1
American Social, Cultural and Intellectual History
(HISTORY 639B and AMERICAN STUDIES 646)Sakamaki A-201
RESEARCH SEMESTERWed. 3-5:30 p.m.
Richard L.
January 12, 2005 Web Page: www2.hawaii.edu/~rapson
Office Hours: TuTh, 10:20-11; Wed, 2:30-3 and by appointment. 956-6801
Office: Sakamaki
Members of this seminar typically come from a wide variety of backgrounds, disciplines, and interests. The disciplines represented always include History and American Studies, of course. But increasing numbers are coming from Psychology plus a sprinkling from English, Philosophy, Social Work, Speech, Business, International Relations, Theatre, Sociology, various other social sciences, and other quarters as well.
Bearing that in mind, I have tried to construct a course that will be slightly different for each person, one that will be tailored to individual needs and interests as much as possible. There will be a balance of things we all do together and those that will be done individually; the balance will differ with each person. I’ll meet with each of you separately to do the tailoring.
The best way to grasp my objectives in the seminar is to see them as falling into six categories, described below 1. Multicultural issues and the University today (note the class on Jan. 19). 2. Multidisciplinary matters (five joint classes with the graduate seminar in Social Psychology). 3. The need for Synthesis (my seven presentations: see in schedule). 4. Individual explorations (one-on-one work with me). 5. Film, Fiction, and History—and Teaching. 6. Readings in Non-Traditional History: The New Cultural History and The New Psychological History (see lists below).
THE WORK TOGETHER
1. We begin with a look at the intense culture wars generated from the Academy (not incidentally from History and American Studies programs), reaching into U.S. society-at-large, and then sent back into the Universities. We read together and discuss two well-known and contending books which debate multiculturalism and which also address some of the related theoretical matters. They also look at the general state of American Universities today. We’ll do this at the beginning of the course and factor in the very conservative tilt of the country outside the halls of Ivy. At the end of the course, we’ll read my newest book (AMAZED BY LIFE: CONFESSIONS OF A NON-RELIGIOUS BELIEVER)—one that touches on these and other matters.
2. Then we explore the new multidisciplinary strategies that may very well revolutionize intellectual and academic life in the next century. We do this essentially by introducing a course-within-a-course into our seminar; in five of our sessions, we will meet jointly with the graduate seminar in Social Psychology and together we will investigate the exciting connections between psychology and history. And we will chart some joint research strategies with the psychologists. Does this joint enterprise, which transcends traditional academic specialization, offer us a glimpse into the intellectual future?
3. Finally, in a time of narrow specialization, I’d like to put in some good words (via a series of presentations plus some informal discussion of the AMAZED . . . book) for The Big Picture, for synthesis . And at a time when some theories emphasize how little we can truly know, I’d like to say some good things about what we can (if imperfectly) “know.” In this seminar, we’ll swim (with respect) a bit against the prevailing academic tides.
THE INDIVIDUALLY-TAILORED WORK
4. There are several possibilities here, some of which relate to things currently on my mind, others that belong exclusively to your mind. I’ll work out the choices with each of you individually, but they fall into the following categories.
A. Your own research interests, which can be pursued in a number of ways. History graduate students who wish this seminar to count as a research seminar must, obviously, complete a research paper developed in my conversations with you.
Or,
B. Reading some books in the new psychological history or the new cultural history (see my extensive list at the end). Students who previously attended my joint seminars with the Social Psychology seminar might typically pursue matters we began there through further reading. My list includes many outstanding, innovating books in social, cultural, and intellectual history, most of which have been written in the past 15 years. This will afford us a glimpse of what now is possible as history ventures into new territories in novel ways.
Or,
C. Reading a collection of what I call ‘Historically-informed fiction.” This enterprise might include reading John Updike’s “Rabbit Quartet” or Gore Vidal’s ‘American Chronicles.”
Or,
D. Exploration into the relatively unexamined and quite exciting relationship between films and history. I explain items #3 & 4 more fully below.
Or,
E. Something else more germane to your own particular interests.
FILMS, FICTION, AND HISTORY
Historians in Research Universities have tended to equate the study of the past with the methods and expression of traditional scholarship. But history is no longer the private preserve of the academics. First-rate work about the past is being done by filmmakers, novelists, composers, as well as by scholars from a variety of disciplines.
(Tons of third-rate work is also being done in the form of television docudramas with no interest in accuracy, films with historical settings that are far more about “entertainment value” than about any genuine interest in the past, where characters speak invented lines in language right out of today’s sitcoms. Further, many Americans get their history from Disney theme parks.)
