness: How a text makes meaning; develop an historical and theoretical foundation for the analysis of myth, ideology, rhetoric and social dissent; begin to develop a sense of the history and methods of American studies as a field.

b. Culture, History and literature. Lentricchia: Culture is knowledge that has become power

c. Begin to develop a sense of the history and methods of American Studies.

d. Extramural contexts: New world exploration, European origins of political and religious institutions, continental expansion and hemispheric politics, new world slavery.

e. Develop a sense of the different objects and methods of social, cultural and political analysis: social history, intellectual history, literary history, material culture, popular and high culture.

Demographics

This course is made up almost exclusively of third-semester American Studies majors. American Civilization III is the third semester in the four-semester American Civilization sequence. The course is a four-credit course (most electives are three credits). There are a few non-American Studies majors, but the course is geared toward the majors, being part of an ongoing reflection on the field of American Studies, as well as the third part of the chronological survey of American history and culture.

Bibliography and Texts

Required Texts:

Paul S. Boyer, The Enduring Vision: A History of the American People (Heath 0-669-09798-5)

Paul Lauter, ed. The Heath Anthology of American Literature,Vol. 2 (Heath 0-669-12065-0)

Frederick M. Binder, ed. The Way We Lived: Essays and Documents in American Social History, Vol. II. (Heath 0-669-24475-9)

F. Scott Fitzgerald , The Great Gatsby (Macmillan 0-02-019960-0)

William Faulkner, The Unvanguished (Vintage 0-679-73652-2)

Thomas Dixon, The Clansman ( Kentucky 0-8131-0126-3)

Stephen Crane , Maggie (Signet 0-451-52552-2)

Packet of Articles and Documents

Jane Addams, "The Subjective Necessity of Social Settlements"

Randolph Bourne, "Trans-National America"

Van Wyck Brooks, "'Highbrow' and 'Lowbrow'"

Michel Guillaume Jean de Crevecoeur , "The New American"

Eugene Debs, "Statement to the Court"

Hamlin Garland , "Lion's Paw"

Charlotte Perkins Gilman , "Woman and Economics,"

George Hoar, "Against Imperialism"

John Higham, "Integrating America: The Problem of Assimilation"

William James, "What Pragmatism Means"

Richard Kelly, "Literature and History"

David M. Kennedy, "Family, Feminism, and Sex at the Turn of the Century"

Linda K. Kerber, "Diversity and the Transformation of American Studies"

Bruce Kuklick, "Myth and Symbol in American Studies"

Richard McCormick, "Progressivism: A Contemporary Reassessment"

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, "Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933"

Emily S. Rosenberg, "Capitalists, Christians, Cowboys"

Margaret Sanger, "The Right to One's Body"

George Santayana, "The Genteel Tradition in Philosophy"

Richard Slotkin, "Myth and Production of History"

Warren Sussman, "Culture Heroes: Ford, Barton, Ruth"

______________, "The Culture of the Thirties"

Frederick Jackson Turner, "The Significance of the Frontier"

General Pedagogy

Requirements and Assignments

1) Daily readings and weekly one-page, double-spaced essays on the readings and issues they raise. Sometimes these one-page essays will be on assigned topics; generally they will be open. Your weekly essay may be turned in at any time during the week it is due; late work will not be accepted without prior notification. These essays will be discussed in bi-weekly conferences.

2) Daily synopsis of assigned readings: Each student, in teams of two, will be responsible at least once for previewing the readings and introducing them to the class (see Sign-up List). This will substitute for a weekly essay. As should be quickly evident, texts for any particular class are wide- ranging; not all of them can be discussed adequately. You should offer a brief, but general precis of the readings (75-100 wds.). In addition, draft three or four questions on particular texts or issues raised by the readings. Your synopsis should be turned into Professor Curran for xeroxing the day before the class that preceeds the one in which it will be used. Thus if you are doing the synopsis and questions for class on Thursday, September 30, it is due on Monday, September 27, in order to be distributed on Tuesday, September 28. Your questions will be used to organize the period of in-class discussion for that day.

