AJL27086 Cultural Politics of the United States

Faculty of Arts
Autumn 2024
Extent and Intensity
0/2/0. 6 credit(s). Type of Completion: zk (examination).
In-person direct teaching
Teacher(s)
doc. Jeffrey Alan Smith, M.A., Ph.D. (lecturer)
Guaranteed by
doc. Jeffrey Alan Smith, M.A., Ph.D.
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
Mon 16:00–17:40 G31, except Mon 18. 11. to Sun 24. 11.
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is only offered to the students of the study fields the course is directly associated with.

The capacity limit for the course is 18 student(s).
Current registration and enrolment status: enrolled: 23/18, only registered: 2/18
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
there are 16 fields of study the course is directly associated with, display
Course objectives
This course examines various events and episodes in the interaction between culture and politics in America. Likely topics include the origins and emergence of distinctive regional and ethnic cultures; political orientations and conflicts associated with these; changing cultural and artistic styles over the course of US history; cultural "levels" and categories of evaluation (e.g. “highbrow,” “lowbrow” and “middlebrow”); the influence of ethnic styles, arts and subcultures on the cultural mainstream; "countercultures," challenges to prevailing cultural authority, and "culture wars" past and present; and the controversies and “moral panics” associated with cultural change, including the rise of new media.
Learning outcomes
After completing the course, students will be able to relate current events and controversies in America, especially those regarding cultural matters, to the larger history of such controversies in earlier eras. They will be able to apply a specific vocabulary of cultural evaluation and analysis to explain the underlying cultural causes and dimensions of America's political conflicts, and the ways in which controversies over culture and art tend to be politicized.
Syllabus
  • NOTE: Assigned readings, and links to assigned films / videos / music, are posted to the week-by-week folders on the course ELF page. Assignments listed below should be read or viewed before the class meeting for that week. They are tentative and subject to revision or supplementing up to one week before that class meeting.
  • WEEK 1: Course Introduction: Culture, Politics, and "Cultural Politics"
  • In class: "Casey at the Bat"; "The Wonder Years: Loosiers" (TV)
  • WEEK 2: The Search for a National Culture
  • Read: Freneau, The Rising Glory of America, and Snowden, The American Revolution, excerpts posted; Weems, The Life of Washington, excerpts posted; “Yankee Doodle” and "The Star-Spangl'd Banner"; Emerson, "The American Scholar," excerpts posted; Whitman, Democratic Vistas, excerpts posted
  • WEEK 3: Regional Cultures and "the Real America"
  • Read: Woodard, American Nations, introduction; Tyler, The Contrast, excerpts posted; Harkin, Hillbilly: A Cultural History of an American Icon, introduction; Stowe, A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin, excerpts posted; Cobb, Away Down South, excerpts posted; "Dixie," "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" (and the Elvis medley), "America, the Beautiful," "Simple Gifts" and excerpt from "Appalachian Spring"
  • WEEK 4: The First American Culture War
  • Read: Hofstadter, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, excerpts posted; Goetzmann, “The Wild Jacksonian Age” (Beyond the Revolution, chapter 12); Letters of Jack Downing, excepts posted; Bergmann, God in the Street, excerpts posted; Whitman, selections from Leaves of Grass
  • (RECOMMENDED) View: The Greatest Showman
  • WEEK 5: Cultural Hierarchies (1)
  • Read: Levine, Highbrow/Lowbrow, excerpts posted; Scruton, “A Fine Line Between Art and Kitsch”; Macdonald, “Masscult and Midcult,” excerpts posted; Postman, “The Medium is the Metaphor”
  • WEEK 6: Cultural Hierarchies (2)
  • View: Singin' in the Rain; The Music Man
  • WEEK 7: Racial Archetypes and Stereotypes
  • Read: Bogle, Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks, chapter 1; Robinson, Regimes of Race, chapter 3
  • WEEK 8: Identity Groups and Cultural Styles
  • Read: Censoring Racial Ridicule, excerpt posted; Finkelstein, Jewish Comedy Stars, excerpts posted; Leibovitz, “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”; Mailer, “The White Negro,” excerpts posted; Ford, “Hip Sensibility in an Age of Mass Counterculture,” excerpts posted; VOX, “What is Camp?”; Frum, “Halloween and gay culture”
  • Week 9: Reading Week; no class meeting
  • WEEK 10: Utopianism and the Counterculture
  • Read: Berman, A Tale of Two Utopias, excerpts posted; Regarding music (1) and (2); Martin & Segrave, Anti-Rock, excerpts posted; Sirius, Counterculture Through the Ages, excerpts posted; Allan Ginsberg, "America"
  • View: Hair
  • WEEK 11: Moral Panics and Culture Wars, I
  • Read: Doherty, “Homosexuality, Anticommunism, and Television,” excerpt posted; Regarding movies (various excerpts)
  • WEEK 12: Moral Panics and Culture Wars, II
  • Read: Anti-Rock, chapters 1 and 4, excerpts posted; Regarding music (various excerpts)
  • WEEK 13: Moral Panics and Culture Wars, III
  • Read: Chait, "The Authoritarian Right's Sinister Code-Phrase"; Drum, "Patriotism is the key to understanding the fight over critical race theory"; graphs from the PRRI American Values Survey, 2021; Sullivan, "America's New Religions"
Teaching methods
Lecture / discussion, readings, film and video viewings.
Assessment methods
Final exam, 85%; three "Short Responses," 15% (ungraded but required to complete the course).
Language of instruction
English
Further comments (probably available only in Czech)
Study Materials
The course is taught once in two years.
Teacher's information
See the course page on ELF.
The course is also listed under the following terms Autumn 2019, Autumn 2021, Autumn 2023.
  • Enrolment Statistics (recent)
  • Permalink: https://is.muni.cz/course/phil/autumn2024/AJL27086