Professor TJ Boisseau
Office hours: Tu
Email: tjboiss@uakron.edu
Office Ph:x6277
History of
American Popular Culture Fall
2006
3400:467/567 (77058/77062)
Mon 2:15-4:45, CAS 137
“Democratic scholars of American
culture do not read intellect and public as subject and object, as us and
them. The position of intellectuals in
public life is to listen as well as speak.
Historians, in particular, cognizant that the democratic revolution
itself was cradled in taverns and coffee houses and publicized by impudent
pamphlets and blasphemous broadsides, had best listen politely and keenly to
the sounds of cyberspace, cable television, Christian rock, and gangster
rap.”
Mary
Ryan, quote taken from her review of
Intellect and Public Life by
Thomas Bender, 1993
Course description
Scholars of
Assignments and
Evaluation
Class participation
25%
Students are expected to come to class fully prepared to
engage in discussion of all reading
assigned for that day, to engage
strenuously with their peers—listening as well as speaking
with the aim of generating
effective, productive, and spirited dialogue.
Five short essays
5 x 10% = 50%
Students will compose 5 short essays (3-5 pages) discussing
the assigned unit reading.
Essays should focus on how the assigned reading elaborates
upon the unit theme (as
identified in the unit title). I also require that students indicate three
bibliographical
sources referenced in the reading
that might make for fruitful further inquiry on the
subject. These essays are due at the start of class,
second week of each unit.
Final project and
presentation
25%
Undergrad students will read one additional secondary
source, culled from bibliographical
references in the assigned reading,
in order to explore one of the five unit themes in a fully
developed essay (7-10 pages). (Three additional sources are required of
graduate students.)
Written identification of theme and
additional text due by November 13.
Final projects will
also include formal student
presentations of findings and insights.
Texts
In addition to a reader compilation and handouts, readings
will be assigned from the texts listed below.
All of the following texts have been put on order at the UA
bookstore. One copy of each will be
available on loan at Beirce Library and some may be
available on loan from the department graduate lending library. Students may also access these texts via Ohiolink, or purchase them at area bookstores or over the
internet.
Wolfgang Schivelbusch, The Railway Journey (University of California
Press, 1977). ISBN: 0520059298
Lisa Bloom, Gender on Ice (University of Minnesota,
1993). ISBN: 0816620938
Tania Modleski, ed. Studies in Entertainment,
(Indiana University Press, 1986).
ISBN: 0253355664
Robert Rydell, All the World’s
a Fair (University of Chicago
Press, 1984). ISBN: 0226732401
John Kasson, Houdini, Tarzan and
the Perfect Man (Hill and Wang, 2001). ISBN:
0809055473
Lauren Rabinovitz,
For the Love of Pleasure (Routledge, 1998). ISBN:
0813525349
Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle
(Black & Red, 1983).
John Fiske, Reading the Popular
(Routledge, first pub Unwin
Hyman, 1989). ISBN: 0415078768
George Ritzer, The
MacDonaldization of
ISBN: 0195023749
Required by graduates only:
John Docker, Postmodernism and
Popular Culture (Cambridge University Press, 1994).
ISBN: 0521465982
Reader contents
Margaret Morse, “An Ontology of Everyday
Distraction” in Logics of Television, ed. Patricia Mellencamp
(Indiana University Press, 1990):
193-222.
Bill Brown, “Science Fiction, the World’s Fair and the
Prosthetics of Empire” in Cultures of U.S. Imperialism, ed. Karen Caplan and Donald Pease (
Christopher Diffee, “Sex and the
City” American Quarterly 57:2 (June 2005):
411-437.
William Leach, “The Clown from
Susan Bordo, “Material Girl” in The
Gender/Sexuality Reader, ed. Roger Lancaster and Micaela
di Leonardo (Routledge,
1997): 335-58.
Miriam Hansen, “Pleasure, Ambivalence, Identification”
Cinema Journal 25:4 (Summer
1986): 6-32.
Meaghan Morris, “Banality in
Cultural Studies” in Logics of Television, ed. Patricia Mellencamp (Indiana University Press, 1990): 14-43.
Class schedule
Aug 28 Introduction to
course
Unit I Space/Time
Sept
5 Schivelbusch,
The Railway Journey
Morse, “An Ontology of Everyday Distraction”
[Reader]
Sept 11 Bloom,
Gender on Ice
Modleski, Studies in Entertainment, Chapter 6
Unit II Fantasy
Sept 18 Rydell, All the World’s a Fair ,
Introduction and Chapters 1, 2, 6, 8 and Conclusion
Brown,
“Science Fiction, the World’s Fair and the Prosthetics of Empire” [Reader]
Sept 25 Kasson,
Houdini, Tarzan and the Perfect Man
Unit III Visuality
Oct 2 Rabinovitz, For the Love of Pleasure
Diffee, “Sex and the City” [Reader]
Oct 9 Debord, Society of
the Spectacle
Leach, “The
Clown from
Unit IV
Consumption
Oct 16 Fiske, Reading the Popular
Graduates: Bordo, “Material
Girl” [Reader]
Oct 23 Ritzer, The MacDonaldization of
Unit V: Resistance
Oct 30 Levine, Black
Culture and Black Consciousness, Chapters 4, 5, 6
Nov 6 Modleski, Studies in Entertainment, Chapters 2, 4, 5
Hansen, “Pleasure, Ambivalence,
Identification” [Reader]
Graduate Unit: Theoretical Considerations
Nov 13 Docker,
Postmodernism and Popular Culture
Morris, “Banality in Cultural
Studies” [Reader]
Notice to undergrads
and grads: Written selection of
theme/additional source due.
Nov 19 Student
presentations
Nov 26 Student
presentations
Dec 4 Student
presentations