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Course Criteria
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1.00 Credits
What role does culture play in determining who wins and loses presidential campaigns Did Harry Truman defeat Thomas E. Dewey in 1948 because Dewey wore a mustache Did Adlai E. Stevenson lose in 1952 and 1956 because he was an egghead Did Richard M. Nixon's television image of a man who needed a shave contribute to his defeat to the well groomed and younger looking John F. Kennedy in 1960 We will examine the changing cultural narrative of post-World War II America delivered to Americans by the print and electronic media. We will examine how that narrative affected voter decision-making in the elections of 1948, 1952, 1956, and 1960. We will also attempt to understand what cultural messages persuaded American citizens to vote for or against their own economic and civic interests. References to the current cultural climate and the election of 2008 will constitute an important part of our ongoing discussion. 1.00 units, Seminar
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3.00 Credits
This course will examine American sports from their beginnings in Puritan-era games to the multi-billion-dollar industries of today. We will begin by looking at the relationship between work, play, and religion in the colonies. We will trace the beginnings of horseracing, baseball, and boxing, and their connections to saloons, gambling, and the bachelor subculture of the Victorian underworld. We will study the rise of respectable sports in the mid- and late 19th century; follow baseball as it became the national pastime; see how college football took over higher education; and account for the rise of basketball. We will look at sports and war, sports and moral uplift, and sports and the culture of consumption. Finally, we will examine the rise of mass leisure, the impact of radio and television, racial segregation and integration, the rise of women's sports, battles between players and owners in the last 25 years, and the entrance of truly big money into professional sports. Readings in primary and secondary sources will emphasize the historical experience of sports in the United States so that students can develop a framework for understanding current events, including the NHL lockout, the Kobe Bryant affair, and the controversies over steroids. 1.00 units, Seminar
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1.00 Credits
This course examines how Americans have defined race and ethnicity over time as well as the historical experiences of non-whites and immigrant groups in the 20th century. In what ways are ethnic and black experiences similar In what ways are they different Undergraduates who wish to enroll in this course must obtain permission of their adviser and the instructor. 1.00 units, Seminar
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1.00 Credits
Body art is the most common of arts, and yet the least explored. People throughout history have times painted, marked, and pierced their bodies, but only recently have such practices been studied by serious scholars. This class will explore the ways in which various body-art practices have developed and evolved, especially as they are portrayed in literary texts, historical documents, and films. We will examine such interpretations of body art in order to ponder how and why people mark themselves (and others), how that has changed in significant ways over time, and how literary and visual representations of body art affect the character of the practices themselves. 1.00 units, Seminar
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1.00 Credits
This course will trace the rich and diverse tradition of women's writing in 19th-century America. We will consider the contexts that influenced women's writing and evaluate women authors' contributions to literary, political, and social movements during the 1800s through the turn of the century. We will pay particular attention to representations of race, class, ethnicity, region, and gender in women's writing. African American, Euro-American, Hispanic, Native American, middle- and working-class women authors will be studied. Authors studied will include: Louisa M. Alcott, Lillie Devereux Blake, Grace MacGowan Cook, Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton, Kate Chopin, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Fanny Fern, Frances E. W. Harper, Nella Larsen, Elizabeth Keckley, Zitkala-Sa, and Maria Cummins. 1.00 units, Seminar
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1.00 Credits
Students are introduced to the issues and processes involved in developing exhibitions, and explore different approaches to cultural and historical interpretation at a range of museums. Class sessions and exercises will examine the basics of exhibit planning and development. Topics include the conceptualization of exhibit themes and educational goals; learning in museums; visitor needs and accessibility; design elements; technology in museums; and audience evaluation methods. Through critical readings of course literature and site visits, students will also consider the various interpretive methods utilized at living history museums, historic houses and historical sites, history and cultural museums, and urban historical parks. Includes some field trips, guest speakers, and student projects. 1.00 units, Seminar
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1.00 Credits
Film industries produce not only films, but stars. In this seminar we will explore how both individual stars, and the phenomenon of stardom itself, are constructed, and how the meanings and effects of both have altered over time. Readings range from recent film theory to more general cultural and political history, with emphasis on the interaction of the mechanics of stardom and the production of gender models and stereotypes, from Joan Crawford to Susan Sarandon and from John Wayne to Kevin Costner. Film screenings will be scheduled accordingly. English 265, Introduction to Film Studies, or Art History 105, History of World Cinema, recommended but not required. 1.00 units, Lecture
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1.00 Credits
This course will analyze a range of built spaces, elite ones like museums and vernacular ones like shopping malls and casinos, to see how they reflect and shape our changing ideas of spectacle and display. Beginning with an examination of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition and the 1939 World's Fair, we will analyze how buildings exercise authority and shape our behavior. We will consider how displays of culture and commerce encode the agendas of capitalism, both literal and cultural, by looking at the packaging of commodities and of the materials within museums; retail entertainment architecture like those of Las Vegas and Disney and their fusion with the museum; and memorial museums and structures, particularly the Holocaust Museum. 1.00 units, Seminar
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3.00 Credits
In 1894, Teddy Roosevelt published "True Americanism" in Forum Magazine, declaring the absolute necessity of applying a "fervid Americansim" to the solution of every problem and evil facing the country, including "Americanizing" newcomers to our shore. Nearly 50 years later, the rhetoric of Americanism proposed by Time publisher Henry Luce in his February 1941 editorial in Life Magazine, "The American Century," aimed to persuade Americans that the country's involvement in World War II and in the post-war world were not only necessary but inevitable. The Luce publications after the war publicized the culture of Americanism that was an essential part of the anti-communism that supported the Cold War for over half a century. Leaving aside the idea of American exceptionalism-"the notion that the United States has had a special mission and virtue that makes it unique among nations"-our focus will be on the culture of Americanism as it was promulgated in the Luce publications and other media outlets during and after World War II, and the extent to which it encouraged postwar homogeneity while discouraging the expression of dissent and non-conformist ideas. 1.00 units, Seminar
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3.00 Credits
"The camera never lies," but it certainly can persuade. From its inception, photography has been employed in the cause of social change in the United States. During the Civil War, the images from the Brady studio helped persuade the Union of the justice of its cause. Anthropological images made from the 1860s to the 1880s helped define the vanishing Native American communities of the West, and the romantic images of photographers like Edward Curtis created sympathy among white Easterners for their plight. In the later 19th century, photography became the handmaid of Progressive reform in the hands of Jacob Riis, whose book, How the Other Half Lives, convinced the public of the need for urban reform. Sociologist Lewis Hine found his photographs of child labor far more effective than text alone in stimulating change. And in what may be the most comprehensive photographic project yet undertaken, the Farm Services Administration under FDR's New Deal program created a body of iconic images of the Great Depression that abide to today. In the hands of Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, and Gordon Parks, among others, the FSA body of work remains the visual definition of the Depression. We will examine how it served the agendas created by the agency head, Roy Stryker, and the photographers themselves. Two papers during the term, one final paper or project and presentation. Texts will include Liz Wells, Photography: A Critical Introduction; Alan Trachtenburg, Reading American Photographs; Fleischhauer and Brannan, Documenting America: 1935-1943 1.00 units, Seminar
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