AMST 100b: Twentieth-Century American Culture, Spring 2017

Maura Jane Farrelly,

Tues. and Thu., 2-3:20,

Office Hours: Tues. and Thu., 9:30-12:30, Brown 327

This course will continue the conversation about American identity that students began when they took AMST 100a. Using a variety of cultural texts (poetry, plays, films, essays, speeches, novels, non-fiction books, and journalistic accounts), we will examine the social, political, legal, economic, religious, and intellectual transformations that characterized life in the United States during the dozen or so decades that followed the Civil War. We willexplore the visions of what America was and who Americans were that animated the twentieth century, considering how and why those visions were extensions of – or departures from – the visions that animated previous generations of Americans. Students will also consider how the ideas and experiences of Americans in the twentieth century helped to shape their own sense of what it means to be an American in the early twenty-first century.

Readings:

The following texts will need to be purchased (and should be available in the campus bookstore). All other readings and videos are posted on LATTE.

  • F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and the Damned (novel), ISBN-13:978-1505281958
  • Jerome Lawrence, Inherit the Wind (play)ISBN-13:978-0345466273
  • Willa Cather, My Antonia (novel)ISBN-13:978-1512394344
  • John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath (novel)ISBN-13:978-0142000663
  • Sinclair Lewis, It Can’t Happen Here (novel)ISBN-13:978-0451465641
  • Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire of the Vanities (novel)ISBN-13:978-0553275971

Requirements:

  1. Class attendance and participation: This means that you must come to class, and that you must read the required assignments and think about them before coming to class. Participation will take the form of answering questions when asked and offering your own, insightful questions/commentary. If you are shy, come and speak to me, and we can talk about ways of getting you over that hurdle. I understand shyness, but I will not accept it as an excuse for a lack of participation. Nor, of course, will I accept ill-preparation as an excuse. Class participation will be 5% of your final grade.
  1. A mid-term exam that will count for 20% of your final grade.
  1. Three, 3-5 page “critical analysis” papers: Students will be expected to choose three headings from the syllabus and formulate a prompt for thetext or set of texts included under that heading. The prompt should be a directive or a set of questions that captures the essence of an argument that is made, a challenge that issued, and/or an experience that is conveyed in the assigned text or texts. Please note that several headings include more than one text, and the prompt that students formulate for those headings should touch upon all of the texts (FYI: in such cases, prompts that involve comparing and contrasting the texts are often useful, but you must be specific about what you are comparing and contrasting). Once students have formulated the prompt, they will then need to address it, integrating the texts into their papers and pointing to words or sentences from the texts to justify their analyses. At least one paper must be completed before the midterm exam (March 2nd), and at least one paper must be completed after the midterm exam. Only one paper can address a heading in which an assigned text is a film. At least one paper must address a heading in which an assigned text is a complete novel. Also, please note: The two headings with asterisks next to them (**) cannot be used for this assignment. Students must turn their analyses in on the posted due dates. No late papers will be accepted. If a student misses the due date for a critical analysis paper, he/she will simply have to choose another heading to address. Students will, however, have the option of re-writing one paper on the basis of the instructor’s comments, and then re-submitting that paper for a final grade no later than one week after the original paper has been returned. Each paper will count for 15% of your final grade.
  1. An annotation assignment: Students will be randomly assigned three chapters from Sinclair Lewis’ It Can’t Happen Here. They will then have to annotate each chapter. They will be evaluated on their judgement and on their research – which is to say, their judgement about which references require some kind of annotative explanationwill be as important as the researched explanation itself. This annotation will count for 10% of your final grade.
  1. A final exam that will count for 20% of your final grade.

Syllabus:

Tue., Jan. 17th: Hello

**ARepublic of Death

Thu. Jan. 19th: Walt Whitman, “O Captain! My Captain” (1865); Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,

“Killed at the Ford” (1866), ON LATTE

Industrialization and the Polarization of Wealth

Tue. Jan. 24th: Andrew Carnegie, “The Gospel of Wealth” (1889); Walter Rauschenbusch,

“Christianity and the Social Gospel” (1908), ON LATTE

Critical analysis due Jan. 31st

The Rise of the Black Intellectual Class

Thu., Jan 26th: Booker T. Washington, “Atlanta Exposition Speech,” (1895); W.E.B. Dubois,

“The Talented Tenth,” (1903), ON LATTE

Critical analysis due Feb. 2nd

Muckrakers and the Changing Role of the Press

Tue., Jan 31st: Ida B. Wells, Southern Horror: Lynch Law in All its Phases (1892); Ray

Stannard Baker, “The Right to Work,” (1903), ON LATTE

Critical analysis due Feb. 7th

The Morals of Modern America

Thu. Feb. 2nd:F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and the Damned (1922)

Tue., Feb. 7th: Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and the Damned, continued

Critical analysis due Feb. 14th

Christianity Rejects Modern America

Thu., Feb. 9th: H.L. Mencken, Baltimore Sun (1925), excerpts of Mencken’s coverage of John

Scopes’ trial,ON LATTE; Jerome Lawrence, Inherit the Wind (1955)

Critical analysis due Feb 28th

Pioneers and the Idea of the American West

Tue. Feb. 14th:Willa Cather, My Antonia (1918)

Thu., 16th: Willa Cather, My Antonia, continued

Tue., Feb. 21st: NO CLASS (“Spring” Break)

Thu., Feb. 23rd: NO CLASS (“Spring” Break)

Critical Analysis due on Mar. 2nd

Native Americans and the Idea of the American West

Tue., Feb. 28th: Dee Brown, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (2007), based on Brown’s book

from 1970, ON LATTE

Critical analysis due Mar. 7th

Midterm

Thu., Mar. 2nd: Today you will take your midterm exam.

The Dust Bowl

Tue., Mar. 7th: Ken Burns, The Dust Bowl (in-class documentary viewing)

Thu., Mar.9th: John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath (1939)

Tue., Mar. 14th:Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, continued

Critical analysis due Mar. 21st

The Great Depression on Film

Thu., Mar. 16th:Charlie Chaplin, City Lights (1931) and William Kennedy and Héctor Babenco,

Ironweed (1987), ON LATTE

Critical analysis due Mar. 21st

**America Confronts Fascism

Tue., Mar. 21st:Sinclair Lewis, It Can’t Happen Here (1935)

Thu., Mar. 24th: Lewis, It Can’t Happen Here, continued

Tue., Mar. 28th: “This Reporter: Edward R. Murrow,” American Masters, ON LATTE

Annotation Assignment: Due March 24th

Americans Consider their Planet

Thu., Mar. 30th: Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, excerpts (1962), ON LATTE

Critical analysis due Apr. 6th

The Problem that Has No Name

Tue., Apr. 4th: Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, excerpts (1963), ON LATTE

Critical analysis due Apr. 20th

An American Revolution

Thu. Apr. 6th: Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” (1963); Huey Newton

and Bobby Seale, “The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense Ten-Point Platform and

Program” (1966), ON LATTE

Tue. Apr. 11th: NO CLASS (Passover Break)

Thu., Apr. 13th: NO CLASS (Passover Break)

Tue., Apr. 18th: NO CLASS (Passover Break)

Critical analysis due Apr. 25th

Vietnam

Thu., Apr. 20th: Michael Cimino, The Deer Hunter (1978), ON LATTE

Critical analysis due Apr. 27th

Masters of the Universe

Tue., Apr. 25th: Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire of the Vanities (1987)

Thu., Apr. 27th: Wolfe, The Bonfire of the Vanities, continued

Tue., May 2nd: CATCH UP DAY

Critical analysis due May 2nd

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