| August |
|
24 Wed. |
Course Introduction |
|
The Culture
of American Consumption
|
|
26 Fri. |
Read:
•Introduction, pp. 1-30
Homework question:
What do the authors of the
book believe students can gain from studying popular culture? Do you think popular culture is worth
studying? Why or why not? |
|
29 Mon. |
Read:
•”Consuming Passions: The Culture of American Consumption,” 47-55
•”Laurence Shames, “The More Factor,” 56-63
Homework question:
What connections between
America’s frontier history and its present consumerist behavior does
Laurence Shames make? Do
you agree with his arguments? |
| 31 Wed. |
Read:
•Anne Norton, “The Signs of Shopping,” 63-69
•John De Graaf, et. al., “The Addictive Virus,” 71-75
Discuss Assignment: Paper #1 (Summary and
Response)
Homework question:
What are the costs of compulsive
buying, according to de Graaf, Wann, and Naylor? Do you agree that shopping can be a
dangerous addiction? |
| September |
|
2 Fri. |
Read:
•Thomas Hine, “What’s in a Package,” 84-92
Homework question:
How does Hine compare a
supermarket with a traditional marketplace? |
|
Advertising
|
| 5
Mon. |
Due:
Paper #1 (Summary and Response)
Video: The Merchants of Cool |
| 7 Wed. |
Read:
•”Brought to
You B(u)y: The Signs of
Advertising,” 141-149
•Roland Marchand, “The Parable of the Democracy of
Goods,” 150-158
•Jack Solomon, “Masters of Desire: The Culture of American Advertising,”
160-170
Discuss Assignment: Paper #2 (Close Reading
of an Ad)
Homework question:
Solomon discusses the “new
realism” advertisements of the 1980s.
Judging from ads you’ve seen, what trend do you think ads are
taking in the early 2000s? |
|
9 Fri. |
Read:
•Gloria Steinem, “Sex, Lies, and Advertising,” 186-205
Homework question:
Summarize the relationship
that Steinem sees between editorial content and and advertising in women’s
magazines. |
|
|
|
12 Mon. |
Due:
Bring to class the ad you will write about
Read:
•Eric Schlosser, “Kid Kustomers, 181-185
•Kalle Lasn, “Hype,” 217-220
Homework question:
Schlosser argues that advertising
directed to children exploded during the 1980s. Do you think such advertising is effective?
What about advertising directed toward teens, as shown in the
video, “The Merchants of Cool”? |
|
14 Wed. |
Read:
•Susan Bordo, “Braveheart, Babe, and the Contemporary
Body, 333-343
Homework question:
Why does Bordo prefer Babe to Braveheart? Do you agree with her reasoning? |
|
16 Fri. |
Due: Rough Draft, Paper #2 (Close Reading
of an Ad)
Discuss: Writing Issues |
|
|
|
19 Mon. |
|
|
21 Wed. |
Peer Group Conferences |
|
23 Fri. |
Due:
Final Version, Paper #2 (Close Reading of an Ad)
Discuss Assignment: Paper #3 (Literary Analysis)
|
|
Contemporary
American Culture in Fiction-Morrison
|
| 26
Mon. |
Read:
•Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye (1-93)
Discuss Assignment: Paper #4 (In-class essay)
Homework question:
Why do you think Morrison
chooses to begin the novel with the Dick and Jane material at the very
front? Why do you think
she’s chosen to format it so oddly?
How does this material work to control the rest of the story
told in the book? |
| 28
Wed. |
Read:
• Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye (97-163)
Homework question:
What does the background
information in the chapters about Pauline and Cholly tell us about them? Why do you think Morrison chooses to
go into detail at this point in the book about these characters’ lives
before Pecola is born? Does
this information make you feel or think differently about these two
characters? |
| 30
Fri. |
Read:
• Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye (finish book)
Homework question:
What happens at the end
of the novel? What does
Soaphead Church do for Pecola?
Who is Pecola talking to on pages 193-204?
