The following syllabus is a revised version of the syllabus for the same class taught in 1995, which is also available from the H-Urban Teaching Center Syllabus Archive. This syllabus also can be viewed at Dr. Graff's website (http://csbs.utsa.edu/users/hgraff/huhi7396.html).

Course Introduction

Dallas, we are told proudly and repeatedly, has no history! In typical constructions of the city's "origin myths," history(ies) represent(s) something negative or at least qualities or consciousness that are best avoided. Ahistorical and erroneous notions stand poorly in place of understanding that might prove useful in posing and attempting to resolve critical questions of the present and the future(s). Whereas "new" or "sunbelt" cities are seen as exceptions to historical currents, sometimes but not always within a postmodernist vein, the case of Dallas is truly exceptional, extreme to the point of perversity and willful, costly ignorance. Many questions, across the intellectual and cultural compass--certainly across the arts and humanities--follow from this recognition. The course confronts both the question of Dallas' fear of the past and its revealing ahistoricity, and the challenge of initiating serious research and reflection to revise the barren intellectual landscape.

This course attempts to confront the wasteland of Dallas studies across the range of the human sciences, from a historical foundation. Combining seminar and workshop formats, beginning with an inquiry into urban and community studies and history, we will then shift into the mode of a research seminar for the second half of the semester.

Requirements:

Regular reading, attendance, and participation--in one's own as well as one's peers research projects; oral reports on readings; preparation and presentation of a research essay.

Class members will select their research topics in consultation with instructor and colleagues in the class. Projects may be either individual or collaborative, and may stem from any field of interest within the scope of the School of Arts and Humanities graduate program.

Thomas Bender, Community and Social Change in America (Johns Hopkins UP,1983, 1978)

Raymond Mohl, ed., Searching for the Sunbelt (Tennessee, 1990; Georgia, 1993)

Michael Peter Smith and Joe R. Feagin, eds., The Capitalist City (Blackwell, 1987)

Michael Sorkin, ed., Variations on a Theme Park (Hill & Wang, 1992)

Patricia E. Hill, Dallas: The Making of a Modern City (Texas, 1996);
if not available: "The Origins of Modern Dallas," PhD. Diss., University of Texas at Dallas, 1990

Dallas Institute for the Humanities and Culture, Imagining Dallas (Dallas Institute, 1982)

Recommended:

William McDonald, Dallas Re-Discovered (Dallas Historical Society, 1978)

Week 1. Introduction: The Phenomena of Dallas; Reading the Signs

• Film: "Social Life of Small Urban Spaces" [55] and/or Dallas videos

Week 2. Cities and Communities in American History

• Thomas Bender, Community and Social Change in America (Johns Hopkins UP, 1983 (1978)
• Quickly/skim: Raymond Mohl, ed., Searching for the Sunbelt (Tennessee, 1990; Georgia, 1993), or if you find an out of print copy
• Carl Abbott, The New Urban America. rev. ed. (Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1987)
• Optional: any U.S. urban history text or survey
• Films: "The City" (1939) [45]

Week 3. Late-Twentieth-Century Culminations: Post-Modern? Post-Urban?

• Michael Peter Smith and Joe R. Feagin, eds., The Capitalist City (Blackwell, 1987):
  Read Chs. 1,3,4,7; oral reports on Parts III, IV, V
• Michael Sorkin, ed., Variations on a Theme Park (Hill & Wang, 1992):
  Read Introduction; choose other chapters by your interests
• Optional: Sharon Zukin, Landscapes of Power (California, 1991)
  or Zukin, The Cultures of Cities (Blackwell, 1995)
• See also the Core Bibliography

Week 4. Dallas History: A Long View

• *Patricia E. Hill, Dallas: The Making of a Modern City (Texas, 1996),
  or if unavailable: "The Origins of Modern Dallas," Ph.D. Diss., University of Texas at Dallas, 1990
• *Skim: Southwestern Historical Quarterly; Legacies; Journal of Urban; Dallas Magazine; Texas Monthly, etc.
• See list of recent articles on Dallas history
  
  Note also for this week and the next two:
• William McDonald, Dallas Re-Discovered (Dallas Historical Society, 1978)
• William Black, "Empire of Consensus: City Planning, Zoning, and Annexation in Dallas, 1900-1960," Ph.D. Diss., Columbia University, 1982
• Darwin Payne, Big D: Triumphs and Troubles of an American SuperCity in the 20th Century (Three Forks Press, l994)

Week 5. Re-Searching Dallas/Electronic Research

• Harvey J. Graff, et al, Dallas, Texas: A Guide to the Sources of its Social History, to 1930 (Univ. of Texas Press Services, 1979),



• See also bibliographies distributed in class and list of recent articles on Dallas history


• Visit: Dallas Historical Society, Dallas Public Library, SMU, and other archives and libraries

Weeks 5 and 6: Initial presentation of research projects.