We can find in much of European film and TV an almost instinctive concern for historical accuracy; in America, that tradition does not exist--until recently, that is.
Since the end of World War II, many of our finest novelists have turned to the past for inspiration. John Updike, Phillip Roth, Toni Morrison, Gore Vidal, Don DeLillo, E.L. Doctorow and others have done their research before casting their fictions in previous eras. And on television, directors like Ken Burns and David Grubin and the makers of “The American Experience” series have recently brought historical integrity to their films.
A sub-theme in this course not only recognizes these new ways of doing history, but that they have had a major impact in the teaching as well as the doing of history. We shall examine and analyze these different modes for resurrecting the past, assessing various strengths and dangers. We will look at implications both for teaching as well as for research. These new forms of expression will certainly make their way into our classrooms. And, finally, is it far-fetched to think that Universities could even be helpful in forging a new generation of filmmakers and fiction writers who will enrich our understanding of the past and of culture?
All in all, I hope to create in the seminar a grown-up, relaxed atmosphere in which we truly learn from and help each other—an experience of co-operative, sophisticated, and enjoyable intellectual exploration.
WORK DONE BY ALL
Reading: Bloom, Levine, Amazed By Life—plus handouts.
Discussions: Five sessions with Psychology graduate students plus
seven others (on our own) dealing with modern
History’s largest themes and issues.
INDIVIDUAL WORK
Reading, Research and Reports chosen from varying combinations of:
Film and History
Fiction and History
Psychological History
Your own Research and Intellectual Interests
SCHEDULE
Jan. 12Introductions
Jan. 19UNIVERSITIES AND MULTICULTURALISM
Read Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind (including Preface by Saul Bellow) and Lawrence Levine, The Opening of the American Mind.
Jan. 26Big Picture Lecture and Discussion #1:
“The Westernization of the Modern World.”
Feb. 2Big Picture Lecture and Discussion #2:
“Why the West? Religion and Science”
Feb. 9Joint Meeting with Social Psychology Graduate Seminar (650/751). All Joint
Classes Meet in Sakamaki A-201.
The Family, Sex, and Marriage: The Past
Feb. 16Big Picture Lecture and Discussion #3:
“Micro-History and Textual Analysis—
The Village Blacksmith”
Feb. 23Joint Meeting (II) with Social Psychology
Graduate Seminar.
The Family, Sex, and Marriage: The Present
March 2 Big Picture Lecture and Discussion#4:
“How is America Different? Is It Exceptional?
The Egalitarian Model”
March 9 Joint Meeting (III) with Social Psychology
Graduate Seminar.
The Family, Sex, and Marriage: The Future
March 16Big Picture Lecture and Discussion #5:
“Progressive vs. Consensus History”
March 23SPRING VACATION
March 30Joint Meeting (IV) with Social
Psychology Graduate Seminar.
Sex: Past, Present, Future.
April 6Big Picture Lecture and Discussion #6:
“The Holocaust and ‘Evil’ in History”
April 13Final Joint Meeting with Social
Psychology Graduate Seminar.
Cross-Cultural Considerations.
Also Film: “The Amazing Randi.”
April 20Big Picture Lecture and Discussion #7:
“The Contemporary Climate of Opinion”
April 27*Conclusions.
Read RLR, Amazed By Life: Confessions of a
Non-Religious Believer (2003)
*THIS CLASS WILL MEET AT MY HOME.
May 4 Completion of Independent Work (I will be available all
afternoon in my office to meet with you.)
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Richard L. Rapson
Some Arresting, Original Recent Books in Social, Cultural and Intellectual History
(in chronological order)
Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean: and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, 2 vols. (Harper & Row: NY, 1966)
Garry Wills, Jefferson's Declaration of Independence (1979)
Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worm: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller (Johns Hopkins U. Press: Baltimore: 1980)
Carl Schorske, Fin-de-Siecle Vienna: Politics and Culture (Knopf: NY, 1980)
Philippe Aries, The Hour of Our Death (Knopf: NY, 1981)
Natalie Zemon Davis, The Return of Martin Guerre (Harvard U.
