Syllabus for American Studies 101: Myths and Paradoxes

Last week, I posted my syllabus for my new course, an introductory course in American Studies; next up, the syllabus for my other new course, a different introductory course in American Studies.

I'm formatting it differently. Again I'll start with the "About this Course" introduction I put on the syllabus. But then I'm posting the section on the graded work for the class, since it's more offbeat than was the assigned work for my other class, so I thought I'd highlight it by putting it on the actual blog. And lastly, since the class really makes no sense without the specific readings assigned for each unit, I'm listing those, too. (In the coursepack, each subsection of the syllabus is prefaced by a title page, with an image: I'm using those images as headers here, just to spruce up the post.)

As was true for the other class, while I'm basically pleased with how this course came out, it's still a first draft; it will most likely change when I offer it in the spring semester (based on how things went this time around, of course).

Now, without further ado...

About This Course

This course is about the myths and paradoxes of America. We will examine six ideas, each of which is a myth -- not (particularly) in the sense of being fictional, but in the sense of being an organizing idea (aspiration, self-description, ideological belief) which is applied to this country. Each is also, in itself, paradoxical, as well as being in a paradoxical relationship to the others. We will examine each myth/paradox through a variety of approaches, including literature, philosophy, history, sociology, songs, art and others, hoping to gain a richer understanding of each of these ideas than any single approach would give us.

Those six ideas, in the order we will consider them, are:

Freedom
Democracy
Individuality
Equality
Opportunity
Identity

Note that these are hardly the only six that I could have chosen. There were lots of others myths that I considered, and which, had we but world enough and time, I would have us look at too. (Some examples include newness/youth, empire, community (republic/union), progress -- and many others.) But they are six of the most important ones.

We will be looking, as we examine these ideas, at a series of conflicts. First, each of these ideas is contested, which means that people argue over what it means (and what it should mean) and how it works. So each idea is an intellectual battleground between those with different beliefs and agendas. Second, each of these ideas, as ideals, are (in some ways) in conflict with the reality in America. Further, this conflict between the myth and the reality can lead to a variety of responses . (Reject the myth as false? Work to make it true? Deny that it could be false?) And third, each of these ideas is (according to some people) in conflict with others -- perhaps democracy and freedom are in conflict, or perhaps individuality and equality, or perhaps opportunity and identity.

Finally, of course, all of these ideals are tied up, in various complex ways, with others. People often use various ones of them synonymously -- perhaps democracy means equality, or freedom means democracy, or equality means opportunity, or individuality means exploring one's identity -- or is it rather refuting it? These complexities means that we will engage with all six ideas throughout the term, even as we try to focus our discussions primarily on the one at hand. (As we explore these issues with our mélange of readings, one thing to bear in mind is that almost all of these readings could be shifted to a different unit.) But the interrelations here are a feature, not a bug. These ideas are important in part because they relate in such complex ways.

In addition, of course, to their relation to the seventh, unspoken yet ubiquitous idea on our agenda: "America" itself.

Response Papers

There will be no final exam, in-class tests or longer writing assignments in this course.

Apart from attendance and class participation -- which will be counted seriously -- the grades in this class will be determined by near-daily one page response papers. Each response paper should be a page in length, and should primarily be a response to the reading due in that day's class (although comparisons and contrasts with other readings and ideas from the class will certainly be worthwhile). These responses will be graded √/√-/√+ (or, in rare cases, no credit).

The baseline expectation for the class is that you will do 35 one-page response papers. Note that there are 42 days of class in the semester, meaning that you are expected to do one nearly every day. The seven that you don't do are intended to deal with sickness, emergencies and other exigencies of life that may crop up. But it is your responsibility to hoard the passes until really needed; if you "spend" them early, and then get caught out in genuine emergencies or illness, your grade will still go down. You should, at the very least, save three or so for genuine emergencies; anyone who has to do a response paper the final week of the term is either unlucky or planning poorly -- probably the latter.

Response papers can be about any of the readings due on a particular day. If there are multiple readings due on that day, then you don't need to discuss them all -- one will do. All that is required is that you have a response to the reading. Obviously you will need to be particularly intelligent or thoughtful or creative to get a √+, but a √ will be given just for a plain, ordinary, response. (Evidence that you've seriously misunderstood the reading, or genuinely poor writing (i.e. not just a mistake or two), will merit a √-. Handing in only one sentence (rather than a page), or not discussing the reading at all, or other, similar things will result in getting no credit.)

Please note that no more than one response can be turned in per class, nor will late responses be accepted. If you have not turned in a response paper by class time, then that day will be one of your skipped responses.

