The American Experience:
American Frontiers and Borderlands

This seminar is an examination of the American Experience and an introduction to the Social Sciences (including History, Anthropology, and Sociology). Students will read and discuss several key primary documents regarding the idea of the Frontier in American history. Throughout American history, Americans have alternately struggled with and embraced the concept of the "frontier" in order to make sense of their experience in North America. This course will examine the American experience through historical and cultural ideas about the Frontier.

Organizing Concepts of the Course:

The Frontier--both the shifting places defined as the frontier and changing concepts of the frontier--has come to define for subsequent generations of Americans who "we" are and who is "over there" on the other side.

From the beginnings of Puritan settlement, English settlers established the "pale," a line which divided their own communities from what was "beyond the pale": a nature which may have been the province of evil as well as Native populations who were thought of and dealt with in a variety of ways. The theme of the captivity narrative which plays out in early New England writing indicates the tensions over this definition of the frontier as something which both defined and threatened the community.

The frontier as place and as process emerges as powerful themes in American culture long after; think, for example, of James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans, the Western dime novel, Mark Twain's Roughing It, Henry Nash Smith's The Virgin Land, Theodore Roosevelt's memoirs of life as a cowboy, or the films of John Ford.. By the end of the nineteenth century, Frederick Jackson Turner's delineation of the Frontier Thesis provided a definition of what made Americans "American." Turner argued that encounters with wilderness on the frontier--and its human analogies, Native Americans--transformed Europeans into Americans. Not surprisingly, this definition of "American exceptionalism" emerged in other forms, through Western films, cowboy culture, and even in the Space Race and in American foreign policy.

Within debates over the Frontier run parallel debates about the emergence of American individualism; the lone cowboy, silhouetted against a Western sky, is the most common symbol of American self-reliance and self-definition. The American search for self led to the exploration of other "frontiers" which could not be confused with the West as a place. The struggle of the writers of the American Renaissance, the search for social justice in the face of the Great Depression, the psychotropic and psychedelic experimentation of the 1960s, and the efforts of Native Americans to maintain tribal identities reflect these forces at work in American culture.

More recently there has been a pointed examination of the impact of the Frontier idea on American ideology. This has especially focused on Turner's thesis, whose delineation of the frontier as a "line between civilization and savagery" is certainly problematic in a pluralistic society made up of people from both sides of that "line." In recent studies of America, scholars have discussed the role of the "borderland"--the region of interaction between varied communities--in shaping the nation; borderlands can be geographic as well as intellectual, and can be zones of interaction, cultural exchange, and contestation. In this course, we will use the concept of American borderlands in order to examine the shape of the American past. We will examine American borderlands as sites of syncretism, contestations over authenticity, definition and dilineation of difference, cultural borrowing and usurpation, and simultaneity. The course will end with an examination of the challenges and benefits presented by both the "frontier" and "borderland" metaphors for American experience.

Course Requirements:

All students are required to attend class meetings and take part actively in class discussions. Written work will require students to synthesize readings, lectures, films, and discussions. Seminar participants must also read and assimilate assigned readings, and be prepared to discuss the readings on the schedule listed below. Please note that some of the films will be viewed outside of class; copies will be on reserve at the AV library, or may also be available for loan from the professor. Students will submit all assignments on time; late assignments will only be accepted by prior arrangement with the professor. Plagiarism and other forms of intellectual dishonesty or sloth will not be tolerated.

A Note About Academic Integrity: Integrity is fundamental to the academic enterprise. It is violated by acts such as borrowing or purchasing term papers, essays, reports, and other written assignments; using concealed notes or crib sheets during examinations; copying others' work and submitting it as one's own; and misappropriating the knowledge of others. The sources from which one derives one's ideas, statements, terms, and data must be fully and specifically acknowledged in the appropriate form; failure to do so, intentionally or unintentionally, constitutes plagiarism. Violations of academic integrity may result in failure in the course and in disciplinary actions with penalties such as suspension or dismissal from the College.

Contacting the Professor:

My office is in 2N 203, and my office phone is 718-982-2869; I have office hours Mondays and Wednesdays from 2:15 to 3:15, Tuesdays 4:30-5:30, and by appointment. You may also reach me via email at lavender@postbox.csi.cuny.edu.

Assignments:

Eight Informal Essays: 5% each of final grade (40% total)
Two Formal Essays: 20% each of final grade (40% total)
Participation in Class Discussions/Activities: 20% of final grade

Required Texts (starred * items for purchase at New York Book Exchange, Victory Boulevard):

