Julia Mickenberg

Same as History 356K. Traces the development of American culture and society from the end of the Civil War to the present. Major themes include racial conflict, pluralism, religion, urban development and reform, modernism, government centralization, cultural radicalism, and the rebirth of conservatism. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Prerequisite: Upper-division standing.

Note: Graduate standing required. Students also required to attend undergraduate lectures, AMS 356

Note: Graduate standing required. Students also required to attend undergraduate lectures, AMS 356

Please check back for updates.

This class considers the possibilities of life writing (with a focus on biography but also encompassing autobiography, memoir, and related genres) as a window into history, culture, society, and politics as they relate to subjectivity, intimate relations, sexuality, and affect. Covering a range of formal possibilities and disciplinary approaches as well as theoretical perspectives, and emphasizing writings by women and feminist theory, the class will culminate in either a critically-informed comparison of several (auto)biographical texts or the creation of a work that uses a biographical or autobiographical frame for exploration of issues that extend well beyond the individual or individuals in question.

Possible texts[*]

1. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1912 (1991)
2. Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861)
3. Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, Wild Unrest: Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the Making of The Yellow Wallpaper (2012)
4. Saidiya Hartman, Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval (2018)
5. Gertrude Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933)
6. Erik Erikson, Young Man Luther: A Study in Psychoanalysis and History (1958)
7. Norman Mailer, Marilyn: A Biography (1973)
8. Lauren Redniss, Radioactive: A Tale of Love and Fallout (2015)
9. Rebecca Skoot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2011)
10. David Hadju, Positively Fourth Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez, and Richard Fariña (2011) or Patty Smith, Just Kids (2008)
11. Robert Caro, Path to Power: The Years of Lyndon    Johnson (2011)
12. Ruth Behar, Translated Woman (1993)
13. Hermione Lee, Biography: A Very Short Introduction (2009)
14. Laura Marcus, Auto/biographical Discourses (1999)

Additional readings on Canvas or in packet

[*] Books may not be read in full, and final text selections t.b.a.—if you are considering registering for the class and have strong feelings about the reading list, please feel free to get in touch with me to offer your input (mickenberg@austin.utexas.edu)

The Signature Course (UGS 302 and 303) introduces first-year students to the university’s academic community through the exploration of new interests. The Signature Course is your opportunity to engage in college-level thinking and learning.

Description

Concentrating on the twentieth century but beginning with eighteenth and nineteenth-century precedents and concluding with our contemporary moment, this course will look at women’s radical activism and traditions of reform through the lenses of American Studies and feminist ethics. Topics covered will include women’s challenges to slavery and lynching; campaigns for female education and women’s suffrage; women’s role in socialist and communist movements, the settlement house movement, labor activism, literary/aesthetic radicalism as it relates to political radicalism; the peace movement, and ethnic nationalism; the “waves” of women’s liberation; and intersectionality and the state of contemporary feminism. Throughout, we will use both women’s own words, as well as scholarship, films, and other elements of the documentary record to reflect upon the ways in which women’s radical and reform movements of the past provide ethical and moral frameworks for making choices in the present. Students will actively contribute to course content through research and presentations to the class, and through informed participation in class discussions.

Requirements

1. Informed participation in class discussions.
2. Semi-weekly short reflection papers, one of which will be revised and expanded for a letter grade
3. Presentation, based on research, supplementing the reading for a particular week.
4. Team research project requiring primary research and engagement with relevant scholarship.

Probable Texts

Women’s America: Refocusing the Past, ed. Linda K. Kerber and Jane Sherron De Hart (sixth edition)

Sheila Rowbotham, Dreamers of a New Day: Women Who Invented the Twentieth Century

Emma Goldman, Anarchism and Other Essays

Tillie Olsen, Yonnondio

Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzulua, This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color

Jessa Crispin, Why I am Not a Feminist: A Feminist Manifesto

Course description

This course will survey American cultural history from the Civil War to the present, emphasizing the variety of economic, political, demographic, and social forces that have shaped American cultural production; the variety of media and forms in which American culture is expressed; and the impact of race, class, region, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and religion on American identity and cultural expression. We will also consider American culture in a global context, both in terms of how the U.S. has been shaped by foreign influences and in terms of American culture’s impact abroad. The course, divided into sections on “Incorporation,” “Consolidation,” and “Unraveling” will emphasize the ongoing tension between structure and agency in American culture, or struggles between the dominant culture and various subcultures and individuals who challenge and redefine “American” culture and its norms, mores, and values.

