The following is the syllabus for an American Studies senior-level research proseminar I offer on regular basis (next time will be Fall 1995). Students are American Studies majors at California State University, Fullerton. The next time I teach the course I plan to assign primary source materials for most sessions. I would appreciate suggestions of primary source materials you have found worked successfully and for primary source materials that might be approrpriate for any sessions or topics covered in my course. In the future, I expect to drop the Gilbert book and probably reduce the number of articles in the reprint booklets -- to create room for priamry source materials.
Please send all suggestions to me at: HOBSON@FULLERTON.EDU or post them to the list. Thank you.
Wayne Hobson
American Studies
California State Univ., Fullerton
PROSEMINAR: VICTORIANISM TO MODERNISM
AMST 401T CSUF Office Hours (EC-612): Spring 1994 Tu 11-1 W 12-1 or by appointment 10-11:15 Tu Th MVC Office Hours: MW 8:00-8:30 Wayne Hobson Phone: 773-3225
Required Texts:
James Gilbert, Perfect Cities: Chicago's Utopias of 1893
Kate Chopin, The Awakening (Norton Critical Editions, 2nd ed.)
Adele Heller & Lois Rudnick, eds., 1915, the Cultural Moment: The
New Politics, the New Woman, the New Psychology, the New Art,
and the New Theatre in America
David Levering Lewis, When Harlem Was in Vogue Roland Marchand, Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for
Modernity, 1920-1940
Reprint Booklet -- Available at Bookstore
Recommended:
Michael Meyer, The Little Brown Guide to Writing Research Papers
About the course:
"On or about December 1910, human character changed. All human
relations have shifted--those between masters and servants,
husbands and wives, parents and children. And when human relations
change there is at the same time change in religion, conduct,
politics and literature"
Virginia Woolf, 1924
Despite her exaggerated precision about the date, Virginia Woolf expressed a widespread belief that has persisted to the present-day: the beginnings of modern culture are to be found in the profound cultural transformations of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. This course will explore selected aspects of those transformations, ever mindful of their implications for understanding our own era. At the same time, although our emphasis is on cultural change, we will try to remain sensitive to the myriad ways people hang on to the past during times of upheaval. There was massive cultural and social change between the 1880s and 1930s, but there was also fierce resistance to change and there were bitter disputes about the proper direction and pace of change.
Assignments and Grading Scale:
Assigned Reading: This is a proseminar with limited enrollment. It
is specifically designed to encourage active discussion of the
assigned reading by all class members. That is how we will spend
our time each class meeting. Indeed, the success of the seminar
depends on such discussion. I expect you will attend all class
meetings and that you will come prepared to participate.
Thoughtful and vigorous discussion is expected and timely
completion of the reading assignments is required. If, for
some reason you have not been able to complete the reading
assignment for a particular class meeting, please come to class
anyway but let me know that you are not prepared to participate in
the discussion.
Response Papers: I will ask you to write about the assigned material in several short (two-page) response papers. These response papers will be used as a basis for class discussion. Therefore, late response paeprs cannot be accepted. Class participation will be a factor in your final grade. Exams will be scheduled only if these other means of evaluating your work prove inadequate.
Research Paper: You will also be given an opportunity to conduct focused research on a topic of your own choosing related to the general topic of the course. You will be asked to narrow your interests to a researchable topic, conduct library research on that topic, and then formulate a defensible cultural interpretation of the material you have researched. You will present that interpretation in a 15-20 page (3500-5000 words), fully documented paper due at the end of the semester. Your grade on this paper will represent 40% of your grade in the course. You can expect to get a lot of advice and encouragement, as well as a few cautions from me concerning your research project throughout the semester.
Reading Partners: You will be assinged a "reading partner," with whom you will exchange preliminary drafts of your progress report and your final paper. You will also be given a chance to discuss your research with the rest of the class -- and to hear about the researches your classmates are conducting.