Also note that on days you don't do a response paper, you are still required to do the reading, attend class and participate in the discussion.

If you turn in 35 response papers which receive a grade of √, you will get a B for the class (assuming normal participation and attendance). Grades of √+ will raise your grade, and grades of √- will lower it. Turning in fewer than 35 responses will lower your grade significantly. Extra credit will be given for turning in more than 35 responses (but bear in mind, again, that only one response paper per class will be accepted -- the only way to do more than 35 is to not use up all of your skips).

The reason that I am making this the only form of assignment is two-fold: first, I want to make sure that everyone does the reading (since it is the heart of the course); and second, I want everyone to think about the reading. This class is not about memorizing information or learning facts, but about thinking about these issues. Do that in your response papers and you'll do fine.

This class is a marathon, not a sprint. The work in it is not something that can be done in bursts; it requires steady application of effort. Make sure you get off to a good start, and then keep a steady pace throughout.

Class Assignments

Note: I haven't reproduced the specific days when each assignment is due. Some days we discuss more than one reading; some readings get more than one day.

Prologue: America

Langston Hughes, "Let America Be America Again"
"Extracts" (supplied by a Sub-Sub Librarian)
Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The American Scholar"

Unit One: Freedom

David Hackett Fischer, Liberty and Freedom (Introduction, pp. 1-13)
David Hackett Fischer, Albion's Seed (excerpts on Freedom Ways)
Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (brief excerpt)
Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (chapters 1-2, 5-7 & brief excerpt from chapter 10)
Walt Whitman, Democratic Vistas (excerpt from opening)
William Graham Sumner, What Social Classes Owe to Each Other (chapters 1-2 only)
Ronald Reagan, "A Time to Choose"
Langston Hughes, "Refugee in America" (aka "Words Like Freedom")
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, "Four Freedoms"
Martin Luther King, "The Birth of a New Nation"
Lynyrd Skynyrd, "Free Bird" (lyrics)
Kate Chopin, "The Story of an Hour"
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "Yellow Wallpaper"
Henry David Thoreau, Walden (a few very brief excerpts)
Emma Lazarus, "The New Colossus"
David Hackett Fischer, Liberty and Freedom (excerpts on the statue of liberty)
** Liberty and freedom as images (look at slideshow, which has been posted separately on blackboard; we'll view & discuss the images in class)

Unit Two: Democracy

James Madison, Federalist Papers, #10 and #51
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (excerpt)
John Dewey, "Creative Democracy"
Mark Twain, "The Curious Republic of Gondor"
Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma (excerpt)
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, "Declaration of Sentiments from Seneca Falls"
Leonard Cohen, "Democracy" (lyrics)
Martin Luther King, "Letter from Birmingham Jail"
Herman Melville, Billy Budd (entire book)

Unit Three: Individualism

Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self Reliance"
Edgar Allan Poe, "The Imp of the Perverse"
W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (Forethought & Chapters 1, 6 & 11)
David Riesman, et. al., The Lonely Crowd (Chapter 1)
Tracy Chapman, "Fast Car" (lyrics)
Henry David Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience"
Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself"

Unit Four: Equality

Thomas Paine, excerpt from "Dissertation on First Principles of Government"
Chris Hayes, Twilight of the Elites (Chapter 2)
Plessy v. Ferguson (excerpt)
Brown v. Board of Education (excerpt)
Anne Moody, Coming of Age in Mississippi (chapters 10-11)
Bob Dylan, "Only a Pawn in Their Game" (lyrics)
Kurt Vonnegut, "Harrison Bergeron "
William F. Buckley, "Why the South Must Prevail"
Ayn Rand, "The Age of Envy" (excerpt)
Shirley Jackson, "The Lottery"
Octavia Butler, Fledgling (entire book)

Unit Five: Opportunity

Richard Weiss, The American Myth of Success (Introduction)
Horatio Alger, "Henry Trafton's Independence"
Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives (Chapters 15 & 20, plus some additional images)
Carl Sandberg, "Chicago"
Bruce Springsteen, "The River" (lyrics)
LBJ, "To Fulfill These Rights"
Elizabeth Anderson, The Imperative of Integration (Chapter 6)
Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed (entire book)
Stephen Sondheim, Assassins (entire book)
Stephen Sondheim, Assassins (listen to music)

