Introduction

We swim in a sea of popular culture products—movies, advertisements, music, sports, books, television, and more. While we sometimes assume that our current inundation by such products is a recent phenomenon, American popular culture has a long and curious history. Its forms have changed along with its audience and messages those forms have carried. As a product of American society, examples of popular culture reflect historical events as well as social and economic changes over time. Even more than a mirror, popular culture can—and has—both reinforced and subverted dominant social and political relations. In exploring American popular culture, this class will pursue three main objectives: First, we will consider how popular culture has reflected and influenced aspects of 20th century American history. Second, by analyzing historical products of popular culture that were once fashionable, we will sharpen our ability to examine the popular culture of our own time. Lastly, we will examine the ways in which popular culture has been used to challenge social orders (including class, gender, and race relations), and ways in which it has also perpetuated those same social systems.

In order to achieve these goals we will be paying special attention to the following three questions: 1) Who has produced different kinds of popular culture and why? 2) What messages did those products carry and for whom? And 3) how did audiences respond to those products and the messages they carried? These three themes will run through the lectures and course readings, and they should guide you in your own research projects. By the end of the course I hope we will have a clearer understanding not only of what popular culture is, but how it has worked historically and why it deserves historical analysis.

Since this is an upper level class, I will expect students to read critically, listen thoughtfully, and share their analyses of readings and lecture in regular class discussions. I have assigned a variety of course readings that will introduce you to different kinds of research on popular culture and offer you two sorts of primary source material: a memoir and a work of fiction. You will also watch some film and we will incorporate a variety of other primary source material during class meetings. There is no textbook for this class; I will develop a chronological narrative of U.S. popular culture through lectures (though you are welcome to borrow a survey text from me if you would like it for background reading). A light reading load for the first part of the semester will allow students to focus on their research paper, which is, as befits a 400-level course, the main requirement of the semester. We will approach this step-by-step as a process throughout the course (see requirements section and schedule of assignments). The last part of the course will emphasize discussion of assigned readings. By the end of the semester students will have analyzed course themes through their own work as historians as well as through a critical discussion of primary sources and scholarly monographs.

This course will help students develop a number of the IUPUI Principles of Undergraduate Learning. By learning course content students will develop their “understanding society and culture.” Other aspects of this course will emphasize other principles of undergraduate learning geared towards understanding an academic discipline (“intellectual depth, breadth, and adaptiveness”), and those geared towards developing important skills (“core communication and quantitative skills” and “critical thinking”). See the History Department’s home web page to view the IUPUI Principles of Undergraduate Learning in full: http://www.iupui.edu/~history/.

Books

Kathy Peiss, Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Turn-of-the-Century

New York (1986)

Benjamin Filene, Romancing the Folk: Public Memory and American Roots Music

(2000) *note: this book is required for grad students only – undergads will read

two chapters available also as excerpts, so purchasing the whole book is optional

Hettie Jones, How I Became Hettie Jones (1990)

Susan J. Douglas, Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media (1995)

Edward Abbey, The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975)

Mary Lynn Rampolla, A Pocket Guide to Writing in History (1998)

*There will also be occasional readings excerpted from other sources that will be available either from the instructor or on ERROL. See schedule of assignments.

Requirements

1) A midterm quiz, made up of Identifications from class lectures and discussion. We will compile a list of terms from every class throughout the semester; terms for the quiz will come from this list. (15%)

2) A one-page precis setting out your topic and research questions, a working thesis and how they fit in with the secondary source analysis you have found due FEB. 12 at the start of class. (15%)

3) A research paper, 12-15 pages in length, in which you analyze some primary source or text in relation to course themes and existing secondary sources. (30%) This grade will include performance on preliminary steps and a DRAFT due MARCH 5 as well as the final product, due APRIL 4. We will discuss how to develop topics, conduct research, write drafts, and evaluate peer drafts as the semester progresses.

