SPRING 2000
This information effective for Spring 2000.
Check with instructor the first day of class for any changes.
MWF 9:30 - 10:40 am
Stevenson 150
Occasional Film Series: M 7 - 9 pm
Stevenson 150
Instructor: Scott Morgensen
Teaching Assistants: Corey Capers, Michelle Rosenthal
This course is an introduction to American Studies as a field of inquiry. Rather than being a comprehensive survey of U.S. social history, the course presents select case studies to suggest certain ways of examining the complexities of life in this country, particularly regarding what it has meant or now means to claim identity in relation to contested notions of citizenship. By examining how U.S. society is cross-cut by differences, inequalities, and conflicts&emdash;especially the simultaneous actions of such social forces as class, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality&emdash;we can read how various groups creatively negotiate state-structured narratives of citizenship in order to claim fulfillment on their own terms. In particular, we will consider the responses of differently-situated people to such widely articulated but ambiguous "national" values as "freedom," "equality," "community," "justice," "progress," "happiness," and "democracy." And we will explore how transnational perspectives on colonialism and imperialism explain key questions about constructions of identity in the U.S. Throughout the course we will engage in a continuous dialogue about the dynamics by which our own identities and those of varied groups in U.S. society have emerged and continue to change.
The course material focuses on poetry, as well as oral histories and essays, in order to highlight how struggles over cultural citizenship become articulated through the political practice of testimony. A core argument of the course is that we must recognize creative speech and other narrative forms as sites and sources of self-definition, community formation, and social struggle. A key part of our work will be to learn to listen to varied voices speaking in distinctive registers, cadences, and symbolic conversations. Thus, another core argument of the course is that, for all of us caught up in this ongoing experiment called "the U.S.," we will only be able to understand our pasts or imagine future interconnection if we first practice deep listening across differences. To facilitate this, our material emphasizes texts and films that take "ethnographic" approaches to narrating the past or present. Ethnography is a tool used increasingly in American Studies to attend to people's words and deeds in the context of community politics, in order to understand their cultural constitution. By listening with an ethnographic ear, we will come to know the heterogeneous cultural bases from which people have spoken and still deliberate what it means to be an "American."
Required Books (available at The Literary Guillotine)
Him Mark Lai, Genny Lim, and Judy Yung, eds., Island: Poetry
and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, 1910-1940
Sherman Alexie, The Summer of Black Widows
Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New
Mestiza
June Jordan, Technical Difficulties: African American Notes on the
State of the Union
Anna Deveare Smith, Twilight: Los Angeles 1992
Wahneema Lubiano, ed. The House That Race Built
Course Reader
Copies of all readings will be on two-hour reserve in McHenry
Library.
Required Films * Designates Monday Night Films (7 - 9 pm)
United States of Poetry, I
* My America...or, Honk If You Love Buddha
A.K.A. Don Bonus
* Smoke Signals
In Whose Honor?
The Double Life of Ernesto Gomez Gomez
* (Follow Me Home - tentative)
Eyes on the Prize
* Black Is, Black Ain't
Sa-I-Gu
It is critical for the work of this course that you regularly attend presentations of material in lectures, in-class discussions, and film screenings on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, since these sessions bear directly on your weekly writing, independent project, and final.
You will attend a discussion section which meets once a week under the independent leadership of your Teaching Assistant. Section discussions will help you clarify your understanding of readings, lectures, and films and will explore select issues raised by them in greater depth.. Your regular attendance and careful preparation for contributing to them will be a major factor in determining your evaluation.
If you miss more than three lectures or film presentations on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays without written permission of your section leader or the instructor, you will not pass the course. If you miss more than one of your discussion section meetings without written permission of your section leader, you will not pass the course.
Eight weekly response papers (300 - 400 words each) will be assigned on topics related to the course lectures, readings, and films. You will be allowed to "skip" one of these papers. If you write all eight papers, only your four best papers will be counted as part of your final evaluation. These papers will be evaluated on your ability to pack careful thought and well-chosen supporting evidence clearly and efficiently into a short space. They will also strengthen your ability to participate actively and creatively in your section discussions.
