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Course Criteria
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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 examine 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 its 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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3.00 Credits
This course examines the relationship between modernism and nativism in the United States. In the 1920s nativist fervor provoked a redefinition of American national identity, one grounded in an essentialist understanding of race. At the same time, the myth of the American melting pot was vigorously attacked by cultural progressives who celebrated the racial and ethnic diversity of American society. How did modern American writers contribute to these debates over national identity What understandings of race and national identity did they help to promote or undermine Primary readings will include novels by Toomer, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Lewis, Faulkner, Cather, Glasgow, McKay, Larsen, and Hurston. Secondary readings will include essays on race and national identity by Frank, Kallen, Locke, Boas, and Dewey. This course satisfies the requirement of a literary history course. 1.00 units, Seminar
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1.00 Credits
This course investigates how photography has described and constructed consumer culture and current events, from selling the American Dream to the events of September 11, 2001. We will examine how advertising photography uses news imagery for its own agenda and creates enduring icons that in turn become part of the imagery of news. We will consider ethics and the roles of the image-maker; tactics of display; the creating agencies and their agendas; the manipulation of images (physical and interpretive); and how race, gender, and ethnicity are constructed in commercial and news images. 1.00 units, Seminar
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1.00 Credits
No Course Description Available. 1.00 units, Seminar
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1.00 Credits
The course considers the iconic photography of the American West made for railroad and government surveys in the 19th century; the idealized and iconic 20th-century landscapes constructed by Ansel Adams; recent photography whose purpose is aesthetic, political, and environmental; and ways in which photography helped created the industry of tourism. Readings drawn from history of photography, anthroplogy, social history, environmental science, theory, and environmental activism. 1.00 units, Seminar
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1.00 Credits
This class takes an expansive view of the current state of technology in museums, both from the inside (the use of technology to manage and administer daily operations) and from the outside (the use of technology to educate, market to, and develop one's audiences). By carefully considering both the latest scholarship and a wealth of real-world examples, students will begin to confront the issue of how technology mediates and changes the way in which the public interacts with a museum and its physical objects. Drawing on established concepts of technology in education, the course will offer a critical perspective on specific computer-based technologies in museums, and will also supply students with an attractive set of computing skills - still rare in many museums - that will help them in their professional endeavors 1.00 units, Seminar
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1.00 Credits
This graduate-level seminar will analyze the American fascination with travel and tourism and examine the literary strategies employed by travel writers. Our exploration will begin with the quintessentially masculine figure of the traveler and then turn to women travel writers who question traditional femininity and African American authors who challenge racism and social injustice in their travel writing. We will consider the perspective of the "natives" and their response to travel accounts written by tourists and colonists. Considering journeys undertaken to reclaim cultural "roots," students will read contemporary travel writing that questions the meaning of multi-cultural identity. We will also study the growing field of travel criticism and address issues of imperialism, globalization, and tourism. Authors studied include Washington Irving, Caroline Kirkland, Herman Melville, Matthew Henson, Nancy Prince, June Jordan, W.E.B. DuBois, Jamaica Kincaid, Paisley Rekdal, and others. 1.00 units, Seminar
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1.00 Credits
The historical role of religion in shaping American life and thought, with special attention to the influence of religious ideologies on social values and social reform. (May be counted toward American Studies.) 1.00 units, Lecture
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