Research Paper Preliminary Assignments: There will be four required assignments leading up to the research paper:
Preliminary Bibliography due March 3 (give your reading partner
a copy)
Written Progress Report (5 pp.) -- due April 12 (due to reading
partner on April 5)
Oral Presentation of your Research -- sign up
Critical Evaluation of Reading Partner's Preliminary Draft --
due May 20
Your Research Paper will be due Friday, May 27 (due to reading partner on May 17)
"Incomplete" (I) final grades will be given only in exceptional cases, and only after you have discussed your situation with me and scheduled a completion date. The use of such an extension in completing coursework usually includes a 10% reduction-in-grade penalty on the late assignment.
In accordance with university and department policies, graduate students taking this course for study plan credit will be required to complete an additional assignment. You may complete an extra written assignment or you may serve as discussion leader for one of our class meetings of assigned reading.
Discussion Topics and Reading Assignments:
VICTORIAN CULTURE
American Victorianism as a Culture of Modernization Howe, "American Victorianism as a Culture" in Reprint Booklet I
Victorian Conceptions of Self
Coben, "Victorian Character" in Reprint Booklet I
Harris, "The Man of Confidence" in Reprint Booklet I
McLoughlin, "The American Evangelicals: 1800-1900," in Reprint
Booklet I
Framing and Reframing Victorian Experiences of Gender and Sexuality Lystra, "Blurring Separate Spheres: Sex-Role Boundaries and
Behavior" in Reprint Booklet I
Fox, "Intimacy on Trial: Cultural Meanings of the Beecher-Tilton
Affair," in Reprint Booklet I
Response Paper #1
FIN DE SIECLE CHALLENGES
Science and Religion in Late Victorian Thought Cotkin, "The 'Tangled Bank' of Evolution and Religion," in
Reprint Booklet I
Chicago 1893: A Cultural Pivot
Gilbert, Perfect Cities, chs. 1-4, 6-7
Response Paper #2
Defining Modernism
Higham, "The Reorientation of American Culture in the 1890s," in
Reprint Booklet I
Singal, "Towards a Definition of American Modernism" in Reprint
Booklet I
Toward a New Sexual Order: Evidence of Variety, Tension, and Change Freedman & D'Emilio, "'Civilized Morality' Under Stress";
"Breaking with the Past" in Reprint Booklet I
Engendering the New Individualism
Chopin, The Awakening, entire novel + selected essays
Response Paper #3
MODERNISM: EMERGENCE OF A NEW ARTISTIC & INTELLECTUAL SENSIBILITY
New Ways of Seeing: Realism and Reform
Guimond, "Lewis Hine and American Industrialism," in Reprint
Booklet II
New Ways of Seeing: Movies
O'Malley, "Therbligs and Hieroglyphs" in Reprint Booklet II
Response Paper #4
The New Woman
Rudnick, "The New Woman" in 1915, the Cultural Moment, 69-81
Ammons, "The New Woman as Cultural Symbol and Social Reality" in
1915, the Cultural Moment, 82-97
Trimberger, "The New Woman and the New Sexuality" in 1915, the
Cultural Moment, 98-115
The New Psychology
Susman, "'Personality' and the Making of Twentieth-Century
Culture," in Reprint Booklet II
Burnham, "The New Psychology" in 1915, the Cultural Moment,
117-127
Matthews, "The New Psychology and American Drama" in 1915, the
Cultural Moment, 146-156
"Suppressed Desires" (video)
The New Art
Green, "The New Art" in 1915, the Cultural Moment, 157-163
Brown, "The Armory Show and Its Aftermath" in 1915, the Cultural
Moment, 164-184
Abrahams, "Alfred Stieglitz's Faith and Vision" in 1915, the
Cultural Moment, 185-195
Zurier, "The Masses and Modernism" in 1915, the Cultural Moment,
196-216
THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE: MODERNISM AND THE "NEW NEGRO"
The Great War and the Great Migration: New Contexts of
African-American Culture
Lewis, When Harlem Was in Vogue, 3-34
Garveyism and The New Negro
Allen, "The New Negro: Explorations in Identity and Social
