HIST 579
Popular Culture and American History
John Kasson
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
This course will study selected examples of popular arts and entertainments of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, placing them in historical, cultural, and critical contexts. Instead of approaching these materials as idle diversions to be consumed and discarded, we will consider them as works that can repay serious (not necessarily humorless) analysis and interpretation. Through our efforts, the class will attempt to rediscover the broadly shared imaginative and aesthetic life of America usually only touched upon in historical and literary studies. Major issues will include: the character of popular or commercial art and its relation to other kinds of art; the significance of the rise of the popular arts and their relation to other institutions of cultural authority; racial stereotypes and appropriations in popular arts from the minstrel shows and Uncle Tom's Cabin through Amos 'n' Andy to rhythm & blues, rock, and on to Spike Lee; gender roles and stereotypes from the nineteenth-century cult of domesticity through Mae West to recent developments; and (as the phrase goes) much, much more! Throughout the course, two overriding questions will be, how have the popular arts served to provide a national democratic culture and identity, and what have been the terms of inclusion and exclusion?
In the process of our inquiries, you will be learning not simply more history, but a different way of understanding history and what constitutes historical materials; at the same time, you will learn new ways of practicing aesthetic and cultural criticism that can be applied both historically and contemporarily. The course seeks, in short, to increase both your knowledge and your critical and interpretive abilities, to help you learn not only answers but also better ways of asking questions.
MATERIALS TO STUDY:
Among the materials we will study are: The Life of P. T. Barnum, Written by Himself (1855); Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852); Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson (1894); John Kasson, Amusing the Million: Coney Island at the Turn of the Century (1978); Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan of the Apes (1912); Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon (1930); and shorter readings on topics including 1930s radio, Walt Disney and Disneyland, and Woodstock. We will also study several films from the 1930s, Robert Altman’s Nashville (1975), and Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989).