• Each class member will present for discussion and responses their subject and plan for research. This should include statement of questions and arguments or thesis; research design or strategy; and bibliography and sources. Any illustrative materials should be distributed to all class members.
• Brief research proposals (1-2 pages) due no later than Week 6

Week 7. Dallas: Recent Past

• Dallas videos
• *Warren Leslie, Dallas Public and Private (Grossman, 1964)
• See also: Jim Schutze, The Accomodation: The Politics of Race in an American City (Citadel Press, 1986)
• Other items listed above including recent articles

Week 8-9-10.Research time/Consultations/Progress reports/Working sessions

• Revised brief research proposals and bibliographies due no later than Week 9

Week 11. Imagining Dallas?! [or perhaps later in semester]

• Dallas Institute for the Humanities and Culture, Imagining Dallas (Dallas Institute, 1982)
• Ada Louise Huxtable, "Inventing American Reality," New York Review of Books, Dec. 3, 1992, 24-29
  
  Reports/Optional:
• Philip Seib, Dallas: Chasing the Dream (Presswords, 1986)
• William Sharpe and Leonard Wallock, "Bold New City or Built-Up 'Burb? Refining Contemporary Suburbia," with responses and reply, American Quarterly, 46 (1994), 1-61
• Alan Wolfe, ed., America at Century's End (Univ. of California Press, 1991)
• Sharon Zukin, Landscapes of Power and/or her The Cultures of Cities
• John Short, The Humane City (Blackwell, 1989)
• Dolores Hayden, Redeigning the American Dream (Norton, 1984),
• or her The Power of Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History (MIT Press, 1995)

Weeks 12. Research/Writing Time

Weeks 13-14.Presentation and discussion of papers

• Final projects due at class time

*Library reserve

Recent Articles**

Roger Biles, "The New Deal in Dallas," Southwestern Historical Quarterly, 95 (1991), 1-19

Amy Bridges, various articles on political reform in Sunbelt cities that mention Dallas

W. Marvin Dulaney, "Whatever Happened to the Civil Rights Movement in Dallas, Texas?" in Essays on the American Civil Rights Movement, ed. Dulaney and Kathleen Underwood (Texas A & M University Press, for the University of Texas at Arlington Webb Memorial Lectures, l993), 66-95
_____, "The Progressive Voters League," Leagacies, 3 (1991), 27-35

Elizabeth York Enstam, "They Called It 'Motherhood': Dallas Women and Public Life, 1895-1918," in Hidden Histories of Women in the South, ed. Virginia Bernhard, et ak (Univ. of Missouri Press, 1994), 71-95, among the papers from her book-length history of Dallas women in progress.

Robert B. Fairbanks, "The Good Government Machine: The Citizen's Charter Association and Dallas Politics, 1930-1960," in Essays on Sunbelt Cities and Recent Urban America, ed. Fairbanks and Kathleen Underwood (Texas A & M University Press for the University of Texas at Arlington Webb Memorial Lectures, 1990), 125-150
_____, "Metropolitan Planning and Downtown Redevelopment: The Cincinnati and Dallas Experiences," Planning Perspectives, 2 (1987), 237-253
_____, "From Consensus to Controversy: The Rise and Fall of Public Housing in Dallas," Legacies, 1 (1989), 37-43
_____, "Dallas in the 1940s: The Challenges and Opportunities of Defense Mobilization," in Urban Texas: Politics and Development, ed. Char Miller and Heywood T. Sanders (Texas A & M University Press, 1990), 141-153
_____, "Responding to the Airplane: Urban Rivalry, Metropolitan Regionalism, and Airport Development, 1927-1954," in Technological Knowledge in American Culture: Science, Technology, and Medicine Since the Early 1800s, ed. Hamilton Cravens et al (Univ. of Alabama Press, 1996), 171-188
_____, "Planning, Public Works, and Politics: The Trinity River Reclamation Project in Dallas," in Planning the Twentieth-Century American City, ed. Mary Corbin Sies and Christopher Silver (Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1996), 187-212

Michael Q. Hooks, "The Role of Promoters in Urban Rivalry: The Dallas-Fort Worth Experience, 1870-1910," Red River Historical Review 7 (1982), 4-16

Martin V. Melosi, "Dallas-Fort Worth: Marketing the Metroplex," in Sunbelt Cities: Politics and Growth Since World War II, ed. Richard M. Bernard and Bradley R. Rice (University of Texas Press, 1983), 162-195

William H. Wilson, "Adapting to Growth: Dallas, Texas, and the Kessler Plan, 1908-1933," Arizona and the West 25 (1983), 245-260
_____, "Private Planning for Black Housing in Dallas, Texas, 1945-1955," Proceedings of the Second National Conference on American Planning History 2 (1988), 67-84
_____, "Desegregation of the Hamilton Park School, 1955-1975," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 95 (1991), 42-63
_____, "'This Negro Housing Matter': The Search for a Viable African-American Residential Subdivision in Dallas, 1945-1950," Legacies 6 (Fall 1994), 28-40

** See also Legacies, published by the Dallas Historical Society and Dallas County Heritage Society. Three Forks Press recently published a selection of articles, ed. Michael Hazel.