3) Writing Partners/Conferences: Each student will choose one other student to serve as a writing partner: someone to help shape ideas, and someone who will read drafts of essays before they are submitted in finished form. Unclear prose, mechanical errors, and vague general statements indicate one-draft writing which will not be accepted. Writing partners will meet with Professor Ingebretsen throughout the semester in bi-weekly conferences (to be scheduled).

Requirements & Grading

Evaluation and Grading

Student Self-Evaluation: As part of the final exam, each student will be responsible for writing a summary of her or his activities during the course of the semester. This should include the number of classes attended; essays completed; conferences attended (Interest Group, Writing Partner meets, etc.), as well as specific details about involvement in other class projects.

Grading: In general all writing assignments, with the exception of the mid-term essay, will be considered "Acceptable" or "Not Acceptable." The mid-term essay will be graded. Attendance and participation at all classes, submission of appropriate written materials are minimum requirements for this course. Your final grade will be determined by your performance in the following areas: 1) mid-term, 2) final oral examination, 3) group project, and 4) classroom participation.

General Annotation

Principles about Learning And Textuality

Readings & Pedagogy

Unit #1:

Doing American Studies

Sept. 2 Introduction

Sept. 7 Doing American Studies: Some Methodological Considerations

Readings: Smith, "Can American Studies Develop a Method?" Kuklick, "Myth and Symbol in American Studies;" Kelly, "Literature and History;" Kerber, "Diversity and the Transformation of American Studies;" Slotkin, "Myth and Production of History"

Sept. 9 Doing American Studies (cont.)

Unit #2:

Genteel Tradition & Mass Culture

Sept. 14 A Century's End: Of Frontiers and Outer Spaces

Readings: Boyer, Chap. 17, "The Frontier West"; Turner, "Significance of the Frontier"; Binder, Chap. 2, "The Last Frontier," Frost , "Stopping By Woods"

Sept. 16 Fitzgerald , Great Gatsby

Sept. 21 The New Frontier: The Industrial City

Readings: Boyer, Chaps. 18-19, "The Rise of Industrial America," "The Transformation of Urban America."

Sept. 23 Crane , "Maggie"; Garland , "Lion's Paw"; Stanton, The Solitude of Self"; Gilman , "Woman and Economics"

Sept. 28 Binder, Chap. 5, "Life and Labor in Industrial America"

Sept. 30 The Genteel Tradition and The Rise of Mass Culture Readings: Boyer, Chap. 20, "Daily Life, Popular Culture, and the Arts, 1860-1900;" Santayana, "Genteel Tradition;" Brooks, "Highbrow and Lowbrow"

Unit #3

The 1890's and Progressive Era

Oct. 5 The 1890s: Populism, Protest, and Imperialism

Readings: Boyer, Chap 21, "Politics and Expansion in an Industrializing Age;" Rosenberg, "Capitalists, Christians, Cowboys," Hoar, "Against Imperialism;" Twain , "The War Prayer"

Oct. 7 Progressivism: Political, Economic, and Social

Readings: Boyer, Chap. 22, "The Progressive Era;" McCormick, "Progressivism: A Contemporary Reassessment;"

Oct. 12 Confronting Modernity

Readings: Adams , "The Dynamo and Virgin," James , "What Pragmatism Means," Chaplin, "Modern Times" (film)

Unit #4

Constructions of Race/ Mythologies

Oct. 14 The Construction of Race I: The American Castes

Readings: Binder, Chap. 3, "Indian Schools;" Dunbar , "Lyrics of Lowly Life," "We Wear the Mask;" Dubois , "The Souls of Black Folk," Washington , "The Atlanta Exposition Address;" Binder, Chap. 6, "Bound for the Promised Land"

Oct. 19 The Construction of Race II: The Immigrant

Readings: Binder, Chap. 8, "Intolerance"; Higham, "Integrating America: The Problem of Assimilation;" Baritz, "The KKK;" Binder, Chap. 12, "The Internment of Japanese-Americans;" Bourne, "Trans-National America;" Crevecoeur , "What is an American?"

