All,



I tried to do a cool blog post about the materials I have found helpful in teaching about "power," but 'm not quite as clever as Pete and my attempt was a miserable failure. I'm pretty good at email, though, so here are some links to and attachments of readings that have been somewhat successful as aides in teaching the concept of "hegemony" to AMS 100 students.



Here is a link to a definition/introduction to the term from Cultural Theory: Key Concepts on Google Books, that I have students read first:



http://books.google.com/books?id=nyzORR-xYMIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Hegemony+Cultural+Theory:+Key+Concepts&source=gbs_similarbooks_s&cad=1#v=onepage&q=Hegemony&f=false



After reading that breif passage, I have them read from Gramsci's essay "Hegemony, Intellectuals, and the State", hoping that if thye undrstood that more approachable definition, that they might be able to pick out and understand some important concepts from the original. Here's a Google Books link to the piece:



http://books.google.com/books?id=LZ7mHdAVajYC&pg=PA210&dq=hegemony+intellectuals+and+the+state&hl=en&ei=F4GpS5fHOpv4MdGbzM4B&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=hegemony%20intellectuals%20and%20the%20state&f=false



Then I use the early days of rock and roll to talk about the way the "dominant/leading cultural group" (represented by big record labels and radio stations with their ties to big business and somewhat weaker ties to institutions like the governmnet and the church, as well as the general populous of middle-class adults, all of whose approval they relied upon to some degree) struggles and compromises with potentially threatening "suboridinate cultural groups" (here, musicians and consumers--often young people, and frequently from the working class and racial margins--with their heavily rhythmic, occasionally sexual music) in order to retain their position of power and cultural leadership.



I have attached a chapter form David Szatmary's book Rockin' in Time: A Social History of Rock and Roll that covers that period. I assigne this to students to give them the historical context and some background about the artists and the music business so they can exploreand discuss how the hegemony framework might be applicable to this situation.



Along with this information, I of course have them listen to music from some of the more prominent artists from the time including the working-class, black pioneers; the working class, southern, white musicians that grew up around the raw ingredients of rock and roll (black blues and gospel, as well as country music); and some middle-class, white pretenders hired by record copanies to cash-in on the new rock and roll sound.



Little Richard--Tutti Frutti, Good Golly Miss Molly



Chuck Berry--Maybellene, Johnny B. Goode



Pat Boone--Tutti Frutti, Ain't That a Shame



Elvis--That's All Right Mamma, Hound Dog, It's Now or Never



Jerry Lee Lewis--Whole Lot of Shaking Goin' On, Great Balls of Fire



Richie Valens-- La Bamba



(I provide a link to last.fm on my Blackboard site, but I don't think that will work for you guys, because you aren't in my class. Hopefully you've heard some of these songs.)



Now, if you read through all that, thanks. If not, don't sweat it too much; I think I get to explain some of my methods during our meeting tomorrow.



Later,



Will

Material on "Difference"

You can't attach files (other than image files) to Blogger posts, but I uploaded my outline to another site for you to download. Here it is:

Pete's Difference outline

It's a lecture/intro to the concept of "difference."

Primary and Secondary Sources
To watch the trailer for Ken Burns' Jazz, click here (it's basically the first five minutes of the series). Click on "Watch the video trailer" to view. RealPlayer required.

George Lipsitz's chapter on Jazz (secondary source) can be read at Google Books here.

Horace Tapscott's oral history of jazz in LA (primary source) can be found at Google Books here.

The Black Rock Coalition website is here.

Here's Maureen Mahon's essay on the BRC at Google Books

Here's Living Colour's video for "Cult of Personality":


Here's Fishbone's video for "Party at Ground Zero":


Here is a live performance of TV on the Radio's "The Wrong Way":

Possible Intro material

I was thinking about what to do to engage our students on the first day of AMS 100 in the fall, and what came to mind was El Vez. His work, as a homosexual, Mexican American Elvis impersonator, engages all of the big themes we came up with at our last meeting. And he's fun to watch. Here's a live video of his "Star Spangled Banner/C.C. Rider":


There's also this great clip from a documentary on Elvis impersonators, in which El Vez articulates in a minute and a half all of our themes: America, how culture works, power, and difference:


And for context, here's Elvis' performance of the "American Trilogy":

Concept Map from 3/10 Meeting

I took this photo of our concept map from the 3/10 meeting. I thought it would be useful to see how we started to work with topics and learning outcomes. Click on the photo for a larger version.