Required Texts and Materials (available at UT Co-op):

Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward (Broadview Press edition)

Claude McKay, Home to Harlem

Miné Okubo, Citizen 13660

Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era (revised and updated edition)

Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal

Description:

This course is designed to give incoming students the opportunity to reflect upon colleges and universities as institutions, imagined places, and sites of controversy in American culture. We will discuss the history and purposes of the university; fictional depictions of college life in literature and film; debates surrounding such topics as fraternities, sports and alcohol; the relationship between struggles for social justice and university curricula; and the tensions between ideals of disinterested learning and the pressures of the marketplace. Finally, we’ll study the ways in which larger issues in higher education have played out, and continue to play out, at the University of Texas.

Texts:

Andrew Delbanco, College: What it is, Was, and Should Be


Zadie Smith, On Beauty

Doug Rossinow, The Politics of Authenticity

Additional readings on-line or in packet

Films (excerpts):

The Freshman

Animal House

Berkeley in the Sixties

When I Rise

Requirements:

Paper 1: Reflective assignment (initial assignment + end-of-semester revision)—10%

Paper 2: Fictions and realities of college—20%

Paper 3: Ethnography exploring college life today 15%

Primary source/historical context presentation--10%

Paper 4: Final group research project (includes written work, collaboration, and presentation)—25%

Participation: Includes quizzes, online and in-class discussion: 20%

About the Professor:
Julia Mickenberg has been teaching in UT’s Department of American Studies since 2001. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota and an A.B. from Brown University. She’s written or edited several prize-winning books dealing with children’s literature and cultural politics, and recently completed a book about Russia in the American feminist imagination from 1905-1945. Her research has been supported by numerous grants and fellowships, including awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Spencer Foundation, and the Smithsonian Institution. For fun, in addition to reading novels and watching movies about college, she does yoga, runs, and goes on adventures with her husband, two daughters, and their frisky yellow lab, Stanley.

There has been a great deal of attention focused on higher education in recent years: why is college so expensive? What’s the point of college anyway? Should taxpayers support the pursuit of “intellectual curiosity?” As texts and learning itself become increasingly digitized, will actual classrooms and libraries become relics of the past? Are universities hotbeds of racism, drunkenness, and sexual assault? Or are they, on the other hand, plagued by political correctness and hotbeds of protest? What is the role of colleges and universities in struggles for social justice? And perhaps the biggest question of all: how can colleges and universities best prepare young people—indeed, all kinds of people—for  the future? The fact is that most of these questions can be traced to debates and circumstances that have been part of the higher education landscape for years. This experimental and experiential course examines the university in American life, past and present, as a means for imagining its possible futures.

Over the past year or so, faculty and administrators from around the university have been engaged in discussions about how we might best break down barriers at UT: barriers between research and teaching; between disciplines and colleges; between faculty, students, and the wider community. This course is a prototype for the type of research-based learning community that we hope to foster through a new Innovation Center on campus. Cross-listed in the College of Education and the College of Liberal Arts, and working in collaboration with another course in the Department of Design, the class will include undergraduates and graduate students from a range of different disciplines. The intent is to involve students in original, collaborative research on the role of colleges and universities in American life, past and present. It will also bring students into dialogue with other members of the university community and beyond through guest speakers, symposia, and a culminating conference during which class members will present their research to the public. Students will be active players in all aspects of the course.

Likely course texts:

Andrew Delbanco, College: What it Is, Was, and Should Be

Zadie Smith, On Beauty

Boren, M.E. (2001). Student resistance: A history of the unruly subject.

Lucas, C.J. (2006). American higher education: A history (2nd ed .)

Additional readings as assigned

Requirements:

Active participation

Two short papers

Research paper

Reading/research diary

Public presentation

Flag(s): Cultural Diversity

Description

This course will survey American cultural history from the Civil War to the present, emphasizing the variety of economic, political, demographic, and social forces that have shaped American cultural production; the variety of media and forms in which American culture is expressed (including literature, painting, photography, dance, architecture, film, advertising, childrearing practices, education, political speeches, architecture and the environment, music, fashion, theater and performance, scientific thought, athletics, political demonstrations, trials, museums, foodways, fairs and exhibitions); and the impact of race, class, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and religion on American cultural expression. Finally, we will consider the trajectory of American cultural history in terms of the relationship between the United States and the rest of the world, examining how Americans have imported traditions from other countries and how the United States has shaped broader processes globalization.