Unit Six: Identity

Philip Gleason, "Identifying Identity"
James Baldwin, "The Discovery of What It Means to Be an American"
Barbara J. Fields, "Ideology and Race in American History"
Peggy McIntosh, " White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack"
Randolph Bourne, "Trans-National America"
Walter Benn Michaels, The Trouble with Diversity (Chapter 5)
** Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Stills (1977 - 1980) (This series of black and white photographs by American artist Cindy Sherman is online at the web site of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.  The link is to the first one; please look at all the ones they have online (there are 70 of them). Note: the name of this series is "Untitled Film Stills"; the following work that Sherman did was another series, this one called "Untitled". We're going to focus on the former. Basically, when you see color, you can stop (unless you're interested, ¬of course).Dar Williams, "When I Was a Boy" (lyrics)
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (entire book)


Coda: America

Langston Hughes, "Let America Be America Again"


Update: Broken link to Cindy Sherman's Untitled Film Stills fixed, typos corrected.

Update 2: Changed the final unit to reflect a mid-course revision of Unit Six (I shuffled the order of the readings, and replaced Baldwin's essay "Encounter on the Seine" with his essay "The Discovery of What It Means to Be an American".)  I've also decided to eliminate the coda (nice idea but we're short on time).

_______________________
Credits for unit images (in order):

J. M. Flag, US Army recruiting poster, 1917
Samuel Jennings, Liberty Displaying the Arts & Sciences, 1792
Alfred R. Waud, The First Vote, 1867
Composite of three images from series: Nancy Burson, Mankind, 2003
Barry Deutsch, A Concise History of Black-White Relations in the U.S.A., 2008
Margaret Bourke-White, Kentucky Flood, 1937
Composite of eight images from series: Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Stills, 1977 - 1980

Syllabus for American Studies 100: The History of American Culture

As I've alluded to, but haven't yet spelled out, this year I'm teaching two introductory-level American studies courses (both this semester and again next semester). The classes are American Studies 100: The History of American Culture, and American Studies 101: Myths and Paradoxes. Apart from the course titles and descriptions, I was given a pretty free hand. Of course, both preparing and teaching a new class are a lot of work -- and doing two, particularly in an area you haven't taught before (this is my first time teaching American Studies as such, although most of my history classes have been cross-listed and some have even been offered as 'concurrent' AS courses with the same title/number in a different department) is pretty nuts. And coming up with two introductions to one subject -- even with the direction provided by the course titles -- was yet another level of craziness. (The courses, by the way, had to be independent -- neither was a prerequisite for the other -- but also non-overlapping, as some people would take both (and majors were required to take both.))

It was a busy summer.

But I'm basically pleased with how the courses came out, at least for the first go-around (updates will be made before the spring versions, based on the first run). So I thought I'd post the syllabi in case anyone's interested. First up: Amst100. What I'm going to do is to put here, on the blog, the title page, the general information about the course, and the list of items (you'll know what that means when you get to it). Then I'll link to the complete syllabus as a pdf document on Google Docs for anyone who wants to read the details of the assignments, etc. So, without further ado...

About This Course

It's ridiculous, of course: you can't sum up American culture in fifteen weeks. We might as well all go home.

...but, uh, since we shan't --

The approach of this class will be to work through examples: not precisely representative ones, since they don't represent the whole, but suggestive ones: ones that will introduce a lot of themes and issues that you will encounter again, should you go on to study American Culture further -- or just live in it. More specifically, we shall be talking about twenty-one things, where a "thing" can be a work of art, an event, a place, a genre, or any of a number of other more specific nouns. This is a history of American culture in twenty-one examples, the way we might have a history in five volumes, or in five minutes. Which is to say, it is limited by them, contained within them: they are meant to be, not complete, but informative.

Even apart from the limitations inherent in the example form, there have been a lot of other limitations involved in narrowing a culture down to fifteen class weeks. Two in particular are worth noting. First, our temporal focus shall be on the last hundred and fifty years -- mostly, indeed, the last hundred. American culture (depending on how you define it) goes back at least to the seventeenth century, if not before. But for the purposes of pedagogy, we will focus on the more immediate history of the culture we all live in.

Second, we shall take "culture" in a somewhat (but not extremely) narrow sense. The word is often used quite broadly, to include patterns of work, family, and such things. We will be talking about culture in a narrower sense: movies, television, paintings, food, memorials, sermons, sporting events, amusement parks, scandals, comics, cultural events, and so forth. But, of course, sometimes "culture" is used just to mean things like books, paintings and music. We will include those, but we'll go somewhat further than simply that.

