Welcome to the American Studies Institute
 

COURSE OUTLINE
AMERICAN CULTURE

    COURSE DESCRIPTION AND OBJECTIVE:     The serious study of American popular culture is the most recent consequential development in the humanities on US college and university campuses. American culture has changed in the past and is changing dynamically in the present through the very status of the United States as a meeting ground for world cultures. American culture has been global and one cannot talk of contemporary American culture without recognizing the various constitutive elements from various diverse foreign cultures. The ongoing process of immigration to the United States has brought to America ethnic groups from all over the world. This is an introductory course of contemporary American culture that aims to provide concise, open information about a complex modern society. Students will examine how the early West, industrialization, urbanization, and the emergence of the United States as a world power shaped modern America. The lives of European Americans, American Indians, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Chicanos and Latinos were transformed by the emergence of modern industrial America. Shaped by the meeting of diverse peoples and cultures, the United States is becoming a multinational society in a global industrial civilization. The course aims to study the American rich multi-culture as viewed through books and films. It will discuss American attitudes, values, traditions, beliefs toward politics and government. It will analyze the mix in American political culture: Moralistic culture, Traditionalistic culture, and Individualistic culture. Readings, films, videos, discussions, and special guests will focus on race relations, ethics, sports, music, the media, religion, women and sex in American culture. Throughout this course, students will study those articles and movies that best reflect a wide range of American way of life and the various aspects of American heritage. It is designed to confront students with fundamental questions about the development and growth of American culture. Thus the course work will generally focus around questions such as the following:

• What is an American?
• How does nature affect and form the American? In turn, how does the American affect and transform nature and the natural landscape?
• What ideals, such as that of a providential, and later, a "manifest" destiny, shape American experience? Are these ideals realized and to what effect?
• How did the mobility of American society ‹during frontier expansion or the age of the locomotive, for example ‹shape American identity?
• How do we define American culture?
• What institutions and traditions shape American national identity?
• Is America one culture shaped from many ( e pluribus unum ) or is it an aggregate of cultures?
• How are tensions between dualities like liberty and oppression, self and society, and chaos and order, manifested and resolved in American culture, history, and society?
• What is American humor and how it is shaped?
• What is America all about?
• How did the American cultural experience develop?
• What is the relationship between the various ingredients in the melting pot such as native Indians and early Americans, black and white, north and south, rich and poor, etc.?

     Students are expected to reflect upon these and other questions throughout the semester, as well as to learn some basic facts about the American society and culture.

   CHOICE OF FILMS:   Each film selected examines an aspect of the American culture and features at least one clearly defined American central cultural element. Films selected for this course were chosen either for their artistic excellence, or for the fascinating information they impart, or for their vital contribution to the evolution of the American culture. In my choice of films, I selected those landmark movies that I believe reflect closely American culture. Each film in this course is one piece of a puzzle that, when assembled, will depict the wide range of American culture. No doubt, there are dozens of worthy important movies that should have been included in this course but were not due to time limitation.

    AMERICAN IDIOMS, QUOTATIONS AND TERMS: “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.” That simple line Tennessee Williams provides for Blanche Dubois always rings with a special tragic resonance for American audiences. Why does the line so move Americans? Is it the dependency, the strangers, or the special combination that strikes at some basic cultural attitudes? Memorable political statements such as the 1933 Franklin Roosevelt’s “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” is still very fresh in American memory. No doubt, idioms, quotations and terms form a very important part of American culture and language, and most Americans use idioms, quotations and terms when they talk to one another. Idioms and terms are used to give life and richness to the American language. For students studying American culture, the learning of idioms, quotations and terms form an important aspect for establishing a good communicative relationship with native Americans. Also, nonnative speaker of English who has a good command of idiomatic expressions will be judged by native Americans to be “fluent”, “an insider”, and “knows his stuff”.  

   COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADES: Students will be evaluated according to their performance on written assignments, book reviews, a final exam and class discussions. Graded assignments include:

1. Midterm (20%),
2. Quiz on American Idioms and Terms (20%),
3. 12-15 type-written term paper (20%), and
4. Comprehensive final examination (40%), which will consist of both essay and multiple-choice questions.
5. Students who view movies depicting American Culture, or go to centers or libraries or attend activities to learn more about American culture will receive extra credit.

Students are advised to retain copies of all their work until after final grades are received. No incompletes are issued in this course.
Course grades will be defined in these terms:

A-Excellent --                     (Thoughtful, coherent, insightful, contributes)
B-Good --                          (Knows material well, lacks depth, not outstanding)
C-Fair --                            (Adequate, average, passing, little participation)
D-Poor --                           (Little understanding, little effort, incoherent)
F-Fail --                              (No evidence of understanding, no work, no learning)
Scale:                                A  90-100        B  80-89          C  70-79          D  60-69

   ATTENDANCE.  Students are expected to attend class regularly, and will be held responsible for all materials presented there. An attendance sheet will be available every class meeting, and students are expected to sign themselves "present" upon arrival in class. Student signature (first initial, last name) on the roll sheet is required as proof of attendance. Furthermore, in order for an assignment to be accepted, the student must be in class for the entire class period. It is critical that students recognize the importance of attendance and participation in determining their final grade.

   ACADEMIC HONESTY.  All of the work students do in this course is expected to be their own. Students should not use the ideas or writings of others as their own. Plagiarism, or presenting the work of another student as one's own, warrants a failing grade in the course as well as sanctions from the university.