Fawaz 1 English 457: Topics in American Literature and Culture Since 1900
Cultural Citizenship in the New Deal and After Professor Ramzi Fawaz E-mail:
[email protected] Class Meetings: Tu 6:00-8:30, Helen C. White Hall 4281 Office Hours: Tu 3-5 PM, 7161 Helen C. White Hall
Course description: This course explores how Americans came to view cultural production and mass media as legitimate sites for the performance of citizenship, political activism, and public dissent starting in the 1930s. In this period, The New Deal, an expansive government initiative to develop programs to respond to the economic crisis of the Great Depression, explicitly treated art and literature as avenues for remaking American citizenship; Hollywood cinema came to view its film productions as vehicles for anti-fascist and democratic politics; and the left-wing Popular Front movement began to take art and literature seriously as sites of social and political transformation. This heightened attention to culture as a scene for political activism would infuse both left and right-wing politics for the next six decades, galvanizing the right-wing backlash against Hollywood in the 1950s, the radical politics of 1960s television, art, and literature, the rise of independent cinema in the 1970s, and the culture wars of the late 20th century. Through an engagement with an array of primary sources – including popular film, television, art and theatre, comic books, and literature among others – alongside the writings of political theorists and public intellectuals since the 1930s, we will explore how culture shifted from a space of mass entertainment to collective political struggle in the 20th century.
Fawaz 2 This is a non-traditional literature course in the sense that our readings will consist of a combination of primary source media texts alongside critical theory and cultural and literary history. We will place the greatest emphasis of our attention on the term “culture” that appears in the course designation “Topics in American Literature and Culture Since 1900.” For us, culture will include the wide variety of popular media available to Americans since the 1930s, as well as the related habits and behaviors developed to respond to, engage with, and deploy that media in a political way. Along the way, we will debate the various meanings of both culture and politics, to better understand what the relationship is between these two important yet slippery terms. Course Work: This course is an advanced readings seminar in English. Each week we will engage 2-3 scholarly readings related to a particular topic alongside a primary media text. These texts will include films, literature, television, comic books, and visual culture. Films will be streamed on Learn@UW for your convenience and must be viewed prior to our Tuesday meetings. Alongside two writing assignments (a mid-term and final paper) your grade will rest largely on your participation in class. Through your participation you should demonstrate that you have actively and consciously engaged our course materials. All readings will be available on Learn@UW unless otherwise indicated on the syllabus. You MUST print out and bring your readings to class with you. Attendance: Attendance and participation at every class session is mandatory and nonnegotiable. That means not only showing up, but being awake, attentive, and actively engaged in our meetings. Most importantly, this includes coming to class having completed that day’s reading (and viewing) assignments, taken careful notes on all these items, and prepared to engage in dialogue about them. An absence incurs a 10% percent reduction in your participation grade unless otherwise permitted in advance. Inform me of all unforeseeable absences, such as those caused by severe illness or a personal emergency, as soon as possible. Unless you require a laptop as a learning aid, all portable electronic devices need to be discontinued during class sessions. I will grant each student one excused absence for any reason; all other unexcused absences will incur the 10% participation grade deduction listed above. Course Assignments: This course has two writing assignments, including a 7 page mid-term essay and a 10-page final seminar paper. The 7-page mid-term consists of a graded draft, followed by a completed and revised final submission. Early in the semester you will be placed into groups. With this group, you will conduct peer assessments for your midterm and final papers; you will also be asked to develop leading questions for two weeks of our course that will jumpstart our conversations in class. All of this group work will be included in your participation grade. Late papers will incur a loss of a full grade point for each day late. Papers arriving more than four days late will receive a zero. Though completing and submitting all of the assignments is a prerequisite for passing this course, it does not guarantee a passing grade. Consistent class participation is a key element to the successful completion of the course and makes up a sizeable 40% of your final grade. Grade Distribution: Mid-term paper, 30% (Draft 15%, Final 15%), Final paper 30%, Participation 40%
Fawaz 3
Disability Support Services: At all times, this seminar will be open and accessible to students with disabilities. If you are a student enrolled with the McBurney Disability Resource Center or have a disability but have not used the MDRC, I encourage you to speak with me regarding your rights to accommodation. Please come see me about any questions you have regarding additional support for your success in this class. For more information, contact MDRC, 702 W. Johnson Street, at 608-263-2741. Or refer to http://www.mcburney.wisc.edu/services/. Course Goals and Learning Outcomes: By the end of this course students will have gained the following skills: 1. The ability to develop and support scholarly arguments about cultural texts – in both written and verbal form – using both primary and secondary source materials. 2. The ability to articulate, distinguish between, and debate the merits of varied intellectual positions within a field of knowledge while also identifying the links between those positions. 3. The ability to engage in sustained intellectual discussion of primary and secondary source material using the sources at hand to support one’s claims. 4. The acquisition of a wider knowledge of the relationship between American popular culture and political life. Course expectations: In this course, I expect all students to a) Come to class having completed all of the required reading and viewing for a given week and taken notes on these materials (we will discuss best practices for notetaking); b) Participate substantively in every class discussion. This means responding to the week’s reading and viewing materials, interacting with the ideas of other students in the class, raising important questions, and directly citing the scholarly and film texts at hand as part of our conversation; c) Complete all assignments on time and put the appropriate amount of time and work into writing and revising all written assignments; d) Approach all the materials we engage with a willingness to change your mind, grapple with ideas, make forceful arguments, and expand your horizons; e) Have fun.