You will prepare an independent project that reflects course conversations by putting poetry or ethnography into practice in a given social context, especially to articulate generally silenced voices. Major forms the project might take include: collecting testimony or oral history of an individual or community; critical analysis of poetry or testimony as socially-engaged literature, especially unpublished or rare texts; or producing original poetry or testimony. Students who compose original work may arrange to present it performatively in their section or, if time allows, to the entire class.
At the end of the quarter you will complete either a final course paper or a final examination. If you choose to write a final paper (7 - 8 pages), you will write on an assigned topic that draws on 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, which will focus on central materials and issues dealt with during the course.
Week 1. W 3/29 - F 3/31 Testimony and Struggle Over Cultural Citizenship: Who is a Subject of the United States?
Reader selections by Norma Alarcón, Kimberlé
Crenshaw, W.E.B. Du Bois, Franz Fanon, Ruth Frankenberg, Stuart Hall,
Renato Rosaldo, Howard Winant, and "the Founding Fathers"
(Declaration of Independence & Constitution of the United
States)
Film: United States of Poetry I
Week 2. M 4/3 - F 4/7 Testimony and Struggle Over Cultural Citizenship: Asian American Immigration, Internment, and Resistance
Continue Alarcón, Crenshaw, Du Bois, Fanon, Frankenberg,
Hall, Rosaldo, Winant
Core Text: Island, Him Mark Lai, Genny Lim, Judy Yung,
eds.
Guest Lecture: Judy Yung, American Studies, UCSC
Week 3. M 4/10 - F 4/14 In the Wake of Imperialism: Pacific Islander and Asian American Heterogeneity
Reader selections by Lisa Lowe, Vicente Rafael, and Haunani Kay
Trask
Films: A.K.A. Don Bonus, My America...or Honk If You Love
Buddha
Week 4. M 4/17 - F 4/21 First Nations Sovereignty, Survival, and Creative Resistance
Core Text: The Summer of Black Widows, Sherman Alexie
Reader selections by Chrystos, Ward Churchill, Vine Deloria Jr., and
M. Annette Jaimes Guerrero
Films: Smoke Signals, In Whose Honor?
Week 5. M 4/24 - F 4/28 Border Cultures: Political Art and Chicana/o Identities
Core Texts: The Summer of Black Widows, Sherman Alexie;
Borderlands/La Frontera : The New Mestiza, Gloria
Anzaldúa
Reader selections by Leslie Marmon Silko and Cherríe
Moraga
Week 6. M 5/1 - F
5/5 Negotiating Multiple Subjectivities: Mixed Race
Identities, "The New Mestiza," and Bridging Differences through
Alliance
Core Text: Borderlands/La Frontera : The New Mestiza, Gloria
Anzaldúa
Reader selections by Gloria Anzaldúa, Pedro Cabán,
Dylcia Pagán, and Chela Sandoval
Film: The Double Life of Ernesto Gomez Gomez
Week 7. M 5/8 - F 5/12 The Work of/against Assimilation: Constructions of Whiteness and White Anti-Racist Practice
Reader selections by Ruth Frankenberg, Minnie Bruce Pratt, David
Roediger, Karen Brodkin Sacks, and Patricia Williams
Film: Eyes on the Prize
Week 8. M 5/15 - F 5/19 "Black Is, Black Ain't": Formations of Oppositional Consciousness
Core Text: Technical Difficulties, June Jordan
Reader selections by Angela Davis, bell hooks, Robin Kelley, and
Kendall Thomas
Film: Black Is, Black Ain't
Week 9. M 5/22 - F 5/26 Our Heritage and Responsibility: Los Angeles 1992
Core Text: Twilight, Anna Deveare Smith
Reader selections by Kimberlé Crenshaw, Mike Davis, and Elaine
Kim
Film: Sa-I-Gu
Week 10. W 5/31 - F 6/2 What Story to Pass On?
Core Text: Smith, Twilight
This course will introduce students to a range of themes and debates in Chicano Studies by focusing on different forms of Chicana/o cultural expression, including literature, music, visual arts, and film. The class requires a good deal of reading as well as other demanding assignments. Students, for example, will be required to study different literary genres; listen critically to historic recordings of Chicana\o folk, rock, and rap music; navigate the web looking for Chicana\o cultural sites; analyze examples of Chicana\o painting, sculpture, and photography; and criticize a variety of film genres including shorts, documentaries, and feature films.