    Frederick Jackson Turner, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" (1893)
    Richard Slotkin, "The Significance of the Frontier Myth in American History," from Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America (1992)
    Mary Rowlandson, The Narrative of the Captivity and the Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson (1682)
    The Declaration of Independence (1776)
    The Constitution of the United States of America (1789)
    Thomas Jefferson, "Instructions to Lewis and Clark" (1803)
    Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, selections, from The Journals of Lewis and Clark (1804-1806)
    James Fenimore Cooper, selections from The Last of the Mohicans (1826)
    Lydia Maria Child, selections from Hobomok (1824)
    Zitkala-Sa [aka Gertrude Simmons Bonnin], selections from "Impressions of an Indian Childhood" (1900)
    Henry David Thoreau, selections, from Walden (1854)
    Bret Harte, selections from "The Luck of Roaring Camp" and Other Short Stories (1870)
    Mark Twain, selections from Roughing It (1891)
    Thomas Edison, Parade of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show (film) (1898)
    William Cody, The Adventures of Buffalo Bill (film) (1914)
    Edwin S. Porter, The Great Train Robbery (film) (1903)
    John Ford, Stagecoach (film) (1939)
    Mary Austin, selections from Land of Little Rain (1903)
    *Peter Guralnick, Searching for Robert Johnson (1989)
    *John Steinbeck, The Harvest Gypsies (1936)
    John Steinbeck, selections from The Grapes of Wrath (1939)
    John Ford, The Grapes of Wrath (film) (1940)
    *Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles (1950)
    John Ford, The Searchers (film) (1956)

Course Schedule:

Week One: Introduction to the "Frontier"
	W 6 September	What is History? What is the Frontier? What is a Borderland?
	Readings: Turner; Slotkin

Week Two: New World Encounters
	M September 11	A Landscape History of the Frontier; Discuss Turner and Slotkin
	W September 13	New World Encounters; Assignment One (The Frontier and Borderland as American Idioms) Due.
	Readings: Rowlandson; Declaration of Independence; Constitution

Week Three: Establishing the Pales
	M September 18	Discuss Rowlandson, Narrative of the Captivity; The Declaration of Independence and Constitution
	W September 20	LANDSCAPE READING TRIP TO HIGH ROCK PARK
	Readings: Jefferson; Lewis & Clark

Week Four: Conquering the Frontier, Mapping the Borders
	M September 25	Discussion of Lewis and Clark, The Journals; Jefferson's instructions
	W September 27	Continue discussion of Lewis and Clark, The Journals; Assignment Two (Encounters & Exploration) Due; Discuss Thoreau, Walden.
	Readings: Jefferson; Lewis & Clark; Thoreau

Week Five: Interior Borders and Frontiers
	M October 2	Continue discussing Thoreau, Walden; American Landscapes
	W October 4	TRIP TO THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART; Assignment Three (Discovering "Nature") Due.
	Readings: Thoreau; Cooper; Child; Zitkala-Sa

Week Six: The American Character
	M October 9	CSI Closed; No Classes
	Tuesday, October 10	Classes follow Monday Schedule; American Images of Indians; Discuss Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans, Child, Hobomok, and Zitkala-Sa, "Impressions of an Indian Childhood"
	W October 11	No class meeting due to Western History Association Conference
	Readings: Cooper; Child; Zitkala-Sa

Week Seven: Making the Western American
	M October 16	Continue discussing Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans, Child, Hobomok, and Zitkala-Sa, "Impressions of an Indian Childhood"
	W October 18	Discuss Twain, Harte, Ford, Stagecoach, Edison, Parade of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, Cody, The Adventures of Buffalo Bill, and Porter, The Great Train Robbery
	Readings: Twain; Harte; Ford, Stagecoach

Week Eight: From Victorianism to Modernism
	M October 23	The Western as a Genre
	W October 25	TRIP TO NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN; Assignment Four (American Characters) Due
	Readings: Austin; Guralnick

Week Nine: Modernism and the West
	M October 30	Salvage Ethnography and American Modernism; Discuss NMAI trip
	W November 1	Discussion of Austin, Land of Little Rain; In-Class celebration of el Dia de los Muertos
	Readings: Austin; Guralnick

Week Ten: Borders on the Eightieth Floor
	M November 6	City-Building as an American Idiom; Formal Essay One (Authenticity) due.
	W November 8	ARCHITECTURAL WALKING TOUR OF MANHATTAN & BROOKLYN BRIDGE
	Readings: Guralnick

Week Eleven: The Jazz City
	M November 13	The Blues--Syncretism and Simultaneity; Assignment Five (Austin and Modernism) Due.
	W November 15	Discuss Johnson, Crossroads Blues and Guralnick, Searching for Robert Johnson
	Readings: Guralnick; Steinbeck, Harvest Gypsies; Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath; Ford, Grapes of Wrath

Week Twelve: Borderlands and Crossroads
	M November 20	Blues in the Borderlands
	W November 22	Classes follow Friday Schedule; No Class
	Readings: Steinbeck, Harvest Gypsies; Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath; Ford, Grapes of Wrath

Week Thirteen: On the Borders of Revolution
	M November 27	Discuss Steinbeck, The Harvest Gypsies; Assignment Six (Syncretism) Due
	W November 29	Discuss Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, and Ford, Grapes of Wrath
	Readings: Steinbeck, Harvest Gypsies; Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath; Ford, Grapes of Wrath; Bradbury; Ford, The Searchers

Week Fourteen: The Frontier as Cold War Metaphor
	M December 4	The Frontier as Cold War Metaphor; Assignment Seven (On the Border of Revolution) Due; Discuss Ford, The Searchers.
	W December 6	Discuss Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles
	Readings: Bradbury; Ford, The Searchers

Week Fifteen: Myths and Metaphors
	M December 11	Discuss Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles
	W December 13	Summing Up: Frontier versus Borderlands in American History
	Readings: Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles

Finals Week: Final Papers Due
	M 18 December	Formal Essay Two (Borders and Frontiers in Cold War America) Due.