Fawaz 4 Course Schedule: Week 1: Cultural Citizenship Tuesday, January 20th In-class discussion of Lauryn Hill’s “Black Rage” (2012) In-class readings: Lauren Berlant, “Citizenship” and George Yúdice, “Culture,” in Keywords for American Cultural Studies (2007). Week 2: How the Popular Became Political Tuesday, January 27th Screening: Cradle Will Rock (Robbins, 1999) Full movie at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqPE0YYgwjI Lawrence Levine, “The Folklore of Industrial Societies: Popular Culture and its Audiences,” The American Historical Review 97.5 (1992) Jane De Hart Mathews, “Arts and the People: The New Deal Quest for a Cultural Democracy,” The Journal of American History 62.2 (1975) In-class case study: selections from Federal Arts Projects Posters Week 3: A Roadmap for Cultural Revolution Tuesday, February 3rd Screening: Sullivan’s Travels (Sturges, 1941) Michael Denning, “Introduction,” and “The Left and American Culture,” from The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the 20th Century (1997) Kenneth Burke, “Revolutionary Symbolism in America” (1935) Kathleen Moran and Michael Rogin, “‘What’s the Matter with Capra?’ Sullivan’s Travels and the Popular Front,” Representations 71 (Summer, 2000) Week 4: Culture as Democracy Tuesday, February 10th Screening: Babes in Arms (Berkeley, 1939) Clemente Greenberg, “Avant-Garde and Kitsch” (1939) Mark Roth, “Some Warner’s Musicals and the Spirit of the New Deal,” Genre: The Musical (1971)
Fawaz 5
Warren Susman, “The People’s Fair: Cultural Contradictions of a Consumer Society,” in Culture As History: The Transformation of American Society in the Twentieth Century (1984) Week 5: The New Deal’s Hidden Histories Tuesday, February 17th Listen to Paul Robeson’s “Ballad for Americans” (Robinson and La Touche, 1939) and Woody Guthrie, “This Land is Your Land” (1940). Both available on Learn@UW. Stephanie Batiste, “Epaulettes and Leaf Skirts, Warriors and Subversives: Black National Subjectivity in Macbeth and Haiti,” Text and Performance Quarterly 23.2 (2003) Colin R. Johnson, “Camp Life: The Queer History of ‘Manhood’ in the Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933-1937,” American Studies 48.2 (2007) Lisa Barg, “Paul Robeson’s Ballad for Americans: Race and the Cultural Politics of ‘People’s Music,’” Journal of the Society for American Music 2.1 (2008) Week 6: Hollywood Modernism Tuesday, February 24th Screening: Casablanca (Curtiz, 1942) George Lipsitz, “Tradition, Turmoil, and Transformation: Three Wartime Workers,” from Rainbow at Midnight: Labor and Culture in the 1940s (1994) Saverrio Giovanchani, “Taking Hollywood Seriously,” and “The ‘Only Respectable Clothes’: Progressive Hollywood and Democratic Realism during World War II,” from Hollywood Modernism: Film and Politics in the Age of The New Deal (2001) Week 7: Many Little Rebellions Tuesday, March 3rd
Screening: Salt of the Earth (Biberman, 1954) Catherine S. Ramirez, “Domesticating the Pachuca,” from The Woman in the Zoot Suit: Gender, Nationalism, and the Cultural Politics of Memory (2009) Hiysae Yamamoto, “Seventeen Syllables” (1949) and “Wilshire Bus” (1950)
Fawaz 6
Benjamin Balthaser, “Cold War Re-Visions: Representation and Resistance in the Unseen Salt of the Earth,” American Quarterly 60.2 (2008) **Rough Draft of Midterm Paper Due Saturday, March 7th by noon** Week 8: The Postwar Ideal of Cultural Consumption Tuesday, March 10th Screening: South Pacific (Logan, 1958) Lizbeth Cohen, “Reconversion: The Emergence of the Consumers’ Republic,” from A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America (2003) Christina Klein, “Sentimental Education: Creating a Global Imaginary of Integration,” from Cold War Orientalism: Asia in the Middlebrow Imagination, 1945-1961 (2003) Week 9: Political Nightmares Tuesday, March 17h