Oct. 21 Mythologies and Accomodations I

Readings: Dixon, The Clansman

Oct. 26 Birth of a Nation (film)

About the Weekly Essays

Mid-Term Essay

Unit #5

Women's Sphere/Women's Bodies

Oct. 28 Women's Sphere in Early Modern America

Readings: Chopin , "Desiree's Baby," Freeman, "Revolt of Mother," Gilman , "Yellow Wall-Paper," "Herland;" Thomas, "Should Higher Education for Women Differ?"; Kennedy, "Family, Feminism, and Sex at the Turn of the Century;" Addams, "The Subjective Necessity of Social Settlements;" Sanger, "The Right to One's Body"

Nov. 2 Women's Sphere (cont.); class presentation

Unit #6

WWI and Aftermath

Nov. 4 War and Reaction

Readings: Boyer, Chap. 23, "World War I;" Binder, chap. 7, "War and Society, 1917-1918; Debs, "Statement to the Court"

Nov. 9 The 1920s

Readings: Boyer, Chap. 24, "The 1920s;" Binder, Chap. 9, "Morals and Manners in the 1920s;" Sussman, "Culture Heroes: Barton, Ford, Ruth"

Nov. 11 The 1920s (cont.); class presentation

Nov. 16 Harlem Renaissance; class presentation

Unit #7

The 1930's

Nov. 18 The 1930s

Readings: Boyer, Chap. 25, :Crash, Depression, and New Deal;" Binder, Chap. 10, "The Depression Years;" "The Plow That Broke the Plain;" Sussman, "The Culture of the Thirties;" Franklin Delano Roosevelt, "Inaugural Address"

Nov. 23 The 1930s (cont); class presentation

Nov. 30 Mythologies and Accomodations II: The Southern Renaissance

Readings: Faulkner , The Unvanquished; Robert Penn Warren , John Crowe Ransom ; class presentation

Dec. 2 The 1930s (cont)

Readings: Boyer, Chap. 26, "American Life in a Decade of Crisis at Home and Abroad;" Dos Passos; Michael Gold , Clifford Odets , "Waiting for Lefty;

Final Exam

In "Literature and the Historian" Kelly likens a literary text to an interview whose questions have been lost: "The text embodies the response [of the author] in a complex form, and the meaning of the work may be specified, in part, by reconstructing the "questions" to which the author was responding" (p. 151). The historian's job, Kelly says, must be to reconstruct the "interview" and to understand how an individual text "embodies" the tensions of a specific culture.

Your task is to begin piecing together the missing questions of culture's "interview." For your essay explore one "question" that you find significant to the United States of the late 1800s.

Oral Final

Choose a text of this period not studied in class, and do a five-point analysis: 1) why is this text in the canon (or why not)?; 2) What kind of text? 3) How does it represent power/lack of power; 4) And to whom? Further details to come.

Group Research Project and Class Presentation

Each student shall be responsible for joining, or forming, an Interest Group (five student maximum per group). After the first in-class organizational meeting (Sept. 14), these groups will meet as they see fit to discuss strategies, to apportion individual tasks, and to develop a working knowledge of their subject area.

Their research will culminate in a presentation made to the class. This verbal presentation (30-45 minutes) will, in addition, be supported by the following written (and xeroxed) materials:

a. Review of research; synopsis of current debate about the topic (one page)

b. Annotated Reading List (one page)

c. Precis and Outline (one page)

d. Tentative conclusions and questions for further study (one page) Professors Ingebretsen and Curran will meet periodically with these groups to discuss the various projects. Presentations will begin November 2.

Possible interest areas (You may, of course, devise your own):

a. Intersection of discourses: literature and history; canon formation; literature and labor; gender studies; ethnic studies

b. Music and ethnic complexity; development of the cinema

c. Geopolitics: space and territory; conquest, occupation, and colonization

d. Ideology and mythologies: the rhetoric of being American

e. Advertising and hegemony: the marketing of America

f. The movement from a Culture of Frontiers to a culture of Law: From (outer) exploration to (inner)surveillances.

g. Back to the Future: the place of the past in the present

h. Dominant culture; adversary cultures; political cultures; subcultures; transgression and dissent.

i. The shifting grounds of American identity: Race, ethnicity, and pluralism.

j. Investigation of Material Culture resources in the D.C. area; museums, exhibits, libraries, etc.

k. Representation and the Photographic record

l. Religion and American Culture: Fundamentalism, Social Gospel, Neo-Orthodoxy; the triple-melting pot