Requirements

Students are expected to attend class regularly and to complete all assigned readings. There will be three major exams, and short quizzes most days based on the assigned reading.

Possible Texts

Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward

Nella Larsen, Quicksand

Federal Theater Project, Triple A Plowed Under

Mine Okubo, Citizen 13660

Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era

Luis Valdez,Early Works: Actos, Bernabe, and Pensamiento

Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal

Flag(s): Writing, Independent Inquiry

Description

This course will trace the history of American childhood through children’s literature. Using selected texts from the colonial era to the present, we will use children's texts as lenses for understanding American culture and American cultural history more generally. Understanding how childhood and children’s literature have changed over time tells us a great deal about the ways in which the broader culture and society have evolved. It is easy to take children’s literature for granted: we’ve all read it, and, indeed, we all read it as kids. What could be simpler, more obvious, or less worthy of critical examination? This class will ask students to think critically about children's literature and to think about how these texts are informed by and also contribute to a broader cultural context.

Requirements

1. Participation (25%): Includes: attendance, active and informed participation in class discussions, two presentations, in-class writing and short (one page) out of class assignments

2. Two 4-5 page papers (20% each)

3. One 8-10 page research paper (35%)

Possible Texts

Ann Scott MacLeod, American Childhood: Essays on Children’s Literature of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Steve Mintz, Huck’s Raft: A History of American Childhood

Louisa May Alcott, Little Women(Norton Critical Edition)

Dr. Seuss, The Sneetches and Other Stories

Doris Gates, Blue Willow

Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are

Louise Fitzhugh, Harriet the Spy

Alice Childress, A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ But a Sandwich

Jean Luen Yang, American Born Chinese

Additional packet of readings

Same as History 356K. Traces the development of American culture and society from the end of the Civil War to the present. Major themes include racial conflict, pluralism, religion, urban development and reform, modernism, government centralization, cultural radicalism, and the rebirth of conservatism. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Prerequisite: Upper-division standing.

Note: Graduate standing required. Students also required to attend undergraduate lectures, AMS 356

This course looks at Americans living abroad for political reasons from the 1920s-1950s: we will consider both individuals and groups who have visited and settled in other countries in search of a way of life that they believe will be more deeply fulfilling than life in the United States, or who were no longer able to live in the United States because of their political circumstances. The class will take into account a variety of primary and secondary sources, focusing on several different countries at various moments in the twentieth century, including France, the Soviet Union, and Mexico. We will explore the ways in which foreign experiences affected individuals’ perspective on the United States, social critiques of the U.S. that precipitated or resulted from expatriation, the ways in which foreigners responded to Americans in their midst, and Americans’ experiences of other nations. The course will also attempt comparisons across historical eras and geographical expanses. Within these dynamics, we will give special attention to the experiences of African Americans, Jews, and women, who experienced marginalization from the American mainstream and looked beyond U.S. borders for models of citizenship and selfhood.

Requirements

Regular attendance and informed participation; a reading journal; a comparative essay, and a group research project with formal presentation.

Possible Texts

Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

Myra Page, Moscow Yankee

Melanie Ann Herzog, Elizabeth Catlett

Malcolm Cowley, Exile’s Return

Brooke L. Blower, Becoming Americans in Paris

Kate Baldwin, Beyond the Color Line and the Iron Curtain: Reading Encounters Between Black and Red

Rebecca Schreiber, Cold War Exiles in Mexico

Tyler Stovall, Paris Noir: African Americans in the City of Light

Additional readings on Blackboard or in packet

Upper-division standing required. Students may not enroll in more than two AMS 370 courses in one semester.

Flag(s): Writing, Cultural Diversity, Global Cultures

T C 302 • College And Controversy

Julia Mickenberg

College and Controversy: The Histories, Purposes and Cultures of American Universities

Description:

This course is designed to give incoming students the opportunity to reflect upon colleges and universities as institutions, imagined places, and sites of controversy in American culture. We will discuss the history and purposes of the university; fictional depictions of college life in literature and film; debates surrounding such topics as fraternities, sports and alcohol; the relationship between struggles for social justice and university curricula; and the tensions between ideals of disinterested learning and the pressures of the marketplace. Finally, we’ll study the ways in which larger issues in higher education have played out, and continue to play out, at the University of Texas.

