Course Syllabus Course Information HUHI 6340, Readings in American Culture: The Nineteenth Century Spring 2015 T 10:00-12:45 JO 4.112 Professor Contact Information Professor D. Wickberg, x6222, wickberg@utdallas.edu JO 5.428, Office Hours Course Pre-requisites, Co-requisites, and/or Other Restrictions Graduate Standing, School of Arts and Humanities Course Description This is a graduate-level introduction to, and overview of, recent scholarship in the field of nineteenth-century American cultural history. Cultural history is a dynamic and expanding field of study; its perspectives and methods in the past 30 years have reshaped the entire historical profession, including the fields of political, social, economic, and intellectual history. Fields such as foreign policy history or business history have experienced a cultural turn ; historians are now as likely to cite anthropologists such as Clifford Geertz or cultural theorists such as Foucault as economists, political scientists or sociologists; concerns with narrative, cultural representation, and the production of meaning are everywhere in current historiography. Nowhere is this more true than in the historical study of the United States in the nineteenth century. The older concerns of historians of this era such as the emergence of market capitalism and Jacksonian democracy, the consolidation of American corporations, American expansionism, national unification, evangelical religion and reform movements, urbanization have been revisited in new contexts in which terms such as memory, the body, narrative, representation, sentimentalism, the humanitarian sensibility, gender and whiteness have become central to the discussion of the nineteenth-century past. This course, then, has two primary purposes: to introduce students to the distinctive varieties of cultural history and their interpretive approaches; and to provide an overview of issues specific to nineteenth-century American culture. The first purpose involves a focus on methodology, conceptual approaches, and the ways in which cultural historians differ among themselves, as well as from non-cultural historians. One of the main questions we will be asking is whether culture should be understood as a discrete sphere of life the realm of the arts, or popular genres, including music, theater, literature, etc. or whether it should be seen in a broader sense as infusing all spheres of experience, including economic and political life. The second purpose is more concerned with the substantive questions of the nineteenth century: e.g. how did culture and values change in response to the emergence of a market society? In what way did the changing legal status of slaves and free laborers shape new values about gender and Course Syllabus Page 1
individual rights? What role did cultural memory play in reconstructing the nation in the period after the Civil War? What accounts for the appearance of new genres of horror and sensationalistic murder trial accounts, or for the fascination with the visual in popular and high culture? This course might be viewed as a preparatory course for students thinking about doing a PhD exam field in American cultural history; it lays the foundation by introducing recent work and pointing to a larger body of scholarship that students might be expected to master. That said, as with any course of this nature, it only touches the surface of a large and complex body of scholarship. Through their papers students will be able to examine a particular subject matter in more detail. Student Learning Objectives/Outcomes Students will be able to demonstrate knowledge of varieties of approaches to studying the past that are identified as cultural history. Students will demonstrate knowledge of principle areas of nineteenth-century American culture. Required Textbooks and Materials The following required texts are available for purchase at both the campus bookstore and Off Campus Books. David Blight, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory Sarah Burns, Painting the Dark Side: Art and the Gothic Imagination in Nineteenth-Century America Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War Amy Greenberg, Manifest Manhood and the Antebellum American Empire Karen Halttunen, Murder Most Foul: The Killer and the American Gothic Imagination Walter Johnson, Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market Jackson Lears, Rebirth of a Nation Jonathan Levy, Freaks of Fortune: The Emerging World of Capitalism and Risk in America John Modern, Secularism in Antebellum America Michael O Malley, Face Value: The Entwined Histories of Money and Race in America Amy Dru Stanley, From Bondage to Contract: Wage Labor, Marriage, and the Market in the Age of Slave Emancipation Additional required readings of periodical literature will be indicated (*) in the schedule, and will be available through electronic journal databases maintained by McDermott Library. Other readings will be available through electronic reserve. Course Syllabus Page 2