4) A final exam, consisting of identifications and essay questions, based on class lectures, discussions, and course reading. I will hand out a study guide and a group of essay questions from which I will make the exam at least one week before the exam. (30%)

5) Participation in class discussions, intellectual curiosity, and general signs of life. If you are painfully shy, come see me, take advantage of my email account to raise questions and make comments, or both. Note: participation does not just mean talking, it means being prepared and adding informed opinions or insight. (10%)

6) Attendance. Faithful attendance is vital to your success in this course and is required. An attendance list will be circulated at some point during each class, and if you miss signing in due to lateness or an early departure, you will be counted as absent for the day. Since emergencies plague even the most diligent, however, you may miss up to four classes without penalty, no questions asked or excuses required. *For each and every class missed past four, I will deduct two points from your final grade average. Avoid this at all costs since it can do significant damage to an otherwise hard-earned grade. Save your free misses for emergencies! If you maintain an excellent attendance record for the semester, you can count on good karma when I compute final grades, which often demands rounding up or down according to how much it seems the student has invested in the course.

I expect you to meet deadlines and due dates. If you have a problem, come talk to me BEFORE the deadline, otherwise I will need documentation of illness or other emergency. Unless we have reached an alternate agreement, late assignments will be marked down 1/3 of a letter grade for each day they are late. Plan ahead, save your work often, make back up copies, and print out your papers early. Know that you are responsible for all activity on your computer accounts. Avoid intellectual dishonesty at all costs—plagiarism, cheating, and the like will result in a grade of zero on the work in question and perhaps disciplinary action from the university. (See the Indiana University Academic Handbook, p. 124 or come see me if you have questions.) Also come see me or email me if you have other questions, need help, or want to discuss class.

Schedule of Assignments

Jan. 8 Introduction – What IS Popular Culture?

Industrialization, Urbanization, and the Rise of Mass Culture

Jan. 10 Contested Terrain: Central Park and Class

Jan. 15 Contested Terrain II: Saloons and Ethnicity

Jan. 17 Contested Terrain III: Dancehalls, Amusement Parks, and Gender

(read and discuss Peiss, Cheap Amusements)

[graduate students meet to discuss Peiss]

Jan. 22 The Growing Power of Film: Griffith’s Birth of a Nation

*research topics due in class

Jan. 24 library research workshop

Jan. 29 Advertising and Popular Magazines

* library assignment: bring to class a copy of an ad from Ladies’ Home

Journal between 1890 and 1930

Jan. 31 Mass Media and Heroes of the 1920s

* preliminary list of secondary sources and journal article due in class

Feb. 5 The Meaning of Baseball

Feb. 7 Automobiles, Modernism, and Landscape

Feb. 12 Race and Music: Jazz

*PRECIS due in class

The Politics and Anti-Politics of Mass Culture

Feb. 14 Political Culture: Art and the New Deal

(watch “Grapes of Wrath” before class)

Feb. 19 Political Culture II: The Popular Front (read and discuss Filene, Romancing the Folk excerpt pp. 47-75)

Feb. 21 The Rise of Hollywood and the Cult of Celebrity

*midterm QUIZ

[graduate students meet to discuss Filene in its entirety]

Feb. 26 World War and Pop Culture

Consensus Consumer Culture

Feb. 28 Containment Culture: Sexuality, the Bomb, and the Cold War

(read Douglas up to p. 81)

Mar. 5 Television *DRAFT due at the start of class (2 copies)

Mar. 7 Disney’s Land

Mar. 12 no class – Spring Break

Mar. 14 no class – Spring Break

Subversive Pop Culture

Mar. 19 Beat Culture Lived (read Hettie Jones in its entirety and discuss in class)

Mar. 21 No Class

Mar. 26 Elvis and the Blues *PEER REVIEW due in class

Mar. 28 Motown, Civil Rights, and Why the Shirelles Mattered

(read Douglas, 83-98 and Ward, Just My Soul Responding excerpt)

Apr. 2 Pop Art, Architecture, and Postmodernism

Apr. 4 Rock Music and the Counter Culture

*FINAL PAPERS due at the start of class

Apr. 9 Race, Sports, and Politics: Mohammed Ali (watch “When We Were Kings” before class)

The Dilemma of Commercialization

Apr. 11 Mass Media and the Women’s Movement (finish and discuss Douglas)

[graduate students meet to discuss Douglas]

Apr. 16 The 1970s- Race, Sex, and Disco

Apr. 18 Punk and its Fate

Apr. 23 Eco Warriors and Industrial Tourism

(read Abbey, Monkey Wrench Gang and discuss in class)

Apr. 25 Course Conclusions

Apr. 30 FINAL EXAM 3:30-5:30pm in CA215, as usual