The examples have been chosen with the hope of touching on many of the forms, modes, and issues which have been important in American culture, given those limitations. We will be touching on a lot of issues about which entire courses can be offered -- the history of American popular music, television, theater, film, painting, sports, comics, commercial culture, etc. (Indeed, you can take many of those classes here at Hobart and William Smith, should you be so inclined.) Thus we will be experiencing, of necessity, quick glances rather than long stares at these issues.

Nevertheless, we will cover a fairly broad ground. We'll be looking at two TV shows (and one TV event), one radio show (and one radio event) and one theatrical play. We'll be discussing one park, one historical monument and one amusement park. We'll talk about one painting and one comic strip. We'll do one unit on Jazz, and one on Folk and Rock music (specifically, their intersection). We'll talk about a preacher, a settlement house, a set of books, a type of movie theater, a type of food and a store catalog. We'll touch on sports twice, on public media events at least once and several controversies. We'll look at something from the Western genre, the Mystery/Noir genre, and the Fantasy/Science Fiction genre. Issues that will come up include race relations, commercialism, immigration, nativism, urbanism, suburbanism, cars and drugs.

It'll be a wild ride. We're going big, taking on too much, trying to do and have it all. After all, this is a course on American culture, ain't it?

The 21 Examples

1. Minstrel Shows
2. Central Park
3. A Sears & Roebuck Catalog
4. Hull House
5. Coney Island Amusement Park
6. The Five Foot Shelf (a.k.a. The Harvard Classics)
7. D. W. Griffith, The Birth of a Nation
8. Billy Sunday Sermons
9. The Lone Ranger (radio and TV show)
10. Louis vs. Schmeling (New York City, June 22, 1938)
11. Billie Holiday, "Strange Fruit" (words & music by Abel Meeropol)
12. Jackson Pollock, Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist)
13. Charles Schultz, Peanuts, 1961 - 1962
14. Drive-in Movie Theaters
15. Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival, 1965
16. The Moon Landing, 1969
17. Roman Polanski, Chinatown
18. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial
19. Fast Food
20. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
21. Steroids in Baseball

***

If you want to read the complete syllabus, it is available as a pdf online here.

Syllabus for The History of American Thought Since 1865, Spring 2011

Starting a week and a half from now, I'm teaching (for the first time) an upper-level course on U.S. intellectual history, entitled The History of American Thought Since 1865. (That is, it's the first time I've taught it; it has been offered for many years by a senior member of the HWS history department who also teaches -- most recently this past fall -- the companion course, The History of American Thought To 1865. (I should say that it's his course title; I'd prefer one with "intellectual history" rather than "American thought" as the key term -- perhaps since the latter can be read to imply a unity that I don't think exists, but possibly just because it sounds old fashioned.) I thought I'd tell you about it.

First I should say that this is not, in fact, the complete syllabus for the course -- I don't see any particular reason that anyone save my students would be interested in my grading policies or my office hours. But since I've been interested when other academic bloggers have posted their syllabi, and since, in putting together this course, I benefited from looking at the online syllabi of instructors at other institutions who were generous enough to share them with the world, I thought I would pay it forward and give the interesting parts of the syllabus, namely, the required readings and some indications of the nature of the assignments.

One thing I'd note is that there is (I believe) a wider range in what is taught as the basic material for U. S. Intellectual History than for any other sub-field of history -- not only in books taught, but in subjects covered. Its comparable, I think, to courses like "Introduction to Philosophy" or "The U.S. Novel Since 1945", where you wouldn't be surprised to see entirely nonintersecting topic lists appear on multiple syllabi: there's simply too many different ways to approach the material. Thus, despite my filling the shoes of a senior (and, IMHO, quite fabulous) scholar, I am teaching the course quite differently than he does -- and, indeed, quite differently than did any of those whose syllabi I've seen, online or elsewhere. Perhaps doing so is cheeky, but I think that even those of us who are but Sub-Sub Academics (as Melville might have put it) have to approach a topic as we ourselves see it -- something which is shaped by, but not copied from, our elders & betters. At any rate, you should know that this is my particular take on this material; if you look at any other online syllabi, you'll see very different ones.

So. The term has fourteen weeks of classes (not counting the week of spring break that interrupts it). It starts and ends mid-week, so there are thirteen full weeks, plus two partial bookends. I will be assigning a book (or significant chunk of one) every week -- an unusually heavy load in this time, I'll admit. We'll have one discussion a week, on the readings; the other two weekly classes will be devoted to lecture, when I will attempt to put into context what we do read, and to talk a little about the thousands of equally important books that didn't make my list of 13.

