History 579 – Topics in American Cultural History

Syllabus and Survival Guide

Spring 2011

Thursday 7:00 pm – 9:45 pm, Sierra Hall 184

 

Instructor

 

Dr. Thomas W. Devine

Phone: (818) 677-3550 Email: tom.devine@csun.edu

Office Hours: Sierra Tower 624, TuTh 1:00-2:00 and by appointment gladly given. 

 

Reading

 

The following books – listed in the order in which we will read them – are available at the Matador Bookstore.  All other readings will be provided in class or made available on the web syllabus. To subvert the system and to save yourself some money, you should consider buying used copies of the books.  You are likely to find used or discounted copies at significantly lower prices at the following websites: www.bookfinder.com; www.half.com; www.amazon.com.

 

John Kasson, Amusing the Million: Coney Island at the Turn of the Century

Lewis Erenberg, Steppin' Out: New York Nightlife and the Transformation of American Culture, 1890-1930

Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan of the Apes

Gaylyn Studlar, This Mad Masquerade: Stardom and Masculinity in the Jazz Age

David E. Kyvig, Daily Life in the United States, 1920-1940 

Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon

Kenneth D. Rose, Myth and the Greatest Generation

James B. Gilbert, Redeeming Culture: American Religion in an Age of Science

Alan Petigny, The Permissive Society: America, 1941-1965

Steven Watts, The Magic Kingdom: Walt Disney and the American Way of Life

Michael T. Bertrand, Race, Rock, and Elvis

Suzanne Smith, Dancing in the Street: Motown and the Cultural Politics of Detroit

Natasha Zaretsky, No Direction Home: The American Family and the Fear of National Decline

Jefferson Cowie, Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class

 

Spirit of the Course

 

This course will examine the ways in which different individuals and groups have exercised cultural influence in American life and have contributed to what we call, perhaps somewhat awkwardly, “American culture.”  Through readings and class discussion, we will be exploring how twentieth century Americans understood, shaped, and participated in their worlds.  Though the topics covered are quite eclectic – in fact, they are intentionally so – there are certain themes that we will be revisiting during the course of the semester:

 

  • the social construction of race and the “racializing” of popular culture
  • the struggle over who defines “acceptable” culture (highbrows vs lowbrows; performers vs audiences; market forces vs artists)
  • the influence of economic factors on cultural production
  • the role of popular culture in shaping class, regional, and national identities
  • the relationship between popular culture and reform movements
  • the cultural significance of attitudes about gender and gender roles
  • the intersection of popular culture and political culture

 

This course takes as its premise that popular culture deserves historians’ serious consideration.  Though dismissed by many self-appointed critics as frivolous or ephemeral, popular art forms often reveal much about the priorities, assumptions, mores, and values of the culture that produced and consumed them.

 

Throughout the semester we will be examining twentieth century U.S. history through the lens of the popular arts.  In the process, we will consider the power of the popular arts to influence politics, social movements, and international relations – the “stuff” more traditionally associated with the study of U. S. history.  We will also read historians’ analyses of popular art forms and critique and evaluate their interpretations. 

 

In this course, then, you will be learning not simply more history, but a different way of understanding history and, in tandem, sharpening your own skills as a “cultural critic” – skills that will allow you to become both a more sophisticated student of history and a better informed observer of and participant in American culture.  In short, this course seeks to increase not only your knowledge but also your critical and interpretive abilities – to help you learn not only answers but better ways of asking questions.

 

Requirements & Grading

 

Class Participation                                       --30%

 

Oral Presentation                                         --10%

 

Analytical Essay 1 [Due March 5th]              --15%

 

CLICK FOR 1ST ESSAY PROMPTS

 

Analytical Essay 2 [Due May 19th]*              --15%

 

CLICK FOR 2ND ESSAY PROMPTS

 

Semester Project  [Due April 10th]                --30%

 

 

* – but gladly accepted earlier

 

Explanation of Requirements

 

Participation in Discussion

This is a seminar-style course in which active participation in the weekly discussions is crucial to the class’s success. Our meetings will be conversations – free, open, and informal exchanges of ideas based on the assigned readings – and I expect everyone to take part.  I will do my best to insure each student has ample opportunity to contribute, but, ultimately, it will be up to you to make certain that you remain an active participant rather than a passive observer.

