HUM 2450.001/.002
American Humanities
--Mainpage--
Spring 2004 / section 001 TR 9:30-10:45 a.m./section 002 TR 11-12:15 p.m./P-165
| Nick Melczarek, professor
| Department phone: 395-5075 |
| Office: L-216
| e-mail nick.melczarek@sfcc.edu
(send no attachments!) |
| Office hours: T&R 12:30-1:30 p.m., & by appt.
| Office phone: 395-4452 |
"I want to immerse myself in American magic and dread."
-- White Noise (Don DeLillo, 1984)
"It's very difficult to get lost in America these days."
-- The Blair Witch Project (Eduardo Sanchez & Daniel Myrick, 1999)
FINAL ESSAY EXAM DATES/TIMES/ROOMS:
section 001 = Tuesday April 27, 10:30-12:30, room P-165
section 002 = Thursday April 29, 10:30-12:30, room P-165
| Updated Schedules (highlighted as available); these sites
overrule the paper syllabus schedule: |
This syllabus remains deliberately brief to allow flexibility to the
unpredictable needs of students. Once updates are posted online, you are
responsible for tracking due dates. To ensure that you do not miss class notes, familiarize yourself with at least two other students
-- trade 'phone numbers or e-dresses so that you have two people to contact. I
should be the last person you contact for any such information. Always consult
the online syllabus and schedule updates before asking
me any questions about assignments or the class.
»»Course Decsription and Rationale
To ask "What is an American" is deceptive: it implies a single possible answer to
something experienced by millions. Further, "is" implies that the experience
happens just once, right then, and is the same over time. Definitions and the
voices that speak them and hands that write them, however, change over time. This
course will thus ask not so much "what is an American," but rather "what has gone
into that definition over time; from what perspectives and whose experiences; how
has that definition been thought through art, architecture, and cultural
documents; and how do we see 'American' identity formation and projection going
on in culture today?"
This course follows a chronology, more or less, from early European
colonization of the Americas to the end of the Twentieth Century. In so doing, we
will trace the ongoing development and mutation of "American" identities. To
survey the broad span of cultural and artistic influences that makes up such
identities, I have deliberately and artificially segmented this course's
chronology into timed themes. I have striven not to relegate cultures and races
to their own little theme-ghettoes. Rather, by maintaining a loose chronological
flow through these themed segments, I will attempt to show how groups and ideas
influenced each other across American time and space. As we will see through
sections from Frances Pohl's Framing America, online primary sources, in-class
videos and discussion, "America" was diversely influenced and inflected from its
origins: native tribes, invading Europeans, enslaved Africans, immigrants from
the Asias and the Latin Americas, later emigrants from Europe. Women, men, and
children of numerous colors, ethnicities, religions, sexualities, classes,
languages, politics, literatures, and arts created the composite and
continually-evolving nation we live in. We cannot visit them all in detail, but
we will survey ("look out over") the highlights -- and they are numerous.
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You must have an e-mail account and web access to participate in
this course. If you don't have both of these yet, obtain them
immediately.
»»Chronology and Themes
I: "Discovery" & Colonization (c.1492-1616)
II: God, Devils, and Work (c.1627-1742)
III: Early Slavery (c.1773-1793)
IV: Building the "Enlightened" Republic (c. 1776-1791)
V: Defining "Americaness" (c. 1782-1831)
VI: Women Emerging (c.1845-1890)
VII: Abolition & Emancipation (c. 1845-1896)
VIII: Westward: Immigrants & Natives (c. 1839-1900)
IX: Work In Progress (c. 1900-1945)
X: Singing America In Different Voices (c. 1945-present)
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»»Course Objectives
- General knowledge of the rolling history of creative "American" expression.
- Knowledge of the historical developments and contexts that comprised such expressions.
- Knowledge of specific historical documents and concepts that composed "America."
- Knowledge of key works and creative artifacts that mark "American" cultural and artistic development.
- Ability to use these works and artifacts in developed discussion of course themes.
- Ability to hold such discussions, based on such evidence, with an educated peer audience.
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»»Required Texts and Materials
- Frances K. Pohl, Framing America: A Social History of American Art
- active e-mail account
- Internet access for online materials
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»»Assignments & Grade Distribution (elements described below)
- 2 exams = 50% (25% each)
- 1 Final exam = 20%
- 4 U.S. Identity & Culture journals = 20%
- attendance & class participation = 10%
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»»Exams
You will have two multiple-choice exams to evince your absorption of the general
course material (movements, works, concepts, etc). I will amass study guides
online for each exam as we progress through the semester, and e-mail you the URLs
‹ check this site weekly. On posted exam days, show up on time; I will not
re-show test images to late arrivals. I will allow a make-up exam ONLY in cases
of extreme emergency with documentation. You must contact me about such
instances; make-up exams must be taken within 48 hours.
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»»Final Exam
You will have one final essay-question exam during final exam week, to present
the breadth of your understanding of course concepts, artworks, and primary
documents. The date for your class' final exam will be posted on the course
website by mid-term. You must take the final exam on that date. No make-ups
permitted, except in cases of extreme emergency with documentation; make-up exams
must be taken during finals week.
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»»U.S. Identity and Culture Journals
at four designated times during the semester (01/29, 03/04, 03/25, and 04/15), you will turn in a journal that
discusses issues of U.S. identity as portrayed or promoted in contemporary U.S.
culture. These journals may be based on elements recently covered in class that
you see at work in our media-suffused culture. One journal must address
an event, listed on the Cultural Events page, that you have attended. Journal
suggestions and example available online. Journals must be typed/printed hard
copies -- no e-mails, disks, CDs, or hand-written journals. Journals must be
handed in at the beginning of class; journals will be penalized one letter grade
for each day late, weekends included.
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