How do you react to this ending? |
|
October |
|
3 Mon. |
Due: Rough
Draft, Paper #3 (Literary Analysis)
Discuss: Writing Issues |
|
5 Wed. |
Peer Group Conferences |
|
7 Fri. |
Peer Group Conferences |
|
American Icons
|
|
10 Mon. |
Due: Final
Version, Paper #3 (Literary Analysis)
Discuss: Paper #4 (Group Analysis of an Icon) |
|
12 Wed. |
Read:
•“American
Icons: The Mythic Characters
of Popular Culture,” 721-728
•Steven D. Stark, “The Oprah Winfrey Show and the Talk-Show
Furor,” 243-250
•Mark Caldwell, “The Assault on Martha Stewart,” 775-780
Homework question:
According to Stark and Caldwell,
why do Oprah Winfrey and Martha Stewart appeal to so many women?
|
|
14 Fri. |
Read:
•David Goewey, “Careful . . .SUVs and the Exploitation
of the American Myth,” 112-121
•Emily Prager, “Our Barbies, Ourselves,” 766-769
•Gary Cross, “Barbie, G.I. Joe, and Play in the 1960s,”
769-775
Homework question:
In your own words, explain
why Goewey considers the popularity of SUVs to be full or ironies and
contradictions. |
|
|
|
17 Mon. |
Fall Break |
|
19 Wed. |
Read:
•Gary Engle,
“What Makes Superman So Darned American?,” 738-746
Homework question:
What is the relationship
between Superman and Clark Kent, according to Engle? Why are both necessary? |
|
212 Fri. |
Discuss:
Research, MLA Documentation, Group Topics |
|
|
|
24 Mon. |
Group Library Research |
|
26 Wed. |
Read:
•Robert B. Ray, “The Thematic Paradigm,” 308-316
•Linda Seger, “Creating the Myth,” 316-325
Homework question:
What are the two basic hero
types that Robert Ray describes in American cinema? Which does he believe is finally more popular with Americans? |
|
28 Fri. |
Discuss: Web
Page Creation |
|
|
31 Mon. |
Due:
Due: Group
Bibliography for Paper #4
Discuss: Web Page Creation |
| November |
|
2 Wed. |
Group Conferences
Due: Web Page Plan |
|
4 Fri. |
Group Conferences
Due: Web Page Plan |
|
|
|
7 Mon. |
Groups Meet to Plan |
| 9 Wed. |
Groups Meet to
Plan |
|
11 Fri. |
Groups Meet to Plan |
|
|
|
14 Mon. |
Discuss: Writing
Issues |
|
16 Wed. |
Due:
Final Web Page
Class Presentations
|
|
18 Fri. |
Due:
Final Web Page
Class Presentations |
|
|
|
21 Mon. |
Due:
Final Web Page
Class Presentations
|
|
23 Wed. |
Thanksgiving |
|
25 Fri. |
Thanksgiving |
Contemporary American Culture in Fiction-Morrison
|
|
28 Mon. |
Read:
•Bobbie Ann Mason, In Country (1-89)
Discuss Assignment: Paper #6 (Literary Analysis)
Homework question:
Initially, Sam tries to
learn about the war, to understand what happened, through popular culture: rock songs, the t.v. show MASH, playing
Space Invaders, etc. How successful are these attempts?
Do these pop culture icons help or hinder Sam’s understanding? |
|
|
30 Wed. |
Read:
• Bobbie Ann Mason, In Country (89-136)
Homework question:
On p. 107, Emmett says,
“Women weren’t over there. . . So they can’t really understand.” Do the events of the novel up to this
point make you think Mason wants us to believe this is true, or are
we supposed to question this statement?
|
| December |
|
2 Fri, |
Read:
• Bobbie Ann Mason, In Country (finish book)
Homework question:
Why does Sam go to the swamp?
What does she learn there?
Finally, can she have any kind of significant understanding of
what the war was like? |
|
|
| 5 Mon. |
Last Day of Class
Discuss: Final Exam |
| 10 Sat. |
Final Exam—11:00
class: 12:00-3:00 p.m. |
| 14 Wed. |
Final Exam—10:00
class: 8:00-11:00 a.m. |
Assignments
Paper 1 / Paper
2 / Paper 3 / Paper 4 /
Paper 5 (Final Exam)
Paper
1 (Summary and Response)
Your job in this essay is to read an article carefully,
to clearly and accurately summarize the ideas you have read, and then to
present your own informed and thoughtful response to these ideas.
