American Movies as American Studies: An Introduction to American Studies
AMST 177
Fall 2017
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01
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Our aim is to see how movies from the 1930s to the present can help us grow as critical (and self-critical) American studies thinkers (and have fun--even as we question the effects and implications of this fun--doing it). Talkies appeared as a complex mass-cultural form of American studies--exported all over the world--precisely when the academic field of American studies emerged in the early 1930s. From the get-go, movies involved in mass-disseminating America's inventions of power have made available--in very entertaining ways--critical insight that can blow the whistle on how the reproduction of Americans and American ideologies are pulled off. Together we will explore the modern Americanization of power and focus our conversations on four intersecting concerns that movies are particularly good at illuminating: (1) how culture industries (including movies) shape consciousness, needs, desires, incentives, and sense of belonging and limit our sense of what constitutes problems and solutions; (2) how social critique (even movie critiques of movies) can be mass-popularized; (3) how America makes Americans, especially, into workers (even if they hate what they do and wonder about what and who they are working for) and weapons of various sorts (even if they are frightened and wonder about what and who they are fighting for and against); and (4) how and why America constructs difference (e.g., gender, race, individuality, national identity). This seminar is a thinking-intensive and imagination-intensive critical project designed to introduce students to compelling big-picture concerns--systemic matters--vital to American studies. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
SBS AMST |
| Course Format: Lecture / Discussion | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (AMST)(CSCT) |
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Past Enrollment Probability: 50% - 74% |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
King Vidor, dir. OUR DAILY BREAD (1934)
Preston Sturges, dir. SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS (1941)
Herbert Ross, dir. PENNIES FROM HEAVEN (1981)
Frank Capra, dir. MEET JOHN DOE (1941)
Elia Kazan, dir. FACE IN THE CROWD (1957)
Martin Ritt, dir. NORMA RAE (1979)
Michael Moore, dir. CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY (2009)
Jay Roach, dir. TRUMBO (2015)
Sidney Pollack, THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON'T THEY? (1969)
Spike Lee, dir. DO THE RIGHT THING (1989)
Ryan Coogler, dir. FRUITVALE STATION (2013)
SOME READINGS (OTHERS TBA):
John Berger, WAYS OF SEEING (1972)
Robert McChesney, "This Isn't What Democracy Looks Like" (2014)
Robert Reich, BEYOND OUTRAGE: WHAT HAS GONE WRONG WITH OUR ECONOMY AND OUR DEMOCRACY AND HOW TO FIX IT (2012)
Thomas Frank, WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS? HOW CONSERVATIVES WON THE HEART OF AMERICA (2004)
Barbara Ehrenreich, NICKEL AND DIMED: ON (NOT) GETTING BY IN AMERICA (2001)
Larry Ceplair and Steven Englund, INQUISITION IN HOLLYWOOD: POLITICS IN THE FILM COMMUNITY 1930-1960
Michelle Alexander, THE NEW JIM CROW: MASS INCARCERATION IN THE AGE OF COLORBLINDNESS (2010)
Latoya Peterson, "What I Have to Teach My Black Child That a White Parent Would Never Have to Worry About" (2014)
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Examinations and Assignments:
Three 5-7 page essays. Plus, each student will team up with one or more students--two times or more during the term--to raise questions and facilitate discussion about movies and/or reading. |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
There may be some movie showings scheduled for Sundays. |
| Instructor(s): Pfister,Joel Times: ...W... 07:10PM-10:00PM; Location: ALLB103; |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 40 | | SR major: 7 | JR major: 15 | | |
| Seats Available: 7 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: X | JR non-major: X | SO: 10 | FR: 8 |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 0 | 1st Ranked: 0 | 2nd Ranked: 0 | 3rd Ranked: 0 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 0 |
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