AJ27073 North American Cultural Geographies

Faculty of Arts
Autumn 2014
Extent and Intensity
0/2/0. 2 credit(s) (plus 3 credits for an exam). Recommended Type of Completion: zk (examination). Other types of completion: z (credit).
Teacher(s)
doc. Jeffrey Alan Smith, M.A., Ph.D. (lecturer)
Guaranteed by
Jeffrey Alan Vanderziel, B.A.
Department of English and American Studies – Faculty of Arts
Contact Person: Tomáš Hanzálek
Supplier department: Department of English and American Studies – Faculty of Arts
Timetable
each odd Tuesday 15:50–17:25 G32
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is also offered to the students of the fields other than those the course is directly associated with.
The capacity limit for the course is 18 student(s).
Current registration and enrolment status: enrolled: 0/18, only registered: 0/18, only registered with preference (fields directly associated with the programme): 0/18
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
there are 11 fields of study the course is directly associated with, display
Course objectives
Historical survey of the origins and evolution of the English-speaking cultural regions of North America, principally the United States, including: settlement patterns and sources of regional diversity; immigration and ethnic subcultures; urbanization and suburbanization; and the development and geographical distribution of contemporary political cultures and identities. Students completing the course successfully will be conversant with these concepts, familiar with details and evidence associated with each of them, and able to make use of them analytically in further studies dealing with historical, cultural and political topics involving the North American Anglosphere.
Syllabus
  • 23 September: INTRODUCTION; ENVISIONING THE LANDSCAPE
  • -------------------------------------
  • 7 October: COLONIZATION AND CULTURAL “HEARTHS” (17TH - 18TH CENTURIES)
  • Read:
  • > Colin Woodard, American Nations, Introduction and chapters 1 – 5 and 7 – 9
  • > Timothy L. Hall, Religion in America, chapter 2
  • > Axtell, "Colonial America Without the Indians," from After Columbus; posted excerpts/summaries from Fischer, Albion's Seed
  • -------------------------------------
  • 21 October: INDEPENDENCE AND GROWTH (18TH - 19TH CENTURIES)
  • Read:
  • > Woodard, chapters 6 and 10 – 16
  • > Hall, chapters 6 and 7
  • > Posted excerpts from Turner, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History"
  • -------------------------------------
  • 4 November: IMMIGRATION, RACE, AND ETHNIC CHANGE (19TH CENTURY)
  • Read:
  • > Woodard, chapters 17 – 19 and 21, 23
  • > Ira Berlin, The Making of African America, chapters 1, 3, and 4
  • > Posted excerpts from Horsman, Race and Manifest Destiny, and Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness
  • -------------------------------------
  • 18 November: POLITICAL CULTURES AND IDENTITIES (19TH AND 20TH CENTURIES)
  • Read:
  • > Woodard, chapters 20, 22, and 24 – 26
  • > Posted excerpts from Cobb, "Away Down South," and Lind, "The Next American Nation"; King, "America's Post-Multiculturalist Settlement," from The Liberty of Strangers
  • -------------------------------------
  • 2 December: SUBURBANIZATION, “SPRAWL,” AND CONTINUING CONFLICTS (LATE 20TH – EARLY 21ST CENTURIES)
  • Read:
  • > Woodard, chapters 27, 28, and Epilogue
  • > Berlin, Epilogue
  • > Cullen, "The Dream of Home Ownership" (from The American Dream); Davis, "Ozzie and Harriet in Hell: On the Decline of Inner Suburbs" (from Saunders, Sprawl and Suburbia); Russell, "Privatized Lives: On the Embattled 'Burbs" (from Saunders); Gutfreund, posted excerpts from Twentieth-Century Sprawl
  • -------------------------------------
  • 16 December: FINAL EXAM, first sitting
Literature
    required literature
  • Colin Woodard, American nations: a history of the eleven rival regional cultures of North America. New York: Viking, 2011.
  • Timothy L Hall, Religion in America. New York: American Experience / Facts on File, 2007.
  • BERLIN, Ira. The making of African America : the four great migrations. New York: Viking, 2010, 304 s. ISBN 9780670021376. info
    recommended literature
  • Jonathan Halperin Earle, The Routledge atlas of African American history. Routledge, 2000.
  • The Settling of North America: the atlas of the great migrations into North America from the Ice Age to the present. Macmillan, ©1995.
  • Warren A Beck; Ynez D Haase, Historical atlas of the American West. University of Oklahoma Press, 1989.
  • Michael Lind, The next American nation: the new nationalism and the fourth American revolution. Free Press, 1995.
  • FISCHER, David Hackett. Albion's seed : four British folkways in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989, xxi, 946. ISBN 0195037944. info
    not specified
  • James C. Cobb, Away Down South: A History of Southern Identity. Oxford University Press, 2005.
  • Byron E. Shafer and Richard Johnston, The End of Southern Exceptionalism: Class, race, and partisan change in the postwar South. Harvard University Press, 2009.
  • Michael Lind, Made in Texas: George W. Bush and the Southern takeover of American politics. Basic Books, 2003.
  • H.B. Cavalcanti, Gloryland: Christian Suburbia, Christian Nation. Praeger, 2007.
  • Desmond King, The Liberty of Strangers: Making the American Nation. Oxford University Press, 2005.
  • John Miller, Egotopia: Narcissism and the New American Landscape. University of Alabama Press, 1997.
  • Jim Cullen, The American dream: a short history of an idea that shaped a nation. Oxford University Press, 2003.
  • James Axtell, After Columbus: Essays in the ethnohistory of colonial North America. Oxford University Press, 1990.
  • David R. Roediger, The wages of whiteness: race and the making of the American working class. Verso, 1991.
  • Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish became White. Routledge, 1995.
  • Robert Fishman, Bourgeois utopias: the rise and fall of suburbia. Basic Books, 1987.
  • William S Saunders, Sprawl and suburbia: a Harvard design magazine reader. Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2005.
  • Thomas Frank, What's the matter with Kansas?: How conservatives won the heart of America. Metropolitan Books, 2004.
  • Stephen A Flanders, Atlas of American migration. Facts on File, 1998.
  • Owen D. Gutfreund, Twentieth century sprawl: highways and the reshaping of the American Landscape. Oxford University Press, 2004.
Teaching methods
Readings, lectures, discussions
Assessment methods
Final exam (to be scheduled); the "re-sit" will be an essay
Language of instruction
English
Further comments (probably available only in Czech)
Study Materials
The course is taught annually.
Listed among pre-requisites of other courses
Teacher's information
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0ByITdoqGbUYXcVlnWEt0NGJiVWs&usp=sharing
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