Screening: The Manchurian Candidate (Frankenheimer, 1962) Anna McCarthy, “Introduction: Television and Political Culture After World War II,” from The Citizen Machine: Governing by Television in 1950s America (2010) Michael Rogin, “Kiss Me Deadly: Communism, Motherhood, and Cold War Movies,” Representations 6 (Spring, 1984) Susan Carruthers, “‘The Manchurian Candidate’ and the Cold War Brainwashing Scare,” Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television 18.1 (2006)
** Midterm Paper Due Saturday, March 21st by noon** Week 10: Against the Grain of the Cold War Tuesday, March 24th Case Study: Selections from Alan Ginsberg’s Howl (1956) Read “Howl,” “Footnote to Howl,” “A Supermarket in California,” and “America.” Joanne Meyerowitz, “Beyond the Feminine Mystique: A Reassessment of Postwar Mass Culture, 1946-1958,” from Not June Cleaver: Women and Gender in Postwar America, 1945-1960 (1993)
Fawaz 7 Julia Mickenburg, “Civil Rights, History, and the Left: Inventing the Juvenile Black Biography,” MELUS 27.2 (2002) Ben Lee, “‘Howl’ and Other Poems: Is There Old Left in These New Beats?” American Literature 76.2 (Summer, 2004) Week 11: SPRING BREAK Week 12: Countercultures Tuesday, April 7th
Screening: Berkeley in the Sixties (Kitchell, 1990) (Optional) Doug Rossinow, “‘The Revolution is About our Lives: The New Left’s Counterculture,” in Imagine Nation: The American Counterculture of the 1960s and 70s (2001) Michael J. Kramer, “Introduction,” and “Welcome to Entertainment Vietnam!” from The Republic of Rock: Music and Citizenship in the Sixties Counterculture (2014) Aniko Bodroghkozy, “Smothering Dissent: The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and the Crisis of Authority in Entertainment Television,” from Groove Tube: Sixties Television and the Youth Rebellion (2001) Selections from Students for a Democratic Society, The Port Huron Statement (1962)
Week 13: Cultural Nationalism and the Black Radical Imagination Tuesday, April 14th
Listen to Nina Simone, “Mississippi Goddam” (1964) and “Pirate Jenny” (1964) Melani McAlister, “The Middle East in African American Cultural Politics, 1955-1972,” American Quarterly 51.3 (1999). Ruth Feldstein, “‘I don’t trust you anymore’: Nina Simone, Culture, and Black Activism in the 60s,” The Journal of American History 91.4 (2005) Black Radical Politics Dossier: Malcolm X, “The Ballot or the Bullet” (1964) Stokely Carmichael, “What We Want” (1966) The Black Panther Party, “What We Want, What We Believe” (1966)
Fawaz 8 Larry Neal, “Black Art and Black Liberation” (1968) Week 14: The Cultures of Radical Feminism Tuesday, April 21st
Debra Michels, “From ‘Consciousness Expansion’ to ‘Consciousness Raising’: Feminism and the Countercultural Politics of the Self,” in Imagine Nation: The American Counterculture of the 1960s and 70s (2001) Victoria Hesford, “Around 1970” and “Becoming Woman Identified Woman,” from Feeling Women’s Liberation (2013) Women’s Liberation Dossier: Ti-Grace Atkinson, “Radical Feminism” (1969) Radicalesbians, “The Woman Identified Woman” (1970) Combahee River Collective, “A Black Feminist Statement” (1977) Audre Lorde, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House” (1979)
Week 15: Gay Gatherings Tuesday, April 28th
Screening: The Times of Harvey Milk (Epstein, 1984) Robert McRuer, “Gay Gatherings: Reimagining the Counterculture,” in Imagine Nation: The American Counterculture of the 1960s and 70s (2001) Heather Murray, “Free for All Lesbians: Lesbian Cultural Production and Consumption in the United States During the 1970s,” Journal of the History of Sexuality 15.2 (May 2007) Gay Liberation Dossier: Selections from Out of the Closets: Voices of Gay Liberation, ed. Karla Jay and Allen Young (1972): Martha Shelley, “Gay is Good”; Rita Mae Brown, “Take a Lesbian to Lunch” Carl Whitman, “A Gay Manifesto.” Harvey Milk, “The Hope Speech” (1977)
Fawaz 9 Week 16: Life During Wartime: The Cultural Politics of the AIDS Epidemic Tuesday, May 5th Screening: Angels in America Parts I & II (Nichols, 2004) Deborah Gould, “The Pleasures and Intensities of Activism,” from Moving Politics: Emotion and ACT UP’s Fight Against AIDS (2010) In-class case study: Gran Fury’s visual art for ACT UP. **Final Paper Due Monday May 11th by Noon**