Here are the thirteen reading assignments:

1. William Graham Sumner, What Social Classes Owe Each Other (1883)
2. W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903)
3. William James, Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking (1907) and "The Will to Believe" (1896)
4. John Dewey, Democracy and Education (1916) (select chapters only)
5. Charlotte Perkins Gillman, Women and Economics (1898)
6. Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion (1922)
7. T. S. Eliot, "The Waste Land" (1922), plus a few critical articles on it
8. Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History (1952)
9. Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind, (1953) (select chapters only)
10. Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962)
11. James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time (1963)
12. Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony and Solidarity, (1989) (select chapters only)
13. Noam Chomsky, Language and Problems of Knowledge: the Managua Lectures (1987)
    

Where available (#1-8), I have linked to complete online texts; otherwise the links go to Google Books (if they offer a preview) or elsewhere (if not).

Precisely which chapters of the Dewey, the Kirk and the Rorty will be assigned is something I'm still mulling over. (I might even assign all of the Rorty -- it's hard, but it's not that long.) From the Kirk I'll assign the American chapters (he does the U.S. and Britain) -- but I might cut down on those further. Dewey I just need to cut down for length -- but I'm not sure how I'm going to do it yet. (That's one of the things I need to do between now and the first day of class.)

As for why I'm assigning a few articles to accompany "The Waste Land", although I don't for the others: it's just a very different sort of text. The other twelve writers, however complex they may be, are each trying to make an argument; Eliot writes a poem. Thus its connection to the course material will be more obscure. Also, it's a difficult poem to read for the first time. So I'm going to assign a few articles to (hopefully) help the students through these stumbling blocks.

To anyone who wants to say: "this is insanely ambitious": I know, and I agree. Let's move on.

The assignments will be threefold. The students will write a one-page reaction paper every week, making an observation and asking a question about the book; I'll have a few students read these aloud each week to serve as a jumping off point for our discussion. (These papers are largely intended to make sure students both do and think about the reading.)

There will be a final paper of 10-12 pages, due on the last day of class. As a concession to the "this is already insanely ambitious" point, I've decided not to make this a research paper; it will be a paper on some selection of the books for the course, tracing some intellectual issue (race, gender, democracy, class, the nature of scientific knowledge, the role of the state in society, etc, etc) through a number of the works. (Thus, if an ordinary upper-level course requires a lot of reading, plus a fair amount of reading for a final paper, this will hopefully balance out by just making the students write about the course material.)

And, finally, there will be a final exam, based largely (but not entirely) on the lectures, to make sure that portion of the instruction is tested and evaluated in some way (i.e. to make sure they come, listen and try to remember what I say). I'm going to pass out sheets each lecture with key terms (people, books, names of ideas, etc.) to help with this, since there isn't otherwise a textbook.

I'll have one student enrolled in the course for graduate credit. In addition to the books listed above, she'll read an additional three books -- secondary rather than primary sources -- and write two-page response papers on them; we'll also meet to discuss those books separately. The first of those books is Louis Menand's The Metaphysical Club, which is one of the most engaging and accessible of the secondary sources on this material; the other two I'll pick in consultation with her, to match her interests. Her final paper will be 15-20 pages, rather than 10-12, and will have to work at least one of the additional readings in in a significant way.

And that's my course. Putting this together -- and preparing the lectures -- has taken an insane amount of my time over the past few months, in particular in the weeks since last semester ended. Various other projects that I care deeply -- in certain cases, much more deeply -- about have been put on the back burner, if not all the way in the fridge. But it's been a fun course to prepare. If the students have half as much fun taking it as I have had putting it together, they'll love it. And if they do a tenth as much work, they'll ace it. Let's hope they all do. (Nothing would make me happier than to give everyone an A.)

Comments are welcome, bearing in mind that it's too late to make more than minor modifications for this spring (e.g. the bookstore has already ordered all the books). So even if you argue, convincingly, that I should throw this out and start again, I won't be able to.

Update, Spring 2012: I am teaching the class again with just about the same syllabus. I added a fourteenth book (as you can see I was already thinking of last year if you read the comments) -- Carol Gilligan's In a Different Voice (between Baldwin and Rorty, for week 12, knocking Rorty and Chomsky to 13 and 14 respectively). And in a few cases I'm shorting the readings somewhat -- not out of a concern for length particularly, and certainly not to balance adding the Gilligan (it doesn't), but because a slight shortening of some particularly difficult readings seemed in order; so I'm omitting a chapter from James's Pragmatism (chapter 4), one from Chomsky's lectures (chapter 4) and saying that students needn't read the (second-edition) postscript to Kuhn, only the text as originally published in 1962. Otherwise the syllabus is essentially unchanged.