 

Leading Discussion

One person will be responsible for leading the discussion each week.  That person will compose a list of 8 questions that address the major themes and issues raised in the reading.  The discussion leader will meet with me briefly ahead of time to go over his or her questions.  (This exchange can also be done via email.) Optimally, the discussion leader will have finished writing the questions at least 24 hours before the seminar so I can distribute them to everyone via email attachment.   Your leading of discussion will not receive a grade per se, but will be taken into account in the calculation of your participation grade.

 

Précis

One person will be responsible for producing a single-spaced 2-page précis of the reading each week.  This assignment is meant to be a summary rather than a review. The first paragraph should give an overview of the book’s central argument or arguments and each succeeding paragraph should recount concisely the content of each chapter. The person who writes the précis will provide each member of the class with a copy at the beginning of the seminar. This assignment, too, will not receive a grade per se, though I will edit your work and in calculating your participation grade, I will take into account the quality of and amount of effort you appear to have put in to your précis.  Please send me your précis as an email attachment so I can post it on the web syllabus.

 

Oral Presentation

One person will be responsible for giving a 15 minute oral presentation each week. I will not allow you to go beyond 20 minutes, so be sure you know ahead of time how long your presentation will run.  The presentation should elaborate on or critique the week's readings. You may want to focus exclusively on a particular theme or argument, the book or articles' take on a specific historiographical controversy, or compare/contrast the author’s work to others who have written on the topic.  Alternatively, you might want to look at some primary sources and see if they lead you to the same kinds of interpretations that the author offers. If your topic lends itself to doing so, your oral presentation can feature a short audio-visual component that might allow us to sample in some way the cultural forms we have read about. (This could entail showing a clip from documentary footage or from a movie discussed in the reading; showing power point slides of contemporary illustrations; playing an excerpt from a radio program, song, or musical performance; displaying illustrations, etc.) At some point during class, usually right after the break, you will have the floor to give your oral presentation and to field questions from the class. At the end of class, please provide me with a copy of your presentation notes.

 

Analytical Essays

These two 1500-word assignments will give you the opportunity to respond to a specific question in a concise, tightly argued essay. You will have several topics from which to choose. I will distribute the topics ten days before the paper is due.

 

Semester Project

Select a topic from the period covered in the course that you find to be of interest and do some outside reading on it.  I recommend drawing on a variety of books, book chapters, and journal articles.  Your choice of focus need not be directly related to the material covered in the course.  Indeed, this is your opportunity to investigate a subject area that the course may neglect.  After your reading has made you an “expert” on your topic, compose a 10-12 page essay assessing the various sources you have consulted and offer and defend your own thesis pertaining to your topic. You will hand in a final draft and one revised draft.

 

Bringing Food

On one occasion during the semester, each person will bring a snack for the entire class to enjoy at the break. Optimally, your culinary contribution will be related in some clever way to the week’s discussion topic. I can refrigerate or store the food for you if you need me to -- just give me advance notice.  Creativity and imagination in the selection of what to bring will be duly noted.

 

 

Surviving History 579…

 

Attendance

Since class meets only once a week, it is important, and it is expected, that you will be at every session.  Inevitably, an occasion may arise when you are unable to attend.  Out of fairness to your classmates who do attend every week, however, each absence past the first two will adversely affect your final grade.  Also, given the heavy weight placed on in-class discussion, any absence is likely to detract from your participation grade.  To make up for a missed class, you may turn in a 2-page, single-spaced précis summarizing the reading for the class you missed.

 

Completing the Reading

There’s no getting around it – this class requires a lot of reading.  But, as a Masters level seminar, it is supposed to.  To succeed in this course, you will need to complete the reading, but you will also need to have given it some thought.  Read with a pencil in hand – take notes in the margins.  Record terms that are unfamiliar to you or that you don’t understand, points that you find interesting or surprising, arguments with which you strongly agree or disagree, methods of research or analysis that seem especially creative or insightful (or misguided and silly), or ideas that connect to things we’ve talked about in previous classes.  Also, read smart – don’t read every single word of the first 4 chapters and nothing thereafter because you ran out of time. If you catch the argument the author is making, don’t sweat all the details or supporting examples – skim over them and get on to the next major point.  It is more important to have gotten the gist of an entire book than to master every aspect of the first one-third of it.