Description: Choose either Laurence
Shames’ “The More Factor” (56-63) or Thomas Hine’s “What’s in a Package”
(84-92) as the subject of your paper. Begin by summarizing, in a page or two, the essay you
have chosen. You should make clear to readers
what the author’s overall thesis is, what his major points are, and how
these points are supported. You’ll obviously
have to condense a great deal. You’ll have to
make difficult decisions about what to include and what to omit. Your goal is to give your reader as fair and thorough
a sense of what the essay is about as you can in a short synopsis.
Next, spend a page or two explaining your own response
to the essay you have summarized. Do you agree or disagree with the claims
your author makes? Do you believe his conclusions are justified or not?
Do you agree with some parts of the essay and disagree with other parts?
In this section, your overall response to the essay will be your thesis.
You should support your thesis with detailed reasons and evidence for your
response.
Format: This paper should be typed and double-spaced. It should be approximately 3-4 pages long. It should include a works cited page that lists the essay
you wrote about.
Due Date: This paper is due on Monday, September 5
Grading: This paper counts toward 10% of your final course grade.
When I grade this paper, I will pay particular attention to the following
items:
- Clarity of expression:
Both the summary and your
response to the article should be clearly written and easy to understand.
- Accuracy: Your summary should
be a fair and accurate portrayal of the original article. It should be as thorough as possible in the short space
allowed.
- Critical thinking:
Your responses should be
relevant and interesting. I will look for
original and thoughtful points about the article.
- Support: Your responses should
be supported with logical reasoning and evidence.
- Language: You should use appropriate
sentence structure, word choice, and grammar in your essay.
Paper 2 (Close Reading of an Ad)
Your job in this essay is to carefully analyze an advertisement
and to explain to your reader how the advertisement is intended to appeal
to consumers.
Getting Started: Look through several
magazines to find an advertisement that you feel merits careful analysis.
Choose an ad that is interesting or unusual in some way and that
will give you plenty to write about.
Then, ask yourself the following questions about
the ad: (Note: these are questions to get you started thinking—your final
essay shouldn’t be organized simply as answers to these questions). Glossy
magazine advertisements have huge budgets--assume that nothing
accidental appears in the ad, that every tiny detail is the result of a
conscious decision on the part of the ad's makers
.
1. What’s most striking about the ad? What do you notice first? Does it
do anything odd or unusual?
2. What audience does the ad seem to target? Why? What publication did it
appear in?
3. If there are people depicted in the ad, how are they posed? How are they
dressed? What gender, race, age are they? What sort of people don’t appear
as characters? Is there an implied story in the ad?
4. Look at any objects in the ad. What are they like? How are they positioned?
Why are certain colors used? Do the objects seem included to make either
a popular or elitist appeal? How is the product itself positioned? Is it
featured prominently or obscured? Why?
5. Look at the text. How does the text work with the visual portion of the
ad? Is the text jokey, ironic? What dominant impression does it make?
6. Does the ad seem to comment on any American myths? (i.e., frontier mythology,
the myth of the democracy of goods, myths about equal opportunity or about
rising above the crowd, myths of guilt or shame, etc.) Does it say anything
about gender or sexuality, about race, about the American dream?
Description: Your paper should have
an introductory paragraph that includes a brief but thorough description
of the advertisement, so that readers who might not have the ad in front
of them can nevertheless visualize it. Your introduction should also include
a thesis statement—your main point about how the ad works.
The body of your paper should then go on to support your thesis by
analyzing specific details in the ad itself and showing readers how these
details support your overall view of how the ad appeals to consumers.
Format: This paper should be typed and double spaced. It should be approximately 3-4 pages long. It needn’t include a works cited page unless you refer
to one of the essays we read in class.
Due Dates:
- Monday, September 12: Bring to class a copy of the ad you have chosen.