History

Thomas Bender, Community and Social Change in America (Johns Hopkins UP, 1983 (1978)

Carl Abbott, The New Urban America. rev. ed. (Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1987)

Arnold Hirsch and Raymond Mohl, eds., Urban Policy in 20th Century America (Rutgers UP, 1993)

Raymond A. Mohl, ed., Searching for the Sunbelt (Univ. of Tennessee Press, 1990, Univ. of Georgia Press, 1993)

Randall M. Miller and George E. Pozzetta, eds., Shades of the Sunbelt (Greenwood, 1988)

Robert B. Fairbanks and Kathleen B. Underwood, eds., Essays on Sunbelt Cities and Recent Urban America (Texas A&M UP, 1990)

Richard M. Bernard and Bradley R. Rice, eds., Sunbelt Cities (Univ. of Texas Press, 1983)

Michael B. Katz, ed., The "Underclass" Debate: Views from History (Princeton UP, l993)

Jon Teaford, Cities of the Heartland (Indiana UP, 1993)

Carl Abbott, The Metropolitan Frontier (Arizona, 1994)

Deborah Dash Moore, To the Gold Cities [Miami, LA] (Free Press, l994)

John Findlay, Magic Lands: Western Cityscapes and American Culture (California, 1992)

"Social Science"

Ira Katznelson, Marxism and the City (Oxford UP, 1992)

David C. Perry and Alfred J. Watkins, eds., The Rise of the Sunbelt Cities (Sage, 1977)

David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity (Basil Blackwell, 1989)
_____, The Urban Experience (Johns Hopkins UP, 1989 [1985]), among his works

Sharon Zukin, Landscapes of Power (Univ. of California Press, 1991)
_____, Loft Living (Johns Hopkins UP, 1982)
_____, The Cultures of Cities (Blackwell, 1995)

Mike Davis, City of Quartz [Los Angeles] (Verso, l990)

Rob Kling, Spencer Olin, and Mark Poster, eds., Postsuburban California: The Transformation of Orange County Since 1940 (California, 1991)

A. Portes and A. Stepick, Edge City [Miami] (Univ. of California Press, 1993)

Larry Sawers and Wlliam K. Tabb, eds., Sunbelt/Snowbelt (Oxford UP, 1984)

Michael Peter Smith, ed., After Modernism: Global Restructuring and the Changing Boundaries of City Life (Transaction, 1992)

Paul E. Peterson, ed., The New Urban Reality (Brookings, 1985)
_____, City Limits (Univ. of Chicago Press)

Edward Soja, Postmodern Geographies (Verso, 1989)

Jerry Kearns and Chris Philo, eds., Selling Places (Pergamon, 1993)

James Duncan and David Ley, eds., Place/Culture/Representation (Routledge, 1993)

National Research Academy, Urban Change and Poverty (National Academy Press)

Christopher Jencks and Paul E. Peterson, eds., The Urban Underclass (Brookings, 1991)

John H. Mollenkopf, The Contested City (Princeton UP, 1983)

Roger Friedland, Power and Crisis in the City (Schocken, 1983)

M. Gottdiener, The Decline of Urban Politics (Sage, 1987)

Manuel Castells, The Urban Question (Edward Arnold, 1977 [1972]
_____, The Informational City (Blackwell, 1989) and other works

Ulf Hannerz, Exploring the City (Columbia UP, 1980)

M. Gottdiener and A. P. Lagopoulos, eds., The City and the Sign (Colum- bia UP, 1986)

M. Gottdiener, The Social Production of Urban Space (Univ of Texas Press, 1985)

Edward Krupat, People in Cities (Cambridge UP, 1985)

Lloyd Rodwin and Robert M Hollister, eds., Cities of the Mind: Images and Themes of the City in the Social Sciences (Plenum, 1984)

Michael Pagano and Ann Bowman, Cityscapes and Capital: The Politics of Urban Development (Johns Hopkins UP, 1995)

Robert Fitch, The Assassination of New York City (Verso, 1993)

Catharine R. Stimpson, et al, eds., Women and the American City (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1981)

Elizabeth Wilson, The Sphinx and the City (Univ of California Press, 1991)

Dolores Hayden, Redeigning the American Dream (Norton, 1984)
_____, The Power of Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History (MIT Press, 1995)