AMS 100 Redesign Plan (Working draft of 10 March 2010)

For March 24, follow the syllabus and post to the blog.

Course Units and Learning Outcomes:

America – Historical consciousness, problematizing norms - Liz

Culture – Understanding complexity, vocabulary, culture matters - Chris

Difference - Understanding norms not as natural but as socially and culturally constructed - Pete

Power - Difference and Inequality at the levels of the individual, group, nation, and world – Will

Closing - Niki and Stephanie

Note:

Cheryl will work with Registrar to change lecture to Mondays before 3pm or after 7pm, space lectures apart throughout the semester rather than frontloading all of them, and change MW sections to WF

Stephanie's Topics and Goals

Here are my topic ideas:

Culture: I present my students with several definitions of culture and we discuss the merits and limits of each. The goal here is not to arrive at an airtight definition (as if), but to get them thinking about what people actually mean when they invoke that concept, particularly the concept of “American culture,” and to understand that the meaning isn't fixed.

Power: In a Foucauldian sense, I suppose (sorry, he's on my desk at the moment)--I look for ways to make the normally invisible aspects of power visible and to give my students to tools to look critically at the discourses that prop up the order of things (yes, I told you it was Foucauldian).

I like power as a central concept for reasons similar to those that Pete brought up for the “race, class, gender” trinity; I'd like students to leave the class with the capacity to spot “naturalization” when it happens. I introduce a few power-related terms that I hope give them a few tools to do this; hegemony and normativity are the biggies.

Categories of difference: I think I got this straight off our AMS website at one point. Encompassed here are race, class, gender, sexuality, religious orientation, disability—which ones we emphasize the most probably depends to a large extent on the material that we choose.

I suppose a big goal here is to give them a vocabulary that allows them to talk meaningfully about these categories and how they create identity and experience, without resorting to essentialist ideas. I try to work against the tendency that some students have, once we start deconstructing and talking about social formations, to throw up their hands and decide that they have no means of talking about these categories without getting in trouble.

Chris's topics and learning outcomes

Here they go:



Learning outcomes: (straight from my current syllabus)

-develop good college level study skills and habits

-identify, understand, summarize and analyze an author's main argument

-to synthesize several different argument's into coherent concepts and wholes

-to construct opinions and arguments by reading and analyzing various course materials

-to improve writing and critical thinking skills

-to learn about the field of American Studies by examining its history, evolution and by employing the various methods used to examine American culture that American Studies scholars use

-to think about American culture, American popular music and musicians as being connected and interrelated to, and influenced by race, gender, class, ethnicity, sexuality, geography, politics, etc

The first five learning outcomes are important to me because for the most part I've taught freshmen, so I feel that these things are important to get freshmen doing right out of the gate, especially if it's fall semester. They are also good things to continue to reinforce with sophomores and older students who are not from disciplines - such as the hard sciences - where these kinds of learning outcomes may not be common.



Topics:
The main topics directly relate to the last two learning outcomes. Since this is an introduction to the field of AMS you can't do this class without addressing the field of AMS in general. The last learning outcome is based on many of the major themes and topics that I see in AMS. I particularly focus on race and gender and base most of my class around those and then add in the other categories such as class, etc when appropriate. I think Pete's statement about why he does gender and race - something about changing how we think about those things and realizing that they are not fixed categories - that's really good and he put it better than I could, and I try to do the same things as well.

I also build most of the class around American popular music because that's my personal focus and interests, but I do it in such a way that I can address the major themes, topics and approaches that we do in American studies.

Ok, I think that's about it.

Liz's AMS 100 Topics & Learning Outcomes

After looking over my syllabus I found that I explicitly list five “topics” (race, class, gender, nation, and power). I also imply in the course description that the course will tackle at least two additional topics: “America/American” and “culture” (this could also probably include American Studies as a discipline). So, taking into consideration what others have already posted here are my topics:

1) America/American

2) culture

3) race, class, gender (This “grouping” may include nation, power, dis/ability, ethnicity, sexuality, etc. as Pete pointed out below. Like Will, I also consider discussions/analysis of power to be a large topical component of the course however I would probably “group” that as a subtopic to each of these three major topics (if that makes any sense). If I broadened this list to five I would maybe list identity and power as the additional two “topics.”