Probable Texts:

 Andrew Delbanco, College: What it is, Was, and Should Be

 Zadie Smith, On Beauty

 Charles Clotfelter, Big-Time Sports in American Universities

 Professor X, In the Basement of the Ivory Tower: The Truth About College

 Additional readings on-line or in packet

Films:

 The Freshman

 Animal House

 Berkeley in the Sixties

 When I Rise

Requirements:

 Paper 1: The purpose of college/goals for college (initial assignment + end-of-semester revision)—20%

 Paper 2: Discussion of fictional representations of College—20%

 Paper 3: Ethnography and critical discussion assignment 20%

 Paper 4: Final group research project (includes written work, collaboration, and presentation)—25%

 Participation: Includes quizzes, online and in-class discussion: 15%

About the Professor:

Julia Mickenberg has been teaching in UT’s Department of American Studies since 2001. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota and an A.B. from Brown University. She’s written or edited several prize-winning books dealing with children’s literature and cultural politics, and is currently writing a book about Russia in the American feminist imagination from 1905-1945. Her research has been supported by numerous grants and fellowships, including awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Spencer Foundation, and the Smithsonian Institution. For fun, in addition to reading novels and watching movies about college, she does yoga, runs, and goes on adventures with her husband, two daughters, and their frisky yellow lab, Stanley.

This course will survey American cultural history from the Civil War to the present, emphasizing the variety of economic, political, demographic, and social forces that have shaped American cultural production; the variety of media and forms in which American culture is expressed (including literature, painting, photography, dance, architecture, film, advertising, childrearing practices, education, political speeches, architecture and the environment, music, fashion, theater and performance, scientific thought, athletics, political demonstrations, trials, museums, foodways, fairs and exhibitions); and the impact of race, class, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and religion on American cultural expression. Finally, we will consider the trajectory of American cultural history in terms of the relationship between the United States and the rest of the world, examining how Americans have imported traditions from other countries and how the United States has shaped broader processes globalization.

Requirements

Students are expected to attend class regularly and to complete all assigned readings. There will be three major exams, and short quizzes most days based on the assigned reading.

Possible Texts

Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward

Nella Larsen, Quicksand

Federal Theater Project, Triple A Plowed Under

Mine Okubo, Citizen 13660

Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era

Luis Valdez,Early Works: Actos, Bernabe, and Pensamiento

Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal

Upper-division standing required.  Partially fulfills legislative requirement in American History.

Flag(s): Cultural Diversity

Note: Graduate standing required. Students also required to attend undergraduate lectures, AMS 356

In this class we will explore the major social movements and the political, cultural and intellectual developments of the 1960s, as well as their origins in the 1950s and earlier.  These include post-war liberalism; the Great Society and the War on Poverty; the New Left; the Free Speech Movement; the peace movement; the Civil Rights movement; nationalist and liberation movements among African Americans, Chicanos, Asian Americans, American Indians, gays and lesbians, and women; the youth movement and counterculture; the conservative movement; and the environmental movement.  Throughout, we shall seek to learn not only what happened, but also why it happened; moreover, as members of a university community, we will be attentive to the question of how political and social activity in the 1960s, activity inspired largely by young people in and around universities, has affected our lives today and our relationship to politics and civic life.

In the 1960s spirit of “participatory democracy” this class will be run as something of a cooperative enterprise.  Rather than working on the model of expert teacher and student receptacles-of-knowledge, as students you will be actively contributing to the course content through your own research and presentations to the class.  In other words, your active participation is essential to the success of the course.  If you were hoping for a more passive learning experience, you should look elsewhere.

Requirements

Formal presentation

Two 4-6 page papers

One eight-to-ten page paper requiring research and revision

Regular informed participation in on-line blackboard discussion and in-class discussion

Regular attendance is also mandatory

Possible Texts

Andrew Jameson and Ron Eyerman, Seeds of the Sixties

Maurice Isserman and Michael Kazin, America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s

Alexander Bloom and Wini Breines, Takin’ It To the Streets: A Sixties Reader

Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

Upper-division standing required. Students may not enroll in more than two AMS 370 courses in one semester.

