A Note About The Informal Essays: These essays will count as a part of your participation grade in the course. I will return them to you with comments, and the questions are intended to provide you with practice in answering the kinds of questions about the sorts of topics which will appear on your midterm and final exams. While they do not need to be typed, I must be able to read them, and they must be written with attention to formal issues like spelling and logic. Please provide specific examples drawn from the texts to support your argument in each case.

Informal Essay #1:

In what ways do Stagecoach and The Searchers provide commentary on (or examples of) any two of the following themes?

American Regionalism (North versus South, and East versus West);

American masculinities;

The connection between white supremacy and white womanhood;

Racism;

Immigration and the Americanization Process;

"Civilization" as forwarded and preserved by women.

Due Monday, 28 February 2000.

Informal Essay #2:

After having read selections from Lydia Maria Child's Hobomok, James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans, and Zitkala Sa's "Impressions of an Indian Childhood," answer the following question, providing specific support for your argument.

Which of these three works is "popular"? (By this, I mean, which is an example of popular culture.) How do you know it (or they) is (or are) popular? Give specific examples from the text(s) you have chosen as the popular text(s) to support your assessment.

Let me note that there are good arguments for each of the works in terms of its being "popular." The point here is not to get the "right" one, but to show me that you understand the concept of what makes something "popular" and that you can support your argument by drawing from the text.

Due Monday, 6 March 2000.

Informal Essay #3:

Using the Elements of a Monograph exercise, determine Philip Deloria's thesis and restate it in no more than two sentences. Choosing one chapter that particularly interests you in his book, trace the argument in that chapter and the way it supports the thesis.

Due Wednesday, 22 March 2000.

Informal Essay #4:

In reading Mary Austin's Land of Little Rain and Peter Guralnick's Searching for Robert Johnson, we have used the idea of "syncretism" to examine the ways that cultural change takes place. As people who had once been "Mexicans" become "Americans," and as a mixture of musical forms from Africa and Europe combine to become "The Blues," we can examine how "new" cultures and "new" cultural forms develop from earlier, older ones. Using examples from both texts, discuss how this process takes place.

Due Wednesday, 5 April 2000.

Informal Essay #5:

We have read selections from John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath (1930) and watched John Ford's film The Grapes of Wrath. Compare the endings of the two in a brief essay. What are the implications for popular culture studies in the differences between Steinbeck's "high-culture" novel's ending and Ford's "popular culture" film ending?

Due Monday, April 17 2000.

Informal Essay #6:

What are the borders, borderlands, and frontiers depicted throughout Martian Chronicles, especially in "The Third Expedition"? How do they shape the stories that Bradbury tells?

Due Wednesday, 3 May 2000.

Informal Essay #7:

How does gender shape the lives of the men in A River Runs Through It?

Due Wednesday, Monday, 15 May 2000.