I would also argue that my learning outcomes could be applied to all the topics. These are in no particular order.

1) Understand the complexity and develop a working vocabulary of the above topics

2) Exhibit critical thinking skills (to do this I would argue that this involves developing a “historical consciousness”)

3) Demonstrate quality reading comprehension, research, and writing

AMS 100 Topics and Outcomes with Will Bishop

Topics

The term "topic" is maybe a little tricky. Or perhaps I'm just a bit dumb. In any case the things I have chosen here aren't all necessarily topics in the sense that we cover them as two week unit. In some cases, these are items that appear and reappear throughout the semester. But I guess I see them as central "topics" because they guide the direction and content of the course. (Of course, Pete's selections are major topics in my class. I picked different topics on purpose.) Here goes:

-social construction

This, for me, is sort of required background knowledge to discuss the issues of race, class, gender, and difference or "otherness" in general

-power (I focus on the concept and analytical framework of hegemony, other concepts and framework are certainly valid)

Again, this topic is pertinent to our favorite topics, but I feel touching on a little bit of theory and abstraction is good experience for young students and gives them a little taste of what we do as American studies scholars.

-American history

If we are going to "read," analyze, and discuss specific texts, I feel it is important to make sure students have a basic knowledge of U.S. cultural history, the context in which the texts were created and received. Students should have most of this knowledge from high school American history, but we all know how that goes. Also, I find that taken a specific social and cultural approach to history is helpful for students who have mostly only had "straight history" thus far.

Learning Outcomes

Social Construction:

-develop an understanding of the notion that social expectations and behaviors frequently the product of culture rather than "nature" or "biology"

-demonstrate the ability to identify, analyze, and discuss examples of social construction in a variety of cultural texts

Power:

-acquire a working vocabulary or terms relating to Gramsci's concept of hegemony

-demonstrate the ability to apply the "hegemony" framework to variety of historical situations and texts

American history:

-demonstrate a basic understanding of the major social and cultural changes and trends in the United States from 1865 to the present

-acquire a working vocabulary of historical terminology used to describe and discuss said social and cultural changes and trends

-demonstrate the ability to contextualize a variety of cultural texts in this acquired historical knowledge

Pete's Teaching Topics and Learning Outcomes

Topics:

I'll start with the big three: race, class, and gender. These could be separate topics, but my outcomes are the same for all three.

Outcomes:
Students should demonstrate:

• a broad knowledge of the changing definitions of "race," "class," and "gender" throughout history
• an understanding of the complex debates surrounding these terms more recently in American Studies
• an understanding of how these terms work in American culture
  

I could have chosen a number of other terms that get listed with the big three: nation, dis/ability, ethnicity, sexuality, etc. But I thought I'd start with these. (In fact, in my own teaching, I focus much more on race, gender, and nation than I do class.) And I could have just as easily chosen "identity" or "culture" as topics, too.

Importance:
For undergraduates being introduced to American Studies, an understanding of the use of these terms is crucial. Just about everything I have read in graduate school (and a good bit of what I read as an undergraduate) engages one or more of these terms explicitly or implicitly; from my experience, they are a part of the language of academia in the humanities. An understanding of these terms will help students recognize them when they come up in future courses and conversation.

I have found that most undergraduates, and a good portion of the general public, tend to think of race, class, and gender as fixed categories (even if we experience them as not so fixed); thus, students can dismiss conversations about them as needlessly combative or uncomfortable. A broad historical look at race, class, and gender shows them to be fluid categories, whose definitions change with (even while they define) social relations at different moments in history. A look at recent debates about these terms is intended to offer models for engaging in well-informed conversation, as well as allow for the possibility of these terms remaining fluid and always up for debate. These conversations often happen in culture, and so understanding how a song can be "about" race or a hairstyle "about" gender helps students engage in their world as they also participate in these debates.