Flag(s): Writing, Cultural Diversity

College and Controversy: The Histories, Purposes and Cultures of American Universities

Description:

This course is designed to give incoming students the opportunity to reflect upon colleges and universities as institutions, imagined places, and sites of controversy in American culture. We will discuss the history and purposes of the university; fictional depictions of college life in literature and film; debates surrounding such topics as fraternities, sports and alcohol; the relationship between struggles for social justice and university curricula; and the tensions between ideals of disinterested learning and the pressures of the marketplace. Finally, we’ll study the ways in which larger issues in higher education have played out, and continue to play out, at the University of Texas.

Texts:

Delbanco, College: What it is, Was, and Should Be

Zadie Smith, On Beauty

Murray Sperber, Beer and Circus: How Big-Time College Sports is Crippling Undergraduate Education

Christopher Newfield, Unmaking the Public University: The Forty Year Assault on the Middle Class

Additional readings on-line or in packet

Films:

The Freshman

Animal House

Berkeley in the Sixties

When I Rise

Requirements:

Paper 1: The purpose of college/goals for college—20%

Paper 2: Discussion of fictional representations of College—20%

Paper 3: Ethnography and critical discussion assignment 20%

Paper 4: Final group research project (includes written work, collaboration, and presentation)—25%

Participation: Includes quizzes, online and in-class discussion: 15%

About the Professor:

Julia Mickenberg has been teaching in UT’s Department of American Studies since 2001. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota and an A.B. from Brown University. She’s written or edited several prize-winning books dealing with children’s literature and cultural politics, and is currently writing a book about Russia in the American feminist imagination from 1905-1945. Her research has been supported by numerous grants and fellowships, including awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Spencer Foundation, and the Smithsonian Institution. For fun, in addition to reading novels and watching movies about college, she does yoga, runs, and goes on adventures with her husband, two daughters, and their frisky yellow lab, Stanley.

This course will trace the history of American childhood through children’s literature. Using selected texts from the colonial era to the present, we will use children's texts as lenses for understanding American culture and American cultural history more generally. Understanding how childhood and children’s literature have changed over time tells us a great deal about the ways in which the broader culture and society have evolved. It is easy to take children’s literature for granted: we’ve all read it, and, indeed, we all read it as kids. What could be simpler, more obvious, or less worthy of critical examination? This class will ask students to think critically about children's literature and to think about how these texts are informed by and also contribute to a broader cultural context.

Requirements

1. Participation (25%): Includes: attendance, active and informed participation in class discussions, two presentations, in-class writing and short (one page) out of class assignments

2. Two 4-5 page papers (20% each)

3. One 8-10 page research paper (35%)

Possible Texts

Ann Scott MacLeod, American Childhood: Essays on Children’s Literature of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Steve Mintz, Huck’s Raft: A History of American Childhood

Louisa May Alcott, Little Women (Norton Critical Edition)

Dr. Seuss, The Sneetches and Other Stories

Doris Gates, Blue Willow

Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are

Louise Fitzhugh, Harriet the Spy

Alice Childress, A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ But a Sandwich

Jean Luen Yang, American Born Chinese

Additional packet of readings

Upper-division standing required.  Students may not enroll in more than two AMS 370 courses in one semester.

Flag(s): Writing, Cultural Diversity

What does it mean to study culture through the lens of childhood? This course will focus on scholarship of a historical and/or literary bent, but also delve into sociology, politics, media studies, psychology, visual culture, performance studies, material culture, and other fields.  Drawing on a range of recent scholarship but also giving some attention to the development of this relatively young field, we consider such issues as the metaphorical configuration of the United States as an “infant nation” and the implications of this both for children and for nation-building; the late 19th and early twentieth centuries as the “age of the child”; psychoanalysis and children’s literature; the image of the child in visual culture; race, gender, and sexuality as experienced and constructed through children and childhood; the cultural implications of children’s clothing and material culture; modernism and the rise of the picture book for children; the history of American summer camps; Walt Disney, childrearing, and American national identity; and the politics of childhood. Students will write short response papers and blackboard postings, lead one discussion, present on one supplemental text and write a short review of it and write a final paper on a topic of their choosing 