While I am still tinkering with the syllabus, below is a one from a previous year that will give you a sense of what to expect in the Spring.
COURSE MATERIALS
The following textbooks are for sale at the Literary Guillotine (204 Locust Ave., downtown Santa Cruz) and on reserve at McHenry Library:
Viramontes, Helena Maria. The Moths and Other Stories.
Noriega, Chon (ed). Out of the West: Chicano Narrative Photography.
In addition, a course reader (referred to below as CR) is for sale at the UCSC copy center. All assigned films and music recordings are housed at the Media Center, first floor, McHenry Library.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
--Regular attendance (including film screenings) and participation. Each day you should come to class ready to discuss all assigned material.
--Weekly 1-page responses to course material. Once a week, on either Tuesday OR Thursday, you must turn in a typed response to the day's assignment. The two exceptions are the weeks in which papers are due. Responses should demonstrate your familiarity with the day's material, but should also involve your own opinions. Late responses will not be accepted.
--Two 5-7 page papers. Both papers are due at the start of class on the assigned days.
ASSIGNMENT SCHEDULE
March
30 Introduction
April
1 The Historical Diversity of Chicana\o Cultures
David G. Gutiérrez, "Legacies of Conquest," Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans,Mexican Immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity (CR)
Ramon A. Gutiérrez, "Unraveling America's Hispanic Past: Internal Stratification and Class Boundaries" (CR)
Literature
6 Stories of Occupied Texas
Selections from Américo Paredes, The Hammon and the Beans and Other Stories, with an introduction by Ramón Saldívar (CR)
Vicki L. Ruiz, "With Pickets, Baskets, and Ballots," From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in Twentieth-Century America (CR)
8 Migrant Labor Fiction
Tomás Rivera, "The Salamanders," "On the Road to Texas: Pete Fonseca," "Eva and Daniel," "The Harvest," "Zoo Island," Tomás Rivera: The Complete Works (CR)
Rosaura Sánchez, "The Ditch" (CR)
Barbara Harlow, "Sites of Struggle: Immigration, Deportation, Prison, Exile" (CR)
13 Chicana Short Stories
Helena Maria Viramontes, The Moths and Other Stories
15 Border Essays
Gloria Anzaldúa "The Homeland, Aztlán: El Otro México," Borderlands\La Frontera (CR)
Cherríe Moraga, "Queer Aztlán:The Re-formation of Chicano Tribe" (handout)
Leslie Marmon Silko, "The Border Patrol State" (CR)
Music
20 Corridos of Border Conflict
Selections from Américo Paredes, "With His Pistol in His Hand": A Border Ballad and Its Hero (CR)
Reserve recordings: Corridos and Tragedias de la Frontera, Disc 1: songs 1-3, 7, 11, 12
22 Chicana Recording Stars: The Mendoza Family
Selections from Lydia Mendoza: A Family Autobiography (CR)
Selections from Manuel H. Peña, The Texas-Mexican Conjunto (CR)
Vicki L. Ruiz, "The Flapper and the Chaperone," From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in Twentieth-Century America (CR)
Reserve recordings: Tejano Roots: the Women
27 Chicano Rock and Roll
Selections from David Reyes and Tom Waldman, Land of a Thousand Dances: Chicano Rock 'n' Roll from Southern California (CR)
George Lipsitz, "Cruising Around the Historical Block: Postmodernism and Popular Music in East Los Angeles" (CR)
José David Saldívar, "Frontejas to El Vez," Border Matters (CR)
Reserve recordings: Latin Playboys, Latin Playboys and El Vez, Graciasland
PAPER ONE DUE
29 Hip Hop
José David Saldívar, "Border Noise: Punk, Hip-Hop, and the Politics of Chicano/a Sound," Border Matters (CR)
Selections from Brian Cross, It's Not About a Salary: Rap, Race and Resistance in Los Angeles (CR)
In-class viewing of the video for Rage Against the Machine's "People of the Sun"
May
Visual Arts
4 The CARA Exhibit
Selected essays from Chicano Art: Resistance and
Affirmation (handout)
Reserve viewing: study the catalogue for the CARA exhibit
(McHenry Library; two copies are listed on CRUZ CAT under my name and
the course id number)
6 The CARA Exhibit
Selected essays from Chicano Art: Resistance and
Affirmation (handout)