Press: Cambridge, 1983)
Fernand Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism: 15th-18th Century, 3 vols. 1.The Structures of Everyday Life (Harper & Row: NY, 1981); 2. Wheels of Commerce (1982); 3. Perspective of the World (Harper & Row: NY, 1984)
Rhys Isaac, The Transformation of Virginia, 1740-1790 (U. of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill, 1982)
Daniel Boorstin, The Discoverers: A History of Man's Search to Know His World and Himself (Random House: NY, 1983)
Robert Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre; and Other Episodes in French Cultural History (Basic Books: NY, 1984)
Leo Braudy, The Frenzy of Renown: Fame and Its History (Oxford U. Press: NY, 1986)
Barbara Hanawalt, The Ties That Bound: Peasant Families in
Medieval England (Oxford U. Press: London, 1986)
Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500-2000 (Random House: NY, 1987)
Richard L. Rapson, American Yearnings: Love, Money, and Endless
Possibility (University Press of America: Washington,
D.C., 1988)
Simon Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age (Collins: London, 1987)
Jonathan Spence, The Question of Hu (Knopf: NY, 1988)
Robert Darnton, The Kiss of Lamourette: Reflections in Cultural History (Norton: NY, 1990)
Carl Degler, In Search of Human Nature: The Decline and Revival of Darwinism in American Social Thought (Oxford U. Press: NY, 1991)
Simon Schama, Dead Certainties: Unwarranted Speculations (Knopf: NY, 1991)
Daniel Boorstin, The Creators: A History of Heroes of the
Imagination (Random House: NY, 1992)
Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America (Simon & Schuster: NY, 1992)
Beatrice Gottlieb, The Family in the Western World from the Black
Death to the Industrial Age (Oxford U. Press: London,
1993)
Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Feminist Consciousness: From the Middle Ages to 1870 (Oxford U. Press: NY, 1993)
John Demos, The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America (Knopf: NY, 1994)
Richard Sennett, Flesh and Stone:The Body and the City in Western Civilization (Norton: NY, 1994)
Robert Darnton, The Forbidden Best Sellers of Prerevolutionary France (Norton: NY,1995)
Ann Douglas, Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s
(Farrar, Straus: NY,1995)
David Hollinger, Post-Ethnic America: Beyond Multiculturalism
(Basic Books: NY, 1995)
Jackson Lears, Fables of Abundance: A Cultural History of Advertising in America (Basic Books: NY, 1995)
Roy Porter, London: A Social History (Harvard U. Press: Cambridge, 1995)
Simon Schama, Landscape and Memory (Knopf: NY,1995)
Patricia Meyer Spacks, Boredom: The Literary History of a State of Mind (University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1995)
Liselotte Steinbrugge, The Moral Sex: Woman’s Nature in the French
Enlightenment (Oxford U. Press: London, 1995)
Marina Warner, From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers (Chatto & Windus: London, 1995)
Theodore Zeldin, An Intimate History of Humanity (HarperCollins:
NY, 1995)
Pat Jalland, Death in the Victorian Family (Oxford U. Press:
London, 1996)
Seymour Martin Lipset, American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword (1996)
Steven Ozment, The Burger-Meister’s Daughter: Scandal in a 16th-Century German Town (1996)
Jonathan Spence, God's Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly
Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan ( Norton: NY,1996)
Renate Bridenthal and Susan Mosher Stuard, eds., Becoming
Visible: Women in European History (Houghton
Mifflin: NY, 1997)
Michael Brown, The Channeling Zone: American Spirituality in an Anxious Age (Harvard U. Press: Cambridge, Mass., 1997)
Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human
Societies (Norton: NY, 1997)
Barbara Ehrenreich, Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War (Holt: NY, 1997)
Paul Heelas, The New Age Movement: The Celebration of the
Self and the Sacralization of Modernity (Oxford U.