Requirements

Participation (class discussion, response papers, blackboard postings): 25%

Leading discussion: 10%

Presentation and review of supplemental text: 15%

Final paper: 50%

Possible Texts

Kenneth Kidd Freud in Oz: At the Intersections of Psychoanalysis and Children’s Literature

Nicholas Sammond, Babes in Tomorrowland: Walt Disney and the Making of the American Child, 1930-1960

Nathalie op de Beeck, Suspended Animation: Children’s Picture Books and the Fairy Tale of Modernity

Robin Bernstein, Racial Innocence: Performing Childhood and Race from Uncle Tom’s Cabin to the New Negro Movement

Daniel Thomas Cook, The Commodification of Childhood

Katherine Capshaw-Smith, Children’s Literature of the Harlem Renaissance

Caroline Levander, Cradle of Liberty: Race, the Child, and National Belonging from Thomas Jefferson to W.E.B. DuBois

Margaret Higonnet, Pictures of Innocence: This History and Crisis of Ideal Childhood

Anne Arnett Ferguson, Bad Boys: Public Schools in the Making of Black Masculinity

Sarah Chinn, Inventing Modern Adolescence

Kathryn Bond Stockton, The Queer Child, or Growing Sideways in the Twentieth Century

Description

This course will survey American cultural history from the Civil War to the present, emphasizing the variety of economic, political, demographic, and social forces that have shaped American cultural production; the variety of media and forms in which American culture is expressed (including literature, painting, photography, dance, architecture, film, advertising, childrearing practices, education, political speeches, architecture and the environment, music, fashion, theater and performance, scientific thought, athletics, political demonstrations, trials, museums, foodways, fairs and exhibitions); and the impact of race, class, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and religion on American cultural expression. Finally, we will consider the trajectory of American cultural history in terms of the relationship between the United States and the rest of the world, both in terms of how Americans have imported traditions from other countries and in terms of how the U.S. has shaped broader processes globalization.

Requirements

Students are expected to attend class regularly and to complete all assigned readings. There will be three major exams, and short quizzes most days based on the assigned reading.

Possible Texts

Anzia Yezierska, Bread Givers 

Bruce Barton, The Man Nobody Knows

Federal Theater Project, Triple A Plowed Under

Mine Okubo, Citizen 13660

Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era

Van Gosse, The Movements of the New Left: 1950-1975

Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal

Upper-division standing required.  Partially fulfills legislative requirement in American History.

Flag(s): Cultural Diversity

Description:

This course looks at Americans living abroad for political reasons from the 1920s-1950s: we will consider both individuals and groups who have visited and settled in other countries in search of a way of life that they believe will be more deeply fulfilling than life in the United States, or who were no longer able to live in the United States because of their political circumstances. The class will take into account a variety of primary and secondary sources, focusing on several different countries at various moments in the twentieth century, including France, the Soviet Union, and Mexico. We will explore the ways in which foreign experiences affected individuals’ perspective on the United States, social critiques of the U.S. that precipitated or resulted from expatriation, the ways in which foreigners responded to Americans in their midst, and Americans’ experiences of other nations. The course will also attempt comparisons across historical eras and geographical expanses. Within these dynamics, we will give special attention to the experiences of African Americans, Jews, and women, who experienced marginalization from the American mainstream and looked beyond U.S. borders for models of citizenship and selfhood. Assignments include a reading journal, close reading of a primary source in a social and historical context, a comparative essay, and a research paper, as well as a formal presentation.

Possible Texts:

Vilem Flusser, Exile and Creativity

Edward Said, Reflections on Exile

Nancy L. Green, Expatriation, Expatriates, and Expats: The American Transformation of a Concept

George Lamming, The Pleasures of Exile

Malcolm Cowley, Exile’s Return

Brooke L. Blower, Becoming Americans in Paris

Paul Hollander, Political Pilgrims: Western Intellectuals in Search of the Good Society

Langston Hughes, I Wonder as I Wander

Katherine Ann Porter, Violetta the Virgin

Dorothy West, A Room in Red Square

Emma Goldman, My Disillusionment With Russia

Kate Baldwin, Beyond the Color Line and the Iron Curtain: Reading Encounters Between Black and Red

Daniel Soyer, Back to the Future: American Jews Visit the Soviet Union

Arthur Koestler, ed. The God That Failed or Darkness at Noon

José Limon, American Encounters: Greater Mexico, the United States, and the Erotics of Culture

Rebecca Schreiber, Cold War Exiles in Mexico

Gordon Kahn, A Long Way from Home

Ella Winter, Red Virtue

Tyler Stovall, Paris Noir: African Americans in the City of Light 

Films: Paris Was a Woman; The Circus; Tina in Mexico; The Brave One

Upper-division standing required. Students may not enroll in more than two AMS 370 courses in one semester.