Reserve viewing: study the catalogue for the CARA exhibit
11 Chicana\o Snapshots
Out of the West: Chicano Narrative Photography
13 Chicano Cyberspace
Selections from Pocho Magazine (handout)
Cyber assignment: spend at least 30 minutes exploring the "Pocho
Productions' Virtual Varrio," www.pocho.com/varrio.html
Film
18 Movement Shorts
Rosa Linda Fregoso, "Introduction" and "Actos of 'Imaginative
Re-discovery,'" The Bronze Screen (CR)
In-class screening of selected documentaries
20 Films about Migrant Labor
In-class screening of work-related film clips
24 Selena screening, time and place to be announced
25 Selena
Selections from Joe Nick Patoski, Selena: Como la Flor (CR)
27 Chicana\o Punks on Film
In-class viewing, Pretty Vacant
Reserve recording: Steve Jordan, "The Many Sounds of Esteban "Steve"
Jordan"
June
1 The films of Lourdes Portillo
Rosa Linda Fregoso, "Nepantla in Gendered Subjectivity," The
Bronze Screen (CR)
In-class viewing, selected films of Lourdes Portillo
PAPER TWO DUE
3 The films of Lourdes Portillo
Lourdes Portillo and Rosa Linda Fregoso, "Screening Resistance,"
Mapping Multiculturalism (CR).
In-class viewing, selected films of Lourdes Portillo
TTh 10 - 11:40 am
Porter 148
Section times: T 12 pm, T 2 pm, T 4 pm
Scott Morgensen, Instructor
Karen Lo, Teaching Assistant
This course introduces the social and cultural analysis of gender in the United States, figured always around gender's relations to racism, colonialism, capitalism, and politics of sexuality. The course intermixes historical texts with contemporary social science and literature in order to examine gender as a cultural construction, a performative practice, and a mode of ordering society around relations of difference and power, as well as a basis for agency and resistance to domination. We link political economies of gender to cultural production motivating and justifying them. Feminist and queer theories assist us in marking the enormous efforts that have been and still are expended to establish and maintain social orders of gender. Throughout the course we will engage in a continuous dialogue about the dynamics by which our own gender identities and those of others in U.S. society have emerged and continue to change.
Throughout the quarter, this course will link readings, conversations, and assignments to two concurrent special events&emdash;the national conference "The Color of Violence: Violence Against Women of Color"(April 28 - 29, UCSC) and the 9th Annual Women of Color Film and Video Festival (May 5 - 6, UCSC), both sponsored by the UCSC Women of Color Research Cluster.
Women, Race, and Class, Angela Davis
Manliness and Civilization, Gail Bederman
Gay New York, George Chauncey
The Last Time I Wore a Dress, Daphne Scholinski
Gender Outlaw, Kate Bornstein
A Course Reader
Picturing Oriental Girls
And Still I Rise
La Operación
Dollar a Day, Ten Cents a Dance
Licensed to Kill
B.D. Women
Tongues Untied
Juggling Gender
You Don't Know Dick
Attendance. You are expected to maintain complete attendance. A sign-in sheet is circulated at 10 am each meeting. It is your responsibility to sign your name on this sheet, or you risk being marked absent. More than two unexcused absences will result in being dropped from the class.
Excessive absences or lateness can be made up only by extra work.
Daily Work. Class sessions will include a mix of lecture and discussion. Come having read all articles and book chapters listed for the day, and be ready to discuss them. Showing consistent engagement with the readings in discussion will be key to receiving a good evaluation.
Many arguments in this course are presented only in lectures or structured discussions, and both exams will ask you to explain these arguments. You are responsible for getting notes or handouts if you miss any lectures or discussions.
Please speak with me after class if your abilities require any assistance.
Writing. All writing must be ready to submit at 10 am the day it is due. Writing should be typed in 10 pt. or 12 pt. font, and double-spaced. Set margins so the text body is at least 6" wide, left to right. A page must be full of text to count as a page. You will be expected to redo anything in improper form.
