American
Studies 661
Introduction to American Studies:
| Texts
|
Syllabus |
Rich Lowry
College Apartments; 221-1285; rslowr@wm.edu
Office hours: Wednesday, 9:00-11:00 or by appointment
Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography
Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere
Laura Wexler, Tender Violence
W. E. B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk
Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie
Mary Antin, The Promised Land
Erskine Caldwell & Margaret Bourke-White, You Have Seen Their Faces
Dorothea Lange & Paul Taylor, An American Exodus
Those readings marked below with
an "*" will be on file in the American Studies library and in Swem.
Needless to say, you will be expected to do the reading (both the primary and supplementary assignments) and participate in discussion. Please bring reading material to class.
Over the course of the semester you will each give a brief presentation on the supplementary reading for that week. You will also need to distribute to the class a short (1-2 pages) summation or outline of your presentation.
You will write a short (around 7 pages) paper on (a relatively narrow) topic to be assigned. This will be due on Friday, October 11.
Your final project will be to prepare a paper suitable for presenting as a twenty-minute talk at a professional conference. This will include an abstract, the paper, and a bibliographic addendum that would not normally be part of the formal paper. You may seek to combine your paper with those of others in either section of the class to form a panel, or you may develop your own idea. These papers must demonstrate a methodological sophistication, a critical engagement with the themes and issues (largely construed) raised by the course; they should also focus rigorously on a single topic. You will present the abstract at the last meeting of class. You are encouraged to submit your final projects both to national scholarly meetings (like the ASA), and at the William & Mary American Studies conference here in February.
| Sept. 2/3 | Introduction |
|
Identities
& Nation : Private & Public |
|
|
Sept. 9/10
|
Franklin, Autobiography (up through Part
2, p. 160); Michael Warner, The Letters of the Republic, 73-96* |
| Sept. 16/17 | Jacobs, Life of a Slave Girl; Franny Nudelman,
“Harriet Jacobs and the Sentimental Politics of Female Suffering”* |
| Sept. 23/24 | Jurgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, Parts 2 & 5; Nancy Fraser, “Rethinking the Public Sphere;”* Mary Ryan, “Gender and Public Access”* |
| Civilizations
Primitive and Modern |
|
| Sept 30/Oct. 1 | |
| Oct. 7/8 | Ga |
| Oct. 14/15 | Fall Break |
| Lands
of Promise |
|
| Oct. 21/22 | |
| Oct. 28/29 | Dreiser, Sister Carrie; Warren Susman,
“’Personality’ and the Making of Twentieth-Century Culture” |
| Nov. 4/5 | Antin, The Promised Land |
| Nov. 11/12 | Caldwell & Bourke-White, You Have Seen Their Faces; Lange & Taylor, An American Exodus; James Guimond, "The Signs of Hard Times"* |
| The Culture
Industry |
|
| Nov. 18/19 | Stuart Hall, "Notes on Deconstructing the Popular;"* Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception;"* Susan Bordo, "Hunger as Ideology"* |
| Nov. 25/26 | John Carlos Rowe, et. al., "Introduction," Post-Nationalist American Studies;* George Lipsitz, "In the Midnight Hour: American Studies in a Moment of Danger;"* Holston & Appadurai, "Cities and Citizenship;"* Frederic Jameson, "Notes on Globalization as a Philosophical Issue,"* Benjamin Barber, "Introduction," from Jihad vs. McWorld* |
| Dec. 2/3 | Presentations |