- Friday, September 16: Rough draft due. Bring three
copies of draft to class.
- Friday, September 23: Final version of paper due.
Grading: This paper counts toward 15% of your final course grade.
When I grade this paper, I will pay particular attention to the following
items:
- Critical thinking:
The most important thing
I’ll look for here is a thoughtful analysis—a good essay will delve deeply
into the details of the ad, will move beyond the obvious.
- Support: Your analysis--the
claims you make about the ad--should be supported logically with plenty
of details from the ad itself.
- Structure: I’ll expect the paper to be logically organized
into paragraphs which support your central thesis.
- Clarity of expression:
Your paper should be clear
and readable.
- Language: You should use appropriate
sentence structure, word choice, and grammar in your essay.
Paper 3: Toni Morrison's
The Bluest Eye (Literary Analysis)
Your job in this essay has two parts.
1) You will briefly summarize the ideas presented in a published essay that
analyzes a narrow topic in the novel
2) You will write a short analysis of your own on a topic similar to the
one your chosen essay discusses.
Description
First, read the three short published articles (You'll find links below).
Choose one of the articles, and write a brief (1-1 1/2 page, double-spaced)
summary of it, being sure to include all the main points covered in the
original essay. You will have to condense greatly here and make decisions
about what to include and what to omit.
In the second part of this essay, you will analyze a topic similar to the
one your chosen essay discusses (this section should be at least 2-2 1/2
typed pages). Here are some possible topics for each of the essays.
1)Napieralski: Article about the Oedipus Myth
--Look at another mythic background which informs the novel and explore
how this background works, what it adds to the book. You might examine,
for instance, the myth of Philomela or the Dick and Jane myths about American
society. (This topic will require you to do a small amount of outside research
on the mythic background you choose).
2)Bishop: Article about Pecola and her Name
--Look at other names in the novel and explore how they help express the
thematic content of the book. (For instance,Breedlove; Pauline; Soaphead
Church; the Maginot Line; MacTeer, etc.)
3)Parker: Article about Food and Appetite
--Look at another recurring motif in the novel and discuss how it helps
express the thematic content of the book. Be sure to choose a topic more
narrow than, say, beauty or identity. These are too large to discuss in
a short essay. Here are a few to consider:
--cleanliness/dirtiness
--order/disorder
--houses and homelessness
--the natural world and the seasons
--sexuality and the body
--the blues (as a style of music)
--color imagery
Whichever topic you choose, your paper should include a thesis statement
which makes an arguable assertion about your topic.Your essay should provide
close readings from the novel to support your thesis.
You should prepare for this portion of the essay in advance.When you come
to class to write the essay, you may bring with you a sheet of paper with
your thesis statement written out, and with topic sentences for each paragraph
you plan towrite. Under each topic sentence, you may have page numbers for
examples you wish to include. Of course, you will also have the Morrison
book with you, and you may use whatever marginal notes you have written
in the book as well.
Format
The summary portion of this paper should be typed and double spaced. It
should be approximately 1-1 1/2 pages long. The analysis portion of the
essay should also be typed and double-spaced. It should be at least 2-2
1/2 pages long. Your essay should include a works cited page which lists,
in proper MLA format, the article you summarized as well as the novel itself.
Due Dates:
1. Monday, October 3: Rough draft due. Bring three copies of draft
to class.
2. Monday, October 10: Final version of paper due (in your portfolio
folder).
Grading:This paper counts toward 15% of your final course
grade.When I grade this paper, I will pay particular attention to the following
items:
Summary Portion
--Clarity of expression: Your summary should be clearly written and
easy to understand.
--Accuracy: Your summary should be a fair and accurate portrayal
of the original article. It should be as thorough as possible in the short
space allowed.
--MLA Format: You should cite the article using correct MLA format.
Analysis Portion
--Thesis: Your analysis should present an arguable thesis which ties
your topic to thematic concerns in the novel (to what the novel is about).
--Support/Interpretation:Your thesis should be supported by close
analysis of specific instances in the book relevant to your topic. You should
provide plausible, convincing interpretations of each passage you point
out.