Flag(s): Writing, Global Cultures

This goal of this course is to provide you with practical tools for teaching your own college-level course in American Studies and related fields, and to introduce you to some of the larger issues around teaching in higher education. Topics covered will include: course development and design; pedagogical methods; creating effective assignments; leading discussion; lecturing; using writing as a teaching tool; testing and evaluation; integrating technology; guiding student research; advising and mentoring; balancing teaching and research; and motivating students’ learning. Throughout the course we will reflect upon the qualities of good teaching, and, in particular, good teaching of interdisciplinary material.

Requirements1.    Students will design two courses: First, an AMS 311S course that assumes a class of 30 students or fewer, that focuses on a topic of your choosing, and that makes writing a central component of the course. Second, an Introduction to American Studies course that is geared to a class of 100 students or more. Both syllabi should be posted on blackboard by Tuesday, May 3 for discussion at our final class meeting on Thursday, May 5.2.    Interview an American Studies faculty member about teaching and observe at least one of that professor’s undergraduate classes. Also (with permission) attend one class taught by a member of the Academy of Distinguished Teachers.3.    Microteaching: Prepare one 30 minute lecture, which we will videotape and go over. Plan to invite several guests.4.    Lead class discussion of readings for one hour of 3-hour period (sign up first class period)5.     Formulate and refine a philosophy of teaching6.    Smaller assignments throughout the semester (see below)7.    Regular attendance and informed participation in class discussionPossible TextsPeter Filene, The Joy of Teaching: A Practical Guide for New College InstructorsPacket of Additional materials from Speedway CopiesBarbara Gross Davis, Tools for Teaching (available in co-op or as e-book)John C. Bean, Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the ClassroomRecommended:Thomas A. Angelo and K. Patricia Cross, Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College TeachersMcKeachie’s Teaching Tips: Strategies, Research, and Theory for College and University Teachers. Useful on-line resources:UT Center for Teaching and Learninghttp://www.utexas.edu/academic/ctl/

Description

This course will survey American cultural history from the Civil War to the present, emphasizing the variety of economic, political, demographic, and social forces that have shaped American cultural production; the variety of media and forms in which American culture is expressed (including literature, painting, photography, dance, architecture, film, advertising, childrearing practices, education, political speeches, architecture and the environment, music, fashion, theater and performance, scientific thought, athletics, political demonstrations, trials, museums, foodways, fairs and exhibitions); and the impact of race, class, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and religion on American cultural expression. Finally, we will consider the trajectory of American cultural history in terms of the relationship between the United States and the rest of the world, both in terms of how Americans have imported traditions from other countries and in terms of how the U.S. has shaped broader processes globalization.

Requirements

Students are expected to attend class regularly and to complete all assigned readings. There will be three major exams, and short quizzes most days based on the assigned reading.

Possible Texts

Anzia Yezierska, Bread Givers

Bruce Barton, The Man Nobody Knows

Federal Theater Project, Triple A Plowed Under

Mine Okubo, Citizen 13660 

Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era

Van Gosse, The Movements of the New Left: 1950-1975  

Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal

Flag(s): Cultural Diversity

Upper-division standing required.  Partially fulfills legislative requirement in American History.

Description

                  In this class we will explore the major social movements and the political, cultural and intellectual developments of the 1960s, as well as their origins in the 1950s and earlier.  These include post-war liberalism; the Great Society and the War on Poverty; the New Left; the Free Speech Movement; the peace movement; the Civil Rights movement; nationalist and liberation movements among African Americans, Chicanos, Asian Americans, American Indians, gays and lesbians, and women; the youth movement and counterculture; the conservative movement; and the environmental movement.  Throughout, we shall seek to learn not only what happened, but also why it happened; moreover, as members of a university community, we will be attentive to the question of how political and social activity in the 1960s, activity inspired largely by young people in and around universities, has affected our lives today and our relationship to politics and civic life.

