Fall 2019  |  AMST 3252W Section 001: American Popular Culture and Politics: 1900 to 1940 (17266)

Instructor(s)
Class Component:
Lecture
Credits:
4 Credits
Grading Basis:
Student Option
Instructor Consent:
No Special Consent Required
Instruction Mode:
In Person Term Based
Class Attributes:
UMNTC Liberal Education Requirement
Times and Locations:
Regular Academic Session
 
09/03/2019 - 12/11/2019
Mon, Wed 11:15AM - 12:30PM
UMTC, East Bank
Nicholson Hall 125
Enrollment Status:
Open (73 of 100 seats filled)
Course Catalog Description:
Historical analysis of how popular arts represent issues of gender, race, consumerism, and citizenship. How popular artists define boundaries of citizenship and public life: inclusions/exclusions in polity and national identity. How popular arts reinforce/alter political ideologies.
Class Description:
Historical analysis of how popular arts represent issues of gender, race, consumerism, and citizenship. How popular artists define boundaries of citizenship and public life: inclusions/exclusions in polity and national identity. How popular arts reinforce/alter political ideologies.

This writing-intensive course explores some of the social and cultural shifts that emerged in the U.S. at the turn of the twentieth century following a series of wars (particularly the Mexican-American War, the Civil War, wars with Native Americans, the Spanish-American War, and the Philippine-American War) and in response to new technologies that developed out of the Industrial Revolution during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Focusing on a variety of popular cultural forms (including world's fairs, film, urban night life, fiction, radio, music, and fashion) nascent during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, we will explore the ways in which culture and politics have informed one another across space and over time. We will specifically discuss how questions of race, class, gender, and sexuality--among other vectors of identity--shaped competing definitions of American national identity during this period and how various groups sought to contest such boundaries. Moreover, we will analyze the multiple meanings of the "popular" and its relation to "high" culture in order to lay bare the politics of inclusion and exclusion central to the U.S. national project. While recognizing the pleasures of popular culture, this course aims to highlight the power of popular culture as well as culture more broadly to transform the world in which we live.

AmSt 3252W is designed to introduce students to the discipline of history by examining the human past through the study of the relationship between popular culture and politics in American history from l900 to l940. Unlike most explorations of the popular arts, this course will focus on the way the mass media has defined what it means to be a citizen and an American, who is included and excluded, and how the popular arts have reflected and created competitive visions of citizenship over time, particularly the first four decades of the twentieth century when American urban culture was taking shape. We will pay particular attention to the way that the early definitions of the nation excluded and marginalised women and minorities, but that by the 1930s the popular arts as well as politics began to forge a more inclusive view of the American citizenship. The course traces the development of ethical ideas as they are presented in the popular culture and how those ideas shape individual citizens¿ approach to civic life.

This examination will also provide evidence for evaluating the competing historical interpretations of the twentieth century and developments in the popular arts by major scholars. The era from l900 to l940 provides an ideal time period for exploring these issues, for it was over that period that a nationality rooted in Anglo-Saxon superiority and Victorian morality gave way to a mass art that still guides political behaviour - one grounded in abundance and including in principle - if not in fact - racial minorities, women and a new youth culture.

The course focuses on historical change in the United States within the contexts of the Progressive Era, the moral revolutions of the 1920s, and the transformations of the Great Depression in the 1930s. Through the reading of major scholarly works and exercises in which students analyze primary documents, films, and other historical materials and artifacts, the course introduces and critically assesses methods and concepts employed by cultural historians in producing historical knowledge about major political and cultural transformations in American history, and debates in the field. Students use primary sources such as films, reviews, editorials, music and lyrics in order to develop the necessary skills for making meaning out of historical materials and developing their own interpretations. In these exercises they will learn to recognize the value as well as the limitations of particular types of documents and materials. The course challenges students to consider how the questions we ask about the past, and the sources and documents available to scholars, shape our knowledge of American history and the role of the popular arts in political and social transformations.

Each class session poses a set of historical questions concerning the relationship between popular culture and politics and how that relationship changes over time. Several lectures are explicitly historiographic, focusing on the evolution of scholarly knowledge and interpretation of the topic at hand. These lectures are particularly useful in terms of the subject matter of the course, because until recently historians did not examine the popular arts as central to understanding historical change. During one class session every week, students are given a hands-on experience posing historical questions and analyzing primary sources. Meeting in small groups to discuss films, documents, novels, and other cultural sources, students then write brief papers analyzing the sources. They also write a term drawing on historical documents and interviews. Successful completion of this assignment requires posing questions, evaluating evidence, and writing a well-documented interpretation.

The course is organized chronologically with an emphasis on change over time. The first section examines the relationship between popular art, ethics, and citizenship. The next section examines the transformation of ideas about the nation from the nineteenth century, when ideas of Anglo-Saxon hegemony prevailed, to a more heterogeneous notion of the citizenry that developed as a result of immigration and urbanization. These changing ideas are both created and reflected in the popular culture. The course then traces major transformations of the Progressive Era, when reform shaped new ideas about ethical citizenship, and into the 1920s, where privatization and consumerism overshadowed the notion of civic ethics and the common good. The final section of the course examines the impact of the Great Depression on American popular culture, and how hard times and the coming of war shaped new ethical perspectives that infused public life.
Who Should Take This Class?:
Undergraduates
Learning Objectives:
Use conceptual tools or a theoretical framework to analyze a social problem or a cultural object. Conducting Original Research (e.g., archival research, life history interviews, fieldwork, etc.); development of a Research paper (rigorous scholarly essay based on original research); critical commentary on readings, lecture material, film or other classroom material; and critical thinking (build a framework of knowledge within the major themes of the course; critique traditional conceptualizations about the nation and myths of the nation; foster an environment promoting creativity and the free exchange of ideas).
Grading:
Student Option
Exam Format:
Research paper, analytic paper quizzes, essay exams, and oral presentation.
Class Format:
Discussion; Lecture
Workload:
70 Pages Reading Per Week
12-15 Pages Writing Per Term
1 Exam(s)
3 Paper(s)
Textbooks:
https://bookstores.umn.edu/course-lookup/17266/1199
Instructor Supplied Information Last Updated:
8 July 2019

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