--Critical Thinking:You should push beyond the blatantly obvious,
or surface level, of the novel.
--Language:You should use appropriate sentence structure, word choice,
and grammar in your essay.
Paper 4 (Research Project--Analysis
of an Icon)
Your job in this essay is to carefully research and analyze
an icon of American popular culture and to explain to readers what this
icon represents.
Description: You will work in groups to choose an icon, to research
the icon, to put together a bibliography of sources relating to the icon,
and to create a final group project—designing a web page to be loaded onto
the internet. Groups will also present their
web pages to the whole class.
Following is a detailed list of the steps required for
this project:
1)
Choosing a topic: Your group will choose an icon of contemporary popular
culture from a list of ten which I will provide. This icon will be either
a particular consumer product (i.e. blue jeans, Jeep Cherokee, Barbie),
a celebrity (i.e. Michael Jordan, Oprah Winfrey, Martha Stewart), a t.v.
show (i.e. The West Wing), or a fictional character (i.e.
Superman, Batman, Lara Croft). The icons on the list will be popular and
important enought to represent some larger myth or trend in American culture.
2)
Bibliography: Once your group chooses a topic, you will have some class
time to begin researching your icon. You will
need to spend additional time out of class as well. The first written assignment in this research project
will be a bibliography of sources that pertain to your topic. These can be books, articles, web sites, etc. We’ll talk in class about finding sources, analyzing the
usefulness of sources, and documenting sources.
Your group will turn in
ONE joint bibliography which must contain at least 12 sources. Under each source, you should include a few sentences
explaining what type of source it is, if the source seems biased in any
way, and how useful you expect the source will be to your final project.
The bibliography should be typed, double-spaced, and formatted according
to MLA guidelines.
3) Group Projects and Presentations:
Groups will need to meet both
in class and outside of class to work on creating their web pages. If you’ve never made a web page before, don’t worry--we’ll
spend some class time discussing the basics of web page creation.
I’ll meet with groups in conferences the week before the final web
pages are due—an outline of what you plan to put on your web page is due
at this meeting. Your final research project (the finished web page) will
be due on the day that your group’s class presentation is scheduled.
At the presentation, groups will demonstrate their web pages, discuss
their research, and present their analysis of the icon they have chosen
Web pages will be of your own design, but should
include at least the following items:
--an introductory or welcome
screen with an image of your icon and a menu of places you can go within
the site.
-- a brief history
of the icon (When did products, shows, characters first appear in American
culture? Who created them? Have they changed over time? What’s
their current status? For celebrities:
What were their beginnings? How did they attain their celebrity status? Has their reputation changed over time? What’s their current position in American culture?)
--a detailed analysis
of the icon: How do you read the icon?
What does it mean or represent to Americans?
Does it tap into any common American myths or perceptions?
Why is it so popular? In this section, you must cite at least one
article from our popular culture textbook: Signs of Life in the USA.
--a references page
which fully documents the sources you used and includes links to other information
about your icon available on the web.
Due Dates:
- Monday, October 31: Group bibliography due.
- Wednesday, November 2: Group conferences. Plan for
web page due.
- Friday, November 4: Group conferences.
Plan for web page due.
- Wednesday, November 16: Final web pages due; class presentations.
- Friday, November 18: Final web pages
due; class presentation
- Monday, November 21: Final web pages due; class presentation
Grading: The entire project counts toward 20% of your final grade
in the class. When I grade the project, I will
pay special attention to the following items:
Bibliography (5% of final course grade)
--Proper use of MLA format
--Useful sources
--Good, accurate analyses
of these sources
--Clarity, correctness
Web Pages (10% of final course grade):
--Usefulness, accuracy of
web page content
--Detailed, informative
histories of the icon
--In-depth analysis of what
the icon represents; emphasis on critical thinking
--Easy-to-follow, logical
organization
--Good overall look, design;
inclusion of images
--Sources clearly cited;
useful links to other sources
--Proper use of MLA format
--Clarity, correctness of
web page text
Class Presentations (5% of final course grade):
--Preparation, organization
--Informative content
--Participation of each
group member
--Ability to answer questions