Consciousness, 1910-1922" in 1915, the Cultural Moment, 48-68 Levine, "Marcus Garvey and the Politics of Revitalization," in
Reprint Booklet II
Lewis, When Harlem Was in Vogue, chs. 34-49
The Crucial Ingredients in Black and White for the Harlem
Renaissance
Lewis, When Harlem Was in Vogue, chs. 50-118
Table of Contents for The New Negro: An Interpretation, in
Reprint Booklet II
Response Paper #5
When Harlem Was in Vogue: Literature
Lewis, When Harlem Was in Vogue, 119-197
Cultural Significance of Jazz
Levine, "Jazz and American Culture" in Reprint Booklet II
Ogren, "From Devil's Music to Jooking: Jazz Performance and the
Black Community," in Reprint Booklet II Rogers, "Jazz at Home" in Reprint Booklet II
TECHNOLOGY, CONSUMERISM, AND MODERNITY
Redefining the Good Life
Marchand, Advertising the American Dream, xv-24, 335-363
Levine, "Progress and Nostalgia: The Self Image of the Nineteen
Twenties," in Reprint Booklet II
Class Cultures and Mass Cultures
Marchand, Advertising the American Dream, 52-87
Cohen, "Encountering Mass Culture at the Grassroots: The
Experience of Chicago Workers in the 1920s," in Reprint
Booklet II
"Decoding" Advertisements: Mirrors of Modernity and Its Dilemmas Marchand, Advertising the American Dream, 164-234 Response Paper #6
Towards a Visual Culture and the Therapeutics of Advertising Marchand, Advertising the American Dream, 235-284, 335-363
Oral Presentations of Student Research Papers
May 17
May 19
May 24 9:30-11:20 (scheduled time for final exam)
Full citations for essays in the two reprint booklets are as follows:
Daniel Howe, "American Victorianism as a Culture," _American Quarterly_ 27 (Dec. 1975): 507-532
Stanley Coben, "Victorian Character," in _Rebellion Against Victorianism: The Impetus for Cultural Change in 1920s America_ (New York: Oxford UP, 1991): 3-35
Neil Harris, "The Man of Confidence," in _Humbug: The Art of P. T. Barnum_ (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1973): 207-31
William McLoughlin, "The American Evangelicals: 1800-1900," in _The American Evangelicals, 1800-1900_ (New York: Harper & Row, 1968): 1-26
Karen Lystra, "Blurring Separate Spheres: Sex-Role Boundaries and Behavior," in _Searching the Heart: Women, Men, and Romantic Love in Nineteenth-Century America_ (New York: Oxford UP, 1989): 121-156
Richard Fox, "Intimacy on Trial: Cultural Meanings of the BeecherTilton Affair," in Fox & T.J. Jackson Lears, eds., _The Power of Culture: Critical Essays in American History_ (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1993): 102-32
George Cotkin, "The 'Tangled Bank' of Evolution and Religion," in _Reluctant Modernism: American Thought and Culture, 1889-1900_ (New York: Twayne, 1992): 1-26
John Higham, "The Reorientation of American Culture in the 1890s," in _Writing American History: Essays on Modern Scholarship_ (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1970): 73-102
Daniel Joseph Singal, "Towards a Definition of American Modernism," _American Quarterly_ 39 (Spring 1987): 7-26
Estelle Freedman & John D'Emilio, "'Civilized Morality' Under Stress"; "Breaking with the Past," in _Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America_ (New York: Harper & Row, 1988): 171-201; 222-235
James Guimond, "Lewis Hine and American Industrialism," in _American Photography and the American Dream_ (Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1991): 57-98
Michael O'Malley, "Therbligs and Hieroglyphs," _Keeping Watch: A History of American Time_ (New York: Penquin, 1990): 200-255
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): 271- 285
Lawrence Levine, "Marcus Garvey and the Politics of Revitalization," in _The Unpredictable Past: Explorations in American Cultural History_ (New York: Oxford UP, 1993): 107-36
Table of Contents, in Alain Locke, ed., _The New Negro: An Interpretation_ (1925; reprinted New York: Arno Press, 1988): xiiixv
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