Writing requirements to pass the course include:
Ethics & Attitude. The topics of our class bring us close to many difficult issues that can touch all of our lives deeply. Everyone has the opportunity to show wisdom, care, and respect while addressing them. A cornerstone to your work in a diverse classroom, studying diverse experiences, is to understand all positions, not only those like your own. I think a good way to be open to others' perspectives is to understand your stakes in your own. To that end, I expect everyone to practice critical self-reflection in all conversations in class and in all your writing. When each of us takes responsibility for examining our own self, in order to understand our beliefs and biases, and the conditions giving rise to them, everyone can open to new awareness and good collective learning can result. My intentions in this regard are as follows: I aim to model critical self-reflection for you in my lectures and discussion facilitation. When I see you practicing it, I will try to acknowledge this for you and the group. When I don't see you practicing it, I will assist you in beginning to do so. Please help me keep all our work together accountable to doing critical, self-reflective analysis.
T 3/28 Introduction: The social construction of
gender as a relation of power
Film: "Man to Man?" 20/20
Recommended: Fausto-Sterling, "Hormones and Aggression"
(Reserves)
Th 3/30 Feminist theories of gender:
Relationality, Intersectionality, Violence, Resistance
Reading: Glenn, "Racial Ethnic Women's Labor"
Crenshaw, "Mapping the Margins"
Anzaldúa, "Bridge, Drawbridge, Sandbar, or Island"
I. Hegemony and Agency: Histories of Racialized Gender in the U.S.
T 4/4 Gender, immigration, whiteness: Asian and
Native women confront "domesticity"
Film: Picturing Oriental Girls
Reading: Kingston, "The Laws"
Yung, "Chinese Women"
Lomawaima, "Domesticity in the Federal Indian Schools"
Guerrero, "Civil Rights vs. Sovereignty: Native American Women in
Life/Land Struggles"
Th 4/6 "Domesticity" and the racial formation of
white feminist social movements
Reading: Weiner, "Expectations for White Womanhood"
"The Antisuffragists: Selected Papers, 1852-1887"
Women, Race, and Class chapters 2, 3, 4, 7
T 4/11 Fighting oppression, reclaiming sexuality:
African-American women in struggle
Film: And Still I Rise
Reading: Women, Race, and Class chapters 1, 5, 6, 8, 9
Hammonds, "Towards a Genealogy of Black Female Sexuality: The
Problematic of Silence"
optional: Women, Race, and Class chapter 10
Giddings, "The Last Taboo"
Th 4/13 Women, poverty, racism, and state
regulation of motherhood
Film: La Operación
Reading: Lopez, "Agency and Constraint"
Roberts, "Punishing Drug Addicts Who Have Babies"
optional: Women, Race, and Class chapter 12
T 4/18 Defining racial manhood in the early
twentieth century
Film: Dollar a Day, Ten Cents a Dance
Reading: Manliness and Civilization chapter 1
San Francisco AFL, "Meat vs. Rice"
Th 4/20 The myth of the black rapist and white
masculine violence
Film: video of the Rodney King beating
Reading: Manliness and Civilization chapter 2
Women, Race, and Class chapter 13
Butler, "Endangered/Endangering"
T 4/25 Inventing "masculinity": Projecting
"savagery," cultivating "the savage within"
Reading: Manliness and Civilization chapters 3, 6
Kimmel, "'Born to Run': Nineteenth Century Fantasies of Masculine
Retreat and Re-creation (or the Historical Rust on Iron John)"
Th 4/27 The gender of U.S. imperialism: From TR
to the Gulf
Reading: Manliness and Civilization chapter 5
Niva, "Tough and Tender: New World Order Masculinity and the Gulf
War"
Cohn, "Gays in the Military: Texts and Subtexts"
Weekend "The Color of Violence: Violence Against Women of Color" Conference. April 28 - 29.
T 5/2 Re-theorizing gender violence: Reports from the Conference
II. Regulation and Resistance: Gender Diversity in U.S. History
Th 5/4 Denaturalizing homophobic violence
Film: Licensed to Kill
Reading: Nardi, "Gay Bashing"
Weekend 9th Annual Women of Color Film and Video Festival--"The Color of Violence." May 5 - 6.