                  In the 1960s spirit of “participatory democracy” this class will be run as something of a cooperative enterprise.  Rather than working on the model of expert teacher and student receptacles-of-knowledge, as students you will be actively contributing to the course content through your own research and presentations to the class.  In other words, your active participation is essential to the success of the course.  If you were hoping for a more passive learning experience, you should look elsewhere.

Requirements

Formal presentation

Two 4-6 page papers

One eight-to-ten page paper requiring research and revision

Regular informed participation in on-line blackboard discussion and in-class discussion

Regular attendance is also mandatory

Possible Texts

Andrew Jameson and Ron Eyerman, Seeds of the Sixties

Maurice Isserman and Michael Kazin, America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s

Alexander Bloom and Wini Breines, Takin’ It To the Streets: A Sixties Reader

B.F. Skinner, Walden Two

Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Ice

Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

Doug Rossinow, The Politics of Authenticity

Flag(s): Writing, Cultural Diversity

Upper-division standing required. Students may not enroll in more than two AMS 370 courses in one semester.

Same as History 356K. Traces the development of American culture and society from the end of the Civil War to the present. Major themes include racial conflict, pluralism, religion, urban development and reform, modernism, government centralization, cultural radicalism, and the rebirth of conservatism. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Prerequisite: Upper-division standing.

Same as History 356K. Traces the development of American culture and society from the end of the Civil War to the present. Major themes include racial conflict, pluralism, religion, urban development and reform, modernism, government centralization, cultural radicalism, and the rebirth of conservatism. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Prerequisite: Upper-division standing.

Note: Graduate standing required. Students also required to attend undergraduate lectures, AMS 356

Graduate standing required. Permission from instructor required.

Please check back for updates.

Same as History 356K. Traces the development of American culture and society from the end of the Civil War to the present. Major themes include racial conflict, pluralism, religion, urban development and reform, modernism, government centralization, cultural radicalism, and the rebirth of conservatism. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Prerequisite: Upper-division standing.

Same as History 356K. Traces the development of American culture and society from the end of the Civil War to the present. Major themes include racial conflict, pluralism, religion, urban development and reform, modernism, government centralization, cultural radicalism, and the rebirth of conservatism. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Prerequisite: Upper-division standing.

This class introduces students to the field of American Studies. The guiding objective of the class is to use interdisciplinary lenses – such as music, dance, material culture, and urban studies – to develop a more complex understanding of American culture. In this class, we will investigate select aspects of American culture using various methodological approaches. The course outline follows a semi-linear pattern in history, but is hardly comprehensive. We will look broadly at the tensions between individual identity formation and the many social constructions that operate in American culture. The class is loosely tied around the connection, or disconnection, of individuals with mass culture (music, in particular, but also cars, corporations, television, and even fashion).

This class introduces students to the field of American Studies. The guiding objective of the class is to use interdisciplinary lenses – such as music, dance, material culture, and urban studies – to develop a more complex understanding of American culture. In this class, we will investigate select aspects of American culture using various methodological approaches. The course outline follows a semi-linear pattern in history, but is hardly comprehensive. We will look broadly at the tensions between individual identity formation and the many social constructions that operate in American culture. The class is loosely tied around the connection, or disconnection, of individuals with mass culture (music, in particular, but also cars, corporations, television, and even fashion).

WGS 394: Graduate Conference Course in Women's and Gender Studies.

Individual directed readings and conferences on selected problems or topics in women's and gender studies.

The Conference Course allows  graduate students to work individually with select faculty on specific research problems.  The student is responsible for approaching faculty and designing a semester's work.

The Conference Course is restricted.  The WGS 394 Approval Form must be turned into the CWGS office with faculty signatures before students may register for the WGS 394 Conference Course.

https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/cwgs/courses/conference.php

Please check back for updates.

This class introduces students to the field of American Studies. The guiding objective of the class is to use interdisciplinary lenses – such as music, dance, material culture, and urban studies – to develop a more complex understanding of American culture. In this class, we will investigate select aspects of American culture using various methodological approaches. The course outline follows a semi-linear pattern in history, but is hardly comprehensive. We will look broadly at the tensions between individual identity formation and the many social constructions that operate in American culture. The class is loosely tied around the connection, or disconnection, of individuals with mass culture (music, in particular, but also cars, corporations, television, and even fashion).