Press: London, 1997)
Arthur Herman, The Idea of Decline inWestern History (The Free Press: NY, 1997)
David Hollinger, Transvaluations: Science, Jews and Secular Culture-Studies in Mid-Twentieth-Century American Intellectual History (Princeton U. Press: Princeton, 1997)
Bettyann Kevles Naked to the Bone: Medical Imaging in the 20th Century (Rutgers U. Press: NY, 1997)
Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, The Beggar and the Professor: A Sixteenth-Century Family Saga. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer. (U. of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1997)
Alberto Manguel, A History of Reading (Penguin: NY, 1997)
Stephen Oates, The Approaching Fury: Voices of the Storm, 1820-1861 (HarperCollins: NY, 1997)
Peter Stearns, Fat History: Bodies and Beauty in the Modern West(NYU Press: NY, 1997)
Gary Taylor, Cultural Selection: Why Some Achievements Withstand the Test of Time--and Others Don’t (Basic Books: NY, 1997)
Garry Wills, John Wayne’s America: The Politics of Celebrity
(Simon & Schuster: NY, 1997)
William F. Baker & George Dessart, Down the Tube: An Inside Account of the Failure of American Television (Basic Books: NY, 1998)
Daniel Boorstin, The Seekers: The Story of Man’s Continuing Quest(Random House: NY, 1998)
David Bordwell, On the History of Film Style (Harvard U. Press: Cambridge, 1998)
Patricial Cline Cohen, The Murder of Helen Jewett: The Life and
Death of a Prostitute in Nineteenth-Century New
York (Knopf: NY, 1998)
James N. Davidson, Courtesans & Fishcakes: The Consuming
Passions of Classical Athens (St. Martin’s Press: NY, 1998)
Hans Ulrich Gumbert, In 1926: Living On the Edge of Time (Harvard U. Press: Cambridge, 1998)
Ralph Houlbrooke, Death, Religion, and the Family in England,
1480-1750 (Oxford U. Press: London 1998)
Richard Pells, Not like Us: How Europeans Have Loved, Hated, and Transformed American Culture Since World War II (Basic Books: NY, 1998)
Glenn Wallach, Obedient Sons: The Discourse of Youth and Generations in American Culture, 1630-1860 (Univ, of Massachusetts Press: Amherst, 1998)
Bonnie Anderson and Judith Zinsser, A History of Their Own: Women in Europe from Prehistory to the Present, 2 vols.
(Oxford U. Press: London 1999)
Rudolph Bell, How To Do It: Guides to Good Living for
Renaissance Italians (U. of Chicago Press:
Chicago, 1999)
Richard Evans, Tales from the German Underworld (Yale
Univ. Press: New Haven, 1999)
Ann Goldberg, Sex, Religion, and the Making of Modern Madness:
The Eberbach Asylum and German Society, 1815-1849
(Oxford U. Press: London, 1999)
Lawrence Friedman, The Horizontal Society (Yale U. Press:
New Haven, 1999)
Ann Goldberg, Sex, Religion, and the Making of Modern Madness:
The Eberbach Asylum and German Society, 1815-1849
(Oxford U. Press: London, 1999)
Michael Kammen, American Culture, American Tastes: Social
Change and the 20th Century (Knopf: NY, 1999)
Regina Morantz-Sanchez, Conduct Unbecoming A Woman:
Medicine on Trial in Turn-of-the-Century Brooklyn
(Oxford U. Press: NY, 1999)
Wendy Kaminer, Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials: The Rise of
Irrationalism and Perils of Piety (Pantheon: NY, 1999)
Daniel Roche, France in the Enlightenment (Harvard U. Press:
Cambridge, 1999)
Jonathan Spence, The Chan’s Great Continent: China in Western
Minds (Norton: NY, 1999)
Jacques Barzun, From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western
Cultural Life—1500 to Present (HarperCollins: NY, 2000)
Cynthia Eller, The Myth of Matriarachal Prehistory: Why an
Invented Past Won’t Give Women a Future (Beacon
Press: Boston, 2000)
Jonathan Glover, Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth
Century (Yale U. Press: New Haven, 2000)
Rebecca Spang, The Invention of the Restaurant: Paris and the
Modern Gastronomic Culture (Harvard U. Press: Cambridge, 2000)
Natalie Zemon Davis, The Gift in Sixteenth-Century France
(U. of Wisconsin Press: Madison, 2001)
Peter Gay, Schnitzler’s Century: The Amaking of Middle-Class
Culture, 1815-1916 (Norton: NY, 2001)
Jenna Weissman Joselit, A Perfect Fit: Clothes, Character, and
The Promise of America (NY: Holt, 2001)
J.M. Beattie, Policing and Punishment in London, 166-1750: Urban
Crime and the Limits of Terror (Oxford U. Press: 2002)
Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Food: A History (NY: Macmillan, 2002)
Estelle Freedman, No Turning Back: The History and the Future
Of Women (Profile: NY, 2002)
Mary Laven, Virgins of Venice: Enclosed Lives and Broken Vows in
The Renaissance Convent (Viking: NY, 2002)
E. Fuller Torrey, M.D., and Judy Miller, The Invisible Plague: The
Rise of Mental Illness from 1750 to the Present
(Rutgers U. Press: New Brunswick, N.J., 2002)
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories
in the Creation of an American Myth (Vintage: NY, 2002)
Michael Cook, A Brief History of the Human Race (Norton: NY, 2003)
Gail Collins, America’s Women: Four Hundred Years of Dolls,
Drudges, Helpmates and Heroines (Morrow: NY, 2003)