T 5/9 Histories of gender & sexual diversity:
Emergence of (whitewashed) gay cultures
Reading: Gay New York chapters 2, 3, 4, 5
Th 5/11 Histories of gender & sexual
diversity: Discrepant cultures in communities of color
Film: B.D. Women
Reading: Gay New York chapters 10, 12, 13
Eric Garber, "A Spectacle in Color"
Wekker, "Mati-ism and Black Lesbianism"
Hall and Kauanui, "Same-Sex Sexuality in Pacific Literature"
T 5/16 Breaking silence: Queer and womanist men
of color challenge homophobia, transform manhood
Film: Tongues Untied
Reading: Hemphill, "Brother to Brother"
Lemons, "A New Response to Angry Black (Anti)Feminists: Reclaiming
Feminist Forefathers, Becoming Womanist Sons"
Almaguer, "Chicano Men: Cartographies of Homosexual Behavior"
Wat, "Preserving the Paradox: Stories from a Gay-Loh"
Th 5/18 The resistant plasticity of gender:
"Gender Identity Disorder" & gender violence
Film: Juggling Gender
Reading: Scholinski, The Last Time I Wore A Dress
Hubbard, "Gender and Genitals: Constructs of Sex and Gender"
Chase, "Hermaphrodites With Attitude"
T 5/23 Negotiating transsexualism
Film: You Don't Know Dick
Nakamura, "Narrating Ourselves: Duped or Duplicitous?"
Cromwell, "Fearful Others"
Th 5/25 Engaging the transgender challenge
Reading: Bornstein, Gender Outlaw
T 5/30 First Nations cultural resistance and the
politics of Two-Spirit identities
Gay American Indians, Living the Spirit (selections)
Thomas, "Navajo Cultural Constructions of Gender and Sexuality"
Chrystos, "Shame On!"
Rose, "What's All This Full About Whiteshamanism Anyway?"
Th 6/1 Conclusions and Evaluations
TENTATIVE SYLLABUS ONLY. ALL TEXTS MAY CHANGE
Instructor: Dana Frank
335 Oakes
x2542
MWF 3:30-4:45
Porter 148
T.A. Maritza Stanich
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 focusses 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. Students missing more than two classes for unexcused reasons may be dropped from the class (without necessarily receiving further notice from the instructor).
-An in-class midterm (May 1) and final (Tuesday, June 8, 12:00-3:00 p.m.)
-A five-to-seven page paper, topic to be approved by the instructor; due May 28 at 4:00 in my box in the Oakes College Faculty Services (Steno Pool). DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT TURNING YOUR PAPER IN LATE. A one-paragraph description of your paper topic is due April 19.
Readings:
The following books have been ordered at the Literary Guillotine, 204 Locust St. (between Center and Cedar), Santa Cruz. They are also available on reserve in the McHenry Library:
TENTATIVE LIST ONLY:
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
Dan Georgakas and Marvin Surkin, Detroit: I Do Mind Dying
Toni Gilpin et al., On Strike for Respect
Maria Patricia Fernandez-Kelly, For We Are Sold, I and My
People
Course Outline:
March 29: Introduction to the Course
March 31: Film: Miles of Smiles
April 3: Background: Labor in 1919
Reading: Bulosan, America is in the Heart, pp. 1-93
April 5: The 1920s
April 7: The Great Depression
April 10: The New Deal
Reading: Bulosan, America Is In the Heart, pp. 94-327
April 12: The CIO
April 14: Film: Union Maids
April 17: The CIO in Agriculture
Reading: Cannery Women, Cannery Lives
April 19: World War II
April 21: Film: With Babies and Banners
April 24: The Cold War and the Postwar Compact
Reading: Mike Honey, Southern Labor and Black Civil Rights
April 26: Guests
Thursday April 27: Film: Salt of the Earth, 7:00 P.M.
April 28: No class
May 1: MIDTERM
May 3: Housework
May 5: Civil Rights, Welfare Rights, and the Labor Movement
May 8: Film: At the River I Stand
Reading: Piven & Cloward, Regulating the Poor, pp. 123-199, 222-406
May 10: The United Farm Workers
May 12: Public Employees, Office Workers, and the Women's Movement
May 15: Deindustrialization and the Service Economy
Reading: Georgakas & Surkin, Detroit: I Do Mind Dying
May 17: Film: The Business of America
THURSDAY May 18: PAPER DUE
May 19: Insurgents and Communities in the 1970s and 80s
May 22: Guests
Reading: Gilpin, et al., On Strike for Respect
May 24: Global Capital and Global Workers
May 26: Film: Out at Work
May 29: HOLIDAY
Reading: Fernandez-Kelly, For We Are Sold, I and My People
June 10: Labor today: New Voice or New Voice?