Assignments & Academic Calendar Week I: Tuesday, January 13 Introduction. No Reading Week II: Tuesday, January 20 Defining Cultural History Reading: Lynn Hunt, Introduction: History, Culture, and Text in The New Cultural History (University of California Press, 1989): 1-22 William Sewell, The Concept(s) of Culture in The Logics of History: Social Theory and Social Transformation (University of Chicago Press, 2005): 152-174 Daniel Wickberg, What is the History of Sensibilities? On Cultural Histories, Old and New, American Historical Review vol. 112 (3), 2007: 661-684 James W. Cook and Lawrence B. Glickman, Twelve Propositions for a History of U.S. Cultural History, in The Cultural Turn in U.S. History: Past, Present & Future, eds. Cook, Glickman, & O Malley (University of Chicago Press, 2008): 3-57 James Cook, The Kids Are Alright: On the Turning of Cultural History, American Historical Review vol. 117 (3), 2012: 746-771 Week III: Tuesday, January 27 Gender and Reading Culture Reading: Amy Greenberg, Manifest Manhood and Antebellum Empire Jeanne Boydston, Gender as a Question of Analysis, Gender & History 20.3 (2008): 558-583 Joanne Meyerowitz, A History of Gender, American Historical Review 113.5 (December 2008): 1346-1356 Week IV: Tuesday, February 3 The Cultural History of Capitalism Reading: Jonathan Levy, Freaks of Fortune: The Emerging World of Capitalism and Risk Jeffrey Sklansky, The Elusive Sovereign: New Intellectual and Social Histories of Capitalism, Modern Intellectual History 9.1 (April 2012): 233-48 Week V: Tuesday, February 10 Slave Historiography and the Culture of Commodities Reading: Walter Johnson, Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market Amy Dru Stanley, Slave Breeding and Free Love: An Antebellum Argument Over Slavery, Capitalism, and Personhood. In Michael Zakim and Gary Kornblith, eds., Capitalism Takes Command Week VI: Tuesday, February 17 Library Session Due: short paper Week VII: Tuesday, February 24 The Trial as Popular Culture Text: Gender, Ideology, and Genre Reading: Karen Halttunen, Murder Most Foul Karen Halttunen, Cultural History and the Challenge of Narrativity, in Beyond the Cultural Turn: New Directions in the Study of Society and Culture eds. Course Syllabus Page 3
Victoria Bonnell, Richard Biernacki, and Lynn Hunt (University of California Press, 1999): 165-181 Week VIII: Tuesday, March 3 Visual Culture Reading: Sarah Burns, Painting the Dark Side: Art and the Gothic Imagination in Nineteenth-Century America Leora Auslander, Beyond Words American Historical Review vol. 110 (4). 2005: 1015-1045 Chris Jenks, The Centrality of the Eye in Western Culture: An Introduction, in Jenks, ed., Visual Culture, pp. 1-25 James Cook, Seeing the Visual in U.S. History, Journal of American History September 2008: 432-41 Week IX: Tuesday March 10 No Reading Paper Proposals Due SPRING BREAK Week X: Tuesday, March 24 Religion and Culture Reading: John Modern, Secularism in Antebellum America Jon Butler, Jack-in-the-Box Faith: The Religion Problem in Modern American History, Journal of American History 90.4 (March 2004): 1357-1376 Week XI: Tuesday, March 31 Race and the Culture of Economic Life Reading: Michael O Malley, Face Value: The Entwined Histories of Money and Race in America Barbara Jeanne Fields, Ideology and Race in American History in Region,Race and Reconstruction, ed. J. Morgan Kousser and James M. McPherson (1982): 143-77 Week XII: Tuesday, April 7 Civil War and Culture Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War Week XIII: Tuesday, April 14 Liberalism, the Market, and the Problem of Dependency Reading: Amy Dru Stanley, From Bondage to Contract Elizabeth Clark, The Sacred Rights of the Weak : Pain, Sympathy and the Culture of Individual Rights in Antebellum America, Journal of American History vol. 82(2), 1995: 463-493 Week XIV: Tuesday, April 21 Race and Cultural Memory Reading: David Blight, Race and Reunion Kerwin Lee Klein, On the Emergence of Memory in Historical Discourse, Representations 69 (Winter 2000): 127-150 Course Syllabus Page 4
Week XV: Thursday, April 28 Gilded Age and Progessive Era Culture Reading: Jackson Lears, Rebirth of a Nation Exam Week: Tuesday, May 5 No Class Meeting. Final Paper Due in JO 5.428 by 1:00 pm Grading Policy Grades will be determined on the following basis: Short paper (due October 4) 20% Class participation: 40% Final Paper (due December 13) 40% All assignments must be completed. Participation grade will be determined by a combination of the following: attendance, demonstrated evidence of having completed and thought about assigned readings, quality of comments, questions, and criticisms about readings. Failure to do the readings and to participate in class discussion will result in a low participation grade. Course grades will be made on the scale of A, A-, B+, B, B-, C+, C, C-, D, F. My understanding of grades is as follows: A and A- grades indicate satisfactory performance at the graduate level. Graces of B and lower indicate serious problems and failure to perform at the level expected of graduate students. Course & Instructor Policies Students are expected to attend all class meetings prepared to participate in discussion of assigned readings. The only legitimate excuses for failing to attend class are religious holidays, illness and personal/family emergencies. Any other absence will be regarded as a choice made by the student not to attend. Tardiness disrupts class meetings. Please make every effort to be on time. Repeated tardiness will lead to a lower participation grade. Please make sure all cell phones are off or disabled during class. Please do not use laptops or other electronic devices during class unless required to do so by a disability. Students are expected to treat one another with civility, and to allow all students the freedom to participate in discussion. Debate is the lifeblood of intellectual work, and vigorous debate is encouraged. Rudeness and personal remarks, however, will not be tolerated. As much as is possible, I encourage students to consider ideas on their merits, and not take criticism of ideas personally. I try to encourage a classroom that is both intellectually lively and open to a variety of views, and at the same time, respectful of the views and concerns of others. I will do my best to abide by that spirit; I ask that you do as well. All assignments are due on the designated dates. Students should meet all deadlines. If there are legitimate reasons why an assignment cannot be completed, it is the student s responsibility to request an extension. If no extension is granted, late assignments will not be accepted, and the student will fail the class. Course Syllabus Page 5