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Academic Year 2000/2001

Constructing Individuals: Toward an American Cultural History of the Individual
AMST 342 FA
Crosslistings:
ENGL 300

We will explore a few provocative theoretical and historical approaches to the cultural discourses, ideologies, and concepts of "the individual" in 19th- and 20th-century America. The premise of the course is that the individual can be conceptualized fruitfully as a changing historical and cultural category rather than a "natural" experience of one's self. Thus we will begin to think critically about "the individual," not as a person who is inherently individual, but as one who is fashioned as such b y historically specific economic, political, imperialist, class, racial, gendered, sexual, body, family, psychological, literary, and aesthetic discourses. We will start by reading some seminal interdisciplinary discussions (history, literary, anthropology, sociology, cultural studies) of "the individual." We will also study key historical and ideological movements that shaped subjectivities, like Romanticism and the sentimentalization of the family. Then we will focus on three areas. First, we will examine the Carlisle Industrial School for Indians (1879-1918)--set up to "Americanize" and "individualize" the "Indian"--and the writings this school produced. Second, we shall reassess the making of the middle-class "psychological individual" t hrough selected 20th-century texts in psychology, pop psychology, literature, drama, and advertising (this will culminate with Foucault's critique of psychoanalysis). Third, we will scrutinize Left critiques of the individual and of the aesthetic values legitimated by the ideologies of "the individual" from the 1910s to the Cold War era.

MAJOR READINGS

Raymond Williams, KEYWORDS (1976) Barbara Ehrenreich, from FEAR OF FALLING: THE INNER LIFE OF THE MIDDLE CLASS (1989) Eli Zaretsky, from CAPITALISM, THE FAMILY, and PERSONAL LIFE (1976) Robert Bellah et al., HABITS OF THE HEART (1985) Barbara Kruger/Kate Linker, LOVE FOR SALE: THE WORDS AND PICTURES OF BARBARA KRUGER (1990) John Cheever, "The Swimmer" (1964) Jonathan Winthrop, "A Modell of Christian Charity" (1630) Benjamin Franklin, "The Way to Wealth" Alexis de Tocqueville, DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA (1835, 1840) Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self-Reliance" (1841) "Man the Reformer (1841) "New England Reformers" (1894) Nathaniel Hawthorne, "The Artist of the Beautiful" (1844) "Footprints on the Seashore" (1838), "Book of Autographs" (1844) Carlisle School, THE RED MAN, THE INDIAN HELPER, THE ARROW, and other publications. Zitkala-Sa, AMERICAN INDIAN STORIES (1921) Charles Eastman (Ohiyesa), FROM DEEP WOODS TO CIVILIZATION (1916) Luther Standing Bear, MY PEOPLE THE SIOUX (1928) Susa n Glaspell, THE VERGE (1921) D.H. Lawrence, MORNINGS IN MEXICO (1927), STUDIES IN CLASSIC AMERICAN LITERATURE (1923) Mabel Dodge, assorted writings on psychoanalysis and Taos (1910s-1930s) John Collier, excerpts from INDIANS OF THE AMERICAS (1947), ON THE GLEAMING WAY (1949), FROM EVERY ZENITH (1963) Mike Gