Professor Lavender, HST 726-9428, The American Century

The American Century: Twentieth-Century Cultural History

HST 726-9428: Graduate Seminar in U.S. History, 1865 to Present
The American Century: Twentieth-Century Cultural History
The College of Staten Island/CUNY
Mondays, 6.30 pm-10.00 pm, 1N221, Spring 2004
Professor Catherine J. Lavender

Course Description:

This seminar serves as both an introduction to and an overview of twentieth-century American cultural history. Students will examine key themes, topics, and historical and historiographical debates in the field, as well as addressing several events which have shaped the history of American culture.

The course is organized around some first questions – meaning questions we will start with and return to throughout the semester. These include the following:

– What is Culture? What are some of the different models for construing it (scientific/quantitative, aesthetic, qualitative)?

– What sorts of “texts” make up a culture? As cultural historians, how do we read those texts, and how does that differ from the forms of “reading” done by other kinds of historians? What are the various ways one can "construe" textual meaning (Formalist, aesthetic, historicist, etc.)?

– Who, then, defines what is "great" or “significant” in a culture, and through what social roles?

– How do we confirm the hypothesis that cultural production – including literature, art, film, media, fashion, and other categories of production – constitutes a kind of cultural evidence? What sort of parameters must be established?

We will revisit certain themes during the course of the semester. These include: the social construction of race and the “racializing” of popular culture; the issue of cultural “power” and who defines “acceptable” and “authentic” 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 moral reform movements; the cultural significance of attitudes about gender and gender roles.

Contact Information:

My office is in 2N-203; I am available for office hours on Mondays and Tuesdays from 4:30 to 6:30 pm, and by appointment. My office phone (with voice mail) is 718-982-2869; my email is lavender@postbox.csi.cuny.edu. There is additional information about history careers and tools for students available via my webpage at www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/. The History Department phone is 718-982-2870 and FAX is 718-982-2864. My mailbox is in the History Department Office in 2N 215.

Texts:

Kathy Piess, Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Turn-of-the-Century New York (Philadelphia: Temple U. Press, 1987)

Lary May, Screening Out the Past: The Birth of Mass Culture and the Motion Picture Industry (Chicago: U. Chicago Press, 1983)

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (NY: Scribner, 1925)

James Goodman, Stories of Scottsboro (NY: Random House, 1995)

John Dower, War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (NY: Pantheon, 1987)

Peter Biskind, Seeing is Believing: How Hollywood Taught Us to Stop Worrying and Love the Fifties (NY: Owl Books, 2000)

Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff (NY: Bantam, 2001)

Philip Caputo, A Rumor of War (NY: Owlet, 1996)

Kingwood College Library's American Cultural History: The Twentieth Century http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/decades.html

RECOMMENDED (but not required):

Lawrence Levine, The Unpredictable Past: Explorations in American Cultural History (NY: Oxford University Press, 1993)

Warren Susman, Culture as History: The Transformation of American Society in the Twentieth Century (NY: Pantheon, 1984)

Assignments:

Writing Portfolio (50% of grade) – brief writing assignments on the readings, to be given throughout the semester.

Presentation (20% of grade) – each student will be responsible for presenting one of the texts throughout the course of the semester; the presenter will be responsible for facilitating the discussion for his or her week. That person will review supplemental materials, compose a list of 8 questions that address the major themes and issues raised in the reading, and will meet with me briefly ahead of time to go over his or her questions. Before the seminar begins, he or she will also provide each member of the class 1) a copy of the questions and 2) a 2_page single_spaced précis of the required reading.

Research Essay (30% of grade) – each student will compose a research/historiographical essay on a topic in twentieth-century American cultural history of his or her choosing. This need not be a topic we have addressed in the course; indeed, this is your opportunity to spread your wings. Due Monday, 24 May.

Meeting Schedule:

Monday 2 February Introduction to Course

Monday 9 February What is Cultural History?
Readings:
–Michel Foucault, “Introduction,” to The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language (New York: Pantheon, 1972), pp. 3-17.
–Warren Susman, “Ideology as Culture,” in Culture as History: The Transformation of American Society in the Twentieth Century (New York: Pantheon, 1984), pp. 52-97.
–T. Jackson Lears, "The Concept of Cultural Hegemony," American Historical Review 90(June 1985), pp. 567-595.
–Bryan Palmer, "The Discovery/Deconstruction of the Word/Sign," in Descent into Discourse: The Reification of Language and the Writing of Social History (Temple University Press, 1990): 3-47.

Monday 16 February College Closed; Class meets on Wednesday.
Wednesday 18 February Does America have a “culture,” and does that culture have a history?
Readings:
–Henry Nash Smith, "Can 'American Studies' Develop a Method?" American Quarterly 9 (Summer 1957): 197-208.
–Leo Marx, "American Studies--A Defense of an Unscientific Method," New Literary History 1 (October 1969): 75-90.
–Bruce Kucklick, "Myth and Symbol in American Studies," American Quarterly 24 (October 1972): 435-450.
–Frederick Jackson Turner, "The Significance of the Frontier"
–Thorstein Veblen, “Conspicuous Consumption,” in The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions (New York: Macmillan, 1902), pp. 68-101.
–Optional: Click on a section of the gobstopper to see how Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory can be viewed as a case study of Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG02/evans/quotes.html

Monday 23 February American Cultural Histories
Readings:
–Lawrence Levine, The Unpredictable Past: Explorations in American Cultural History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993) (selections).
–Warren Susman, “‘Personality’ and the Making of Twentieth-Century Culture,” in Culture as History: The Transformation of American Society in the Twentieth Century (New York: Pantheon, 1984).

Monday 1 March The City of New Women -- Kathy Piess's Cheap Amusements
Readings:
–Kathy Piess, Cheap Amusements
–Kingwood College Library, "American Cultural History, 1900-1909," http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/decade00.html

Monday 8 March Learning in the Dark -- Lary May's Screening Out the Past
Readings:
–Lary May, Screening Out the Past
–Kingwood College Library, "American Cultural History, 1910-1919," http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/decade10.html

Monday 15 March Pioneers of Film -- Griffith and Micheaux
Readings:
–View D.W. Griffith, The Birth of a Nation (1915)
–View Oscar Micheaux, Symbol of the Unconquered (1920)
–Janet Staiger, “The Birth of a Nation: Reconsidering its Reception," in Robert Lang. ed., The Birth of a Nation: D.W. Griffith, Director (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1994).
–Mimi White, "The Birth of a Nation : History as Pretext," in Robert Lang. ed., The Birth of a Nation: D.W. Griffith, Director (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1994).
–Michael Rogin, "'The Sword Became a Flashing Vision': D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation," in Robert Lang. ed., The Birth of a Nation: D.W. Griffith, Director (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1994).
–Pearl Bowser, Writing Himself into History: Oscar Micheaux, His Silent Films, and His Audiences (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2000) (selections).
–J. Ronald Green, Straight Lick: The Cinema of Oscar Micheaux (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000) (selections).
–Clyde Taylor, "The Making of the Birth of a Race: the Emerging Politics of Identity in Silent Movies," in Daniel Bernardi, ed., The Birth of Whiteness: Race and the Emergence of U.S. Cinema (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996).
–Thomas Cripps, "Identity and Betrayal: the Symbol of the Unconquered and Oscar Micheaux's 'Biographical Legend,'" in Daniel Bernardi, ed., The Birth of Whiteness: Race and the Emergence of U.S. Cinema (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996).
–Philip Dray, "A Negro's Life is a Very Cheap Thing in Georgia," in At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America (New York: Random House, 2002).
–Kingwood College Library, "American Cultural History, 1910-1919," http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/decade10.html

Monday 22 March American Modernism and the Armory Show
Readings:
–“American Modernism and the Armory Show” (http://xroads.virginia.edu/%7EMUSEUM/Armory/armoryshow.html)
–Milton Wolf Brown, The Story of the Armory Show (New York: Joseph H. Hirshhorn Foundation, 1963) (selections).
–Rebecca Zurier, et al., "Picturing the City," in Metropolitan Lives: The Ashcan Artists and Their New York (1996), pp. 85-130.
–William B. Scott and Peter M. Rutkoff, “Bohemian Ecstasy: Modern Art and Culture,” chapter 3 in Scott and Rutkoff, New York Modern: The Arts and the City (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999): 73-100.
–Carol Troyen, "Open Window and The Empty Chair," in Marianne Doezema and Elizabeth Milroy, eds., Reading American Art (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998).
–Daniel Singal, "Towards a Definition of American Modernism," in Daniel Singal, ed., Modernist Culture in America (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing, 1991).
–Kingwood College Library, "American Cultural History, 1910-1919," http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/decade10.html

Monday 29 March The "Great American Novel": F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby
Readings:
–F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
–Kingwood College Library, "American Cultural History, 1920-1929," http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/decade20.html

Friday 2 April - Tuesday 13 April 2004 Spring Recess

Monday 19 April Cause Celebre: James Goodman's Stories of Scottsboro
Readings:
–James Goodman, Stories of Scottsboro
–Kingwood College Library, "American Cultural History, 1930-1939," http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/decade30.html

Monday 26 April Many-Fronter Wars: John Dower's War Without Mercy
Readings:
–John Dower, War Without Mercy
–Kingwood College Library, "American Cultural History, 1940-1949," http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/decade40.html

Monday 3 May Monsters and Aliens: Peter Biskind's Seeing is Believing
Readings:
–Peter Biskind, Seeing is Believing
–Kingwood College Library, "American Cultural History, 1950-1959," http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/decade50.html

Monday 10 May The New Journalism: Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff
Readings:
–Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff
–Kingwood College Library, "American Cultural History, 1960-1969," http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/decade60.html

Monday 17 May War in Vietnam and the War Within: Philip Caputo's A Rumor of War
Readings:
–Philip Caputo, A Rumor of War
–Kingwood College Library, "American Cultural History, 1970-1979," http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/decade70.html

Last updated: 12/1/2004.

Monday 9 February	What is Cultural History?
	Readings: –Michel Foucault, “Introduction,” to The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language (New York: Pantheon, 1972), pp. 3-17. –Warren Susman, “Ideology as Culture,” in Culture as History: The Transformation of American Society in the Twentieth Century (New York: Pantheon, 1984), pp. 52-97. –T. Jackson Lears, "The Concept of Cultural Hegemony," American Historical Review 90(June 1985), pp. 567-595. –Bryan Palmer, "The Discovery/Deconstruction of the Word/Sign," in Descent into Discourse: The Reification of Language and the Writing of Social History (Temple University Press, 1990): 3-47.

Monday 16 February	College Closed; Class meets on Wednesday.
Wednesday 18 February	Does America have a “culture,” and does that culture have a history?
	Readings: –Henry Nash Smith, "Can 'American Studies' Develop a Method?" American Quarterly 9 (Summer 1957): 197-208. –Leo Marx, "American Studies--A Defense of an Unscientific Method," New Literary History 1 (October 1969): 75-90. –Bruce Kucklick, "Myth and Symbol in American Studies," American Quarterly 24 (October 1972): 435-450. –Frederick Jackson Turner, "The Significance of the Frontier" –Thorstein Veblen, “Conspicuous Consumption,” in The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions (New York: Macmillan, 1902), pp. 68-101. –Optional: Click on a section of the gobstopper to see how Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory can be viewed as a case study of Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG02/evans/quotes.html

Monday 23 February	American Cultural Histories
	Readings: –Lawrence Levine, The Unpredictable Past: Explorations in American Cultural History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993) (selections). –Warren Susman, “‘Personality’ and the Making of Twentieth-Century Culture,” in Culture as History: The Transformation of American Society in the Twentieth Century (New York: Pantheon, 1984).

