American Studies - Spring 1999

Instructor: Michael Cowan
Office: Oakes 322 (459-4455)
Email: michael_cowan@macmail.ucsc.edu
Lectures and films: MWF 9:30-10:40 am, Oakes 105

Discussion Sections: sign-ups for sections will take place in class on Friday, January 9.

This course is an introduction to American Studies as a field of inquiry. It is not intended to be a comprehensive survey of U.S. history and society. Rather, by means of a series of case studies, it will try to suggest some ways in which we might think about the complexities of life in this nation and about some of the ways in which an examination of those complexities may help us consider what it has meant, now means, and might ideally mean to be citizens of the United States.

On one hand, we will consider what it means to be in a nation cross-cut by extensive social and cultural differences, conflicts, and inequalities, and we will pay particular attention to ways in which these differences revolve around such axes as class, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. On the other hand, we will consider what it means for the many social and cultural groups that occupy the United States to have to negotiate their differences through the legal/political apparatus, social and economic institutions, technological processes, and mass communication channels that in varying ways affect them all as members of this particular nation. Listening to a diverse group of voices, as they are articulated in autobiographies, fiction, speeches, legal documents, films, and other modes of expression from the eighteeth century to the present, we will examine some of the terms on which different people have themselves thought about their relationship to this country and to other Americans, and about their struggles to achieve citizenship and individual and collective fulfillment on their own terms. We will consider the varied as well as common responses of Americans from different backgrounds to such widely articulated but often ambiguous "national" values as "freedom," "equality," "community," "justice," "progress," "happiness," and "democracy." And we will explore the ways in which trans-national and global perspectives can help us understand key questions affecting past and present life in the United States. In the process, we will engage in a continuing dialogue throughout the course about questions of national and other forms of identity and about the dynamics through which our own identities and those of the varied groups within our society have emerged and continue to change.

Lectures, Films, and Discussion Sections

It is critical for the work of the course that you regularly attend the lectures and film presentations, along with the in-class discussions of this material, on Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays, since these sessions will bear upon the weekly papers, the group projects, and your final paper.

You will also be assigned to a discussion section, which will meet once a week. Those discussions will give you an opportunity to explore issues raised by the reading, lectures, and films in greater depth. The sections will also be the sites for your group projects. Your regular attendance at section meetings and your careful preparation for and contributions to them will be taken seriously into account in determining your course grade and in writing your narrative evaluation.

Attendance Requirements

If you miss more than three of the full-class lectures and film presentations on Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays without the written permission of your section leader or Professor Cowan, you will not pass the course. If you miss more than one of your discussion section meetings without the written permission of your section leader, you will not pass the course.

Required Reading

Following is a tentative list of required reading for the course. There may be one or two changes, depending on availability of texts. All these texts can be purchased in paperback editions at the Bay Tree Bookstore:

The U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence (to be distributed in class)

N. Scott Momaday, The Names (University of Arizona Press)

Frederick Douglass, The Narrative and Selected Writings (Random House)

Anzia Yezierska, Bread Givers (Persea Books)

Ernesto Galarza, Barrio Boy (Notre Dame)

Maxine Hong Kingston, China Men (Vintage)

Jeanne Wakatsuki and Jim Houston, Farewell to Manzanar (Bantam)

Paul S. Rothenberg, ed., Race, Class, and Gender in the United States.(St. Martin's Press)

Copies of all the texts will also be on two-hour reserve in McHenry Library. In addition, a small amount of supplementary reading will be passed out in class.

Short Papers

A series of brief weekly papers (300-400 words each) will be assigned, on topics related to the course lectures, readings, and films. Writing them will help you remember the course material and think about issues raised in the course, and will also help participate actively and creatively in your section discussions.

Group Presentations

Each discussion section will develop a group project on a topic chosen by the section's members, and will present the results of this project to the entire class near the end of the course. Your section leaders will work closely with you to help you develop this presentation.

Final Paper or Final Examination

You will complete one of the following: 1) a final course paper or 2) a final examination.

If you choose to write a final course paper (7-8 pages), you will write the paper on an assigned topic that draws on the course readings, lectures, and films and focuses on an important issue in the course. If you choose not to write a final paper, you will take the final examination instead. The examination will focus on central materials and issues dealt with during the course.

This course is the second half of a two-quarter sequence. Students are free to take one quarter or both, and new students are welcome in the second half. The course is designed as a survey of the history of work, working people, class relations, and, especially, the labor movement in U.S. history. American Studies 104B carries the story from 1919 up to the present. The course is specifically designed to explore the relationship between race, ethnicity, gender, and working-class history. We will also analyze the nature and development of capitalism and U.S. systems of labor and production. A foundation course in the American Studies program, this course also explores the question of "class" in American society and culture: what it means, how it is created, how it is embedded in dynamics of gender, race and ethnicity, and how it has changed over time.

This second half begins with the heightening of class conflict in l9l9 and then explores the aftermath of those conflicts in the l920s. It then focuses on the Great Depression, federal intervention in labor relations, and the rise of the CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations) and its institutionalization and taming during WWII and the early Cold War. Then we will turn to the relationship between the labor movement, class dynamics, and the social movements of the l960s and 70s, including the Civil Rights Movement, the women's movement, and gay rights. The last portion of the class will examine the transformation of the U.S. economy in the l970s and 80s and the challenges of labor struggles in the new "global economy." The course format will include lectures, guest speakers, films, and required discussion sections.

Requirements:

Attendance at every class, including sections, lectures, and films. -An in-class midterm and final. -A five-to-seven page paper, topic to be approved by the instructor. Do not arrive at class late that day or even consider turning your paper in late. A one-paragraph description of your paper topic is also required.

Readings:

The following books were assigned in the Spring 1998; the Spring 1999 books may change:

Dana Frank, Purchasing Power Carlos Bulosan, America is in the Heart Vicki Ruiz, Cannery Women, Cannery Lives Mike Honey, Southern Labor and Black Civil Rights Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward, Regulating the Poor Toni Gilpin et al., On Strike for Respect Maria Patricia Fernandez-Kelly, For We Are Sold, I and My People Labor Research Review No. 23: "Confronting Global Power and No. 24: "Tough Questions, Fresh Ideas and New Models"

Course Outline: (from 1998) Subject to change in 1999

Introduction to the Course

Background: Labor in l9l9

The l920s

Film: Miles of Smiles

The Great Depression

The New Deal

The CIO

Film: Union Maids The CIO in Agriculture

World War II Film: With Babies and Banners

The Cold War and the Postwar Compact

Guests

Film: Salt of the Earth, 7:00 P.M.

MIDTERM

Housework

Civil Rights, Welfare Rights, and the Labor Movement

Film: At the River I Stand

The United Farm Workers

Public Employees, Office Workers, and the Women's Movement

Deindustrialization and the Service Economy

Film: The Business of America

Insurgents and Communities in the 1970s and 80s

Guests

Global Capital and Global Workers

Film: Out at Work

Labor-Management Cooperation

Labor today: New Voice or New Voice?

Conclusion