 

Problems

I appreciate that most CSUN graduate students are stretching themselves quite thin, often working full time while taking classes at night.  If you are feeling overwhelmed, find yourself falling behind, or are having any problems outside of class that are adversely affecting your performance in class, be sure to let me know.  Do not wait until the end of the semester when it will be too late.  I am more than willing to work with you to insure you “survive,” but I need to know you are having difficulties.  You will find that as long as you keep me up to speed, I will be very sympathetic.

 

 

Discussion Topics and Assignments

 

Schedule

 

Jan. 27       “Seeing the Elephant”: The Emergence of Mass Culture on Coney Island

Reading: John Kasson, Amusing the Million

 

Feb. 3          Assault on Victorianism: The “New Amusements”

Reading: Lewis Erenberg, Steppin’ Out

 

Feb. 10        “Gone Primitive” – Tarzan and the Crisis of American Masculinity

Reading: Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan of the Apes

John Higham, “The Reorientation of American Culture in the 1890s,” from Higham, Writing American History (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1970)

John F. Kasson, Houdini, Tarzan, and the Perfect Man: The White Male Body and the Challenge of Modernity in America, Chapter 3

Gail Bederman, Manliness & Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, pp. 218-232

 

Optional Reading:

Theodore Roosevelt, “The Strenuous Life”

Harry Stecopoulos, “The World According to Normal Bean: Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Popular Culture”

 

READING TARZAN WITH A CRITICAL EYE

 

Feb. 17        “The New Man” – Movies and Masculinity in the 1920s

                   Reading: Gaylyn Studlar, This Mad Masquerade

 

                   PRECIS

 

Feb. 24        Social and Cultural Change During the Interwar Years

                   Reading: David Kyvig, Daily Life in the United States, 1920-1940

                  

                   PRECIS

 

 

Mar. 3         “Tough Guys in a World of Chance”: Hard-Boiled Detectives and the Great Depression

                   Reading:  Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon

                                   Leonard Cassuto, “Hammett and the Hard-Boiled Sentimental”

                                   John G. Cawelti, Adventure, Mystery, and Romance: Formula Stories as Art and Popular Culture, Chapters 6, 7

                  

                   STUDY GUIDE

 

                   PRECIS

 

FIRST ANALYTICAL ESSAY DUE MARCH 5TH

 

Mar. 10       “Romancing the War”: Problematizing the “Good War”

                   Reading: Kenneth Rose, Myth and the Greatest Generation

 

                   PRECIS

 

Mar. 17       “The Profane and the Sacred” – The Clash of Science and Religion

                   Reading: James Gilbert, Redeeming Culture

 

Mar. 24       “The Nifty Fifties”: Revising Conventional Wisdom on the Postwar Era

                   Reading: Alan Petigny, The Permissive Society 

 

Mar. 31       NO CLASS

 

Apr. 7          SPRING BREAK

 

SEMESTER PROJECTS DUE APRIL 10TH

 

Apr. 14        “The Mouse that Roared”: Walt Disney and American Culture

Reading: Steven Watts, Walt Disney and the American Way of Life

 

Apr. 21       “Blurring the Lines:” Rock’n’Roll’s Challenge to Cultural Hierarchies

                   Reading: Michael T. Bertrand, Race, Rock, and Elvis

                  

                   Recommended Films:

                   Elvis 1956, That Rhythm, Those Blues

 

Apr. 28        “The Civil Rights Dance”: Motown and the 1960s Freedom Struggle

 Reading: Suzanne Smith, Dancing in the Street

 

PRECIS

 

May 5          “Fear of Falling”: The American Family in an Age of Limits

                   Reading: Natasha Zaretsky, No Direction Home

 

May 12        “Born in the USA”: The Decline of the Working Class in Postindustrial America

                   Reading: Jeff Cowie, Stayin’ Alive

 

SECOND ANALYTICAL ESSAY DUE MAY 15TH