June 12: Conclusion
FINAL EXAM: Tuesday, June 8, 12:00-3:00
In this course, we will study the history of diverse popular cultural forms, paying particular attention to multicultural contexts. We will examine, for example, comic art by a Japanese immigrant to San Francisco in the 1920s; music by Black female blues singers from the 1920s and 1930s; Chicana recordings from the 1940s; film Westerns from the 1950s; seminal rock and roll recordings of the 1950s and 1960s; popular dance styles from the 1970s and 1980s; martial arts films from roughly the same period; rap music and videos of the 1980s and 1990s; multicultural science fiction and detective novels; Native American photography and film; and contemporary gay popular culture. This course is the second half of a historical sequence on U.S. Popular Culture. While it is recommended that interested students take the entire sequence, the first course, A107A, is not a prerequisite for AS107B
While I am still tinkering with the syllabus, below is a one from a previous year that will give you a sense of what to expect in the Spring.
COURSE MATERIALS
Films:
Enter the Dragon
Giant
Hairspray
Selena
Smoke Signals
Texts:
Dick, Philip K. A Scanner Darkly
Kadohata, Cynthia. In the Heart of the Valley of Love
Kiyama, Yoshitaka. The Four Immigrants Manga
Mosely, Walter. Devil in a Blue Dress
Neely, Barbara. Blanche on the Lam
Silko, Leslie Marmon. Storyteller
All texts are for sale at the Literary Guillotine, 204 Locust Ave., downtown Santa Cruz. They are also on reserve at Mc Henry Library. In addition, two course readers (CR1 and CR2) will be for sale at the UCSC copy center. All assigned films and music are on reserve in the Media Center, first floor, Mc Henry Library.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
--Regular attendance (including film screenings) and participation. Each day you should come to class ready to discuss all assigned material.--Weekly 1-page responses to course material. Once a week, on either Tuesday OR Thursday, you must turn in a typed response to the day’s assignment. The two exceptions are the weeks in which papers are due. Responses should demonstrate your familiarity with the day’s material, but should also involve your own opinions. Late responses will not be accepted.
--Two 5-7 page papers. Both papers are due at the start of class on the assigned days.
ASSIGNMENT SCHEDULE
March
30 Introduction: Approaches to U.S. Popular
Culture
April
1 Central Concepts
Stuart Hall, "What is this ‘Black’ in Black Popular Culture?"
Immanuel Wallerstein, "America and the World: Today, Yesterday, and Tomorrow"
Raymond Williams, selections from Key WordsAll readings are in CR1
6 Asian Immigrant Popular Cultures, c. 1920s
The Four Immigrants Manga
Selections from Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, 1910-1940 (CR1)
8 Blues Women in the 1920s and 1930s
Selections from Angela Davis, Blues Legacies and Black Feminism (CR1)
Reserve listening: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey and Bessie Smith
13 Chicana Recording Stars of the 1940s and 1950s
Selections from Lydia Mendoza: A Family Autobiography (CR1)
Selections form Mañuel H. Pena, The Texas-Mexican Conjunto (CR1)
Reserve listening: The Mendoza Sisters
15 1950s and 1960s Rock and Roll
George Lipsitz, "Cruising Around the Historical Block" (CR1) and "Against the Wind: Dialogic Aspects of Rock and Roll" (CR2)
David Reyes and Tom Waldman, "The One and Only Ritchie Valens" (CR1)
Reserve listening: Elvis Presley, Elvis Presley Sings Lieber and Stoller and El Vez, Grasiasland
19 Screening of Giant, 7-10 pm, 1 Thimann
20 The Western: Giant
Rafael Perez-Torres, "Chicano Ethnicity, Cultural Hybridity, and the Mestizo Voice" (CR1)
Selections from Jose E. Limon, American Encounters: Greater Mexico, the United States, and the Erotics of Culture (CR1)
22 Sci-Fi Near Futures
Philip K. Dick, A Scanner DarklyPAPER ONE DUE
27 Sci-Fi Near Futures
28 1970s Near Pasts: Disco
Anthony Thomas, "The House the Kids Built: The Gay Black Imprint on American Dance Music" (CR1)