Monday 1 March	The City of New Women -- Kathy Piess's Cheap Amusements
	Readings: –Kathy Piess, Cheap Amusements –Kingwood College Library, "American Cultural History, 1900-1909," http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/decade00.html

Monday 8 March	Learning in the Dark -- Lary May's Screening Out the Past
	Readings: –Lary May, Screening Out the Past –Kingwood College Library, "American Cultural History, 1910-1919," http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/decade10.html

Monday 15 March	Pioneers of Film -- Griffith and Micheaux
	Readings: –View D.W. Griffith, The Birth of a Nation (1915) –View Oscar Micheaux, Symbol of the Unconquered (1920) –Janet Staiger, “The Birth of a Nation: Reconsidering its Reception," in Robert Lang. ed., The Birth of a Nation: D.W. Griffith, Director (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1994). –Mimi White, "The Birth of a Nation : History as Pretext," in Robert Lang. ed., The Birth of a Nation: D.W. Griffith, Director (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1994). –Michael Rogin, "'The Sword Became a Flashing Vision': D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation," in Robert Lang. ed., The Birth of a Nation: D.W. Griffith, Director (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1994). –Pearl Bowser, Writing Himself into History: Oscar Micheaux, His Silent Films, and His Audiences (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2000) (selections). –J. Ronald Green, Straight Lick: The Cinema of Oscar Micheaux (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000) (selections). –Clyde Taylor, "The Making of the Birth of a Race: the Emerging Politics of Identity in Silent Movies," in Daniel Bernardi, ed., The Birth of Whiteness: Race and the Emergence of U.S. Cinema (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996). –Thomas Cripps, "Identity and Betrayal: the Symbol of the Unconquered and Oscar Micheaux's 'Biographical Legend,'" in Daniel Bernardi, ed., The Birth of Whiteness: Race and the Emergence of U.S. Cinema (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996). –Philip Dray, "A Negro's Life is a Very Cheap Thing in Georgia," in At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America (New York: Random House, 2002). –Kingwood College Library, "American Cultural History, 1910-1919," http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/decade10.html

Monday 22 March	American Modernism and the Armory Show
	Readings: –“American Modernism and the Armory Show” (http://xroads.virginia.edu/%7EMUSEUM/Armory/armoryshow.html) –Milton Wolf Brown, The Story of the Armory Show (New York: Joseph H. Hirshhorn Foundation, 1963) (selections). –Rebecca Zurier, et al., "Picturing the City," in Metropolitan Lives: The Ashcan Artists and Their New York (1996), pp. 85-130. –William B. Scott and Peter M. Rutkoff, “Bohemian Ecstasy: Modern Art and Culture,” chapter 3 in Scott and Rutkoff, New York Modern: The Arts and the City (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999): 73-100. –Carol Troyen, "Open Window and The Empty Chair," in Marianne Doezema and Elizabeth Milroy, eds., Reading American Art (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998). –Daniel Singal, "Towards a Definition of American Modernism," in Daniel Singal, ed., Modernist Culture in America (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing, 1991). –Kingwood College Library, "American Cultural History, 1910-1919," http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/decade10.html

Monday 29 March	The "Great American Novel": F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby
	Readings: –F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby –Kingwood College Library, "American Cultural History, 1920-1929," http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/decade20.html

Monday 19 April	Cause Celebre: James Goodman's Stories of Scottsboro
	Readings: –James Goodman, Stories of Scottsboro –Kingwood College Library, "American Cultural History, 1930-1939," http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/decade30.html

Monday 26 April	Many-Fronter Wars: John Dower's War Without Mercy
	Readings: –John Dower, War Without Mercy –Kingwood College Library, "American Cultural History, 1940-1949," http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/decade40.html

Monday 3 May	Monsters and Aliens: Peter Biskind's Seeing is Believing
	Readings: –Peter Biskind, Seeing is Believing –Kingwood College Library, "American Cultural History, 1950-1959," http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/decade50.html

Monday 10 May	The New Journalism: Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff
	Readings: –Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff –Kingwood College Library, "American Cultural History, 1960-1969," http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/decade60.html

Monday 17 May	War in Vietnam and the War Within: Philip Caputo's A Rumor of War
	Readings: –Philip Caputo, A Rumor of War –Kingwood College Library, "American Cultural History, 1970-1979," http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/decade70.html