Peter Biskind and Barbara Ehrenreich, "Machismo and Hollywood’s Working Class"(CR2)
Reserve viewing: Saturday Night Fever
May
3 Screening of Enter the Dragon, 5-7 pm, Thimann 1
4 1970s Near Pasts: Martial Arts Movies
Ackbar Abbas, "The New Hong Kong Cinema" (CR1)
Hsiung-Ping Chiao, "Bruce Lee: His Influence on the Evolution of the Kung Fu Genre" (CR 1)
Yvonne Tasker, "Fists of Fury: Discourses of Race and Masculinity in the Martial Arts Cinema" (CR2)
6 Indian with a Camera
Leslie Maron Silko, Storyteller and "Indian with a Camera" (CR1)
10 Screening of Smoke Signals, 5-7 pm, Thimann 1
11 Indian with a Camera
Smoke Signals
13 Black Detectives
Walter Mosely, Devil in a Blue Dress
Black Detectives
Barbara Neely, Blanche on the Lam
20 Hip Hop
Paul Gilroy, "’Jewels Brought from Bondage’: Black Music and the Politics of Authenticity" (CR1)
Robin D.G. Kelley, "Kickin’ Reality, Kickin’ Ballistics: ‘Gangsta Rap’ and Postinduatrial Los Angeles" (CR1)
Tricia Rose, selections from Black Noise (CR1)
Reserve listening: selections from Are You Ready for W.O.R.?; Frost, Smile Now, Die Later; N.W.A., Straight Outta Compton; Run D.M.C., Raising Hell; Yo! M.T.V.Raps, v. 2
24 Selena screening, 5-7 pm, Thimann 1
25 Selena
Joe Nick Patoski, selections from Selena: Como la Flor (CR1)
27 Sexuality, Race, and Dance
In-class screening of HairsprayPAPER TWO DUE
June
1 Sexuality, Race, and Dance
bell hooks, "Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance" (CR1)
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and Michael Moon, "Divinity: A Dossier, A Performance Piece, A Little-Understood Emotion" (CR2)
2 The Funny Papers
Linda Barry, It’s So Magic (CR2)
Science Fiction in Multicultural America will explore a number of works of science fiction within the social, political, and economic context of the U.S. In addition to the assigned readings and films, time will be set aside for students to pursue their own individual choices of science fiction works. Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors are welcome from all majors. This class satisfies a foundation requirement for American Studies majors as well as a historical sequence when paired with AS 109 (Politics and Technology).
For more information, call 459-4517 or email amlane@cats.ucsc.edu.
TuTh 2-3:45
Cowell 131
Prof. Judy Yung
This course will take a close look at Chinese American history and culture from the California Gold Rush to present day within the context of socioeconomic and political developments in China and the United States. How and why did the Chinese immigrate to the U.S.? What have been their contributions to this country? Why were they singled out for racial exclusion and how did they respond with resilience and agency? How have the experiences of Chinese women and the American-born differed from men and the immigrant generation? How did Chinatowns develop and why do they still exist? What are some of the accomplishments, cultural expressions, and pressing issues of Chinese Americans today? These are some of the topics that will be covered in this course through primary sources, personal stories, films, guest artists, and field trips to visit the Angel Island Immigration Station and Chinese historic sites in the Monterey Bay Region.
Course Requirements
Attendance and participation in class discussions.
Short response papers to readings.
First-person research paper on a Chinese American historical or contemporary figure (15 pages).
Final exam of identification and essay questions.
Two Saturday field trips (optional).
Reading List
Him Mark Lai, Genny Lim, and Judy Yung. Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, 1910-1940.
Sandy Lydon, Chinese Gold: The Chinese in the Monterey Bay Region
Judy Yung, Unbound Voices: A Documentary History of Chinese Women in San Francisco
Peter Kwong, Forbidden Workers: Illegal Chinese Immigrants and American Labor
Fae Ng, Bone (novel)
Reader of essays and creative writings.
For more information on the course and the instructor, email <yung@cats.ucsc.edu> or see <http://humwww.ucsc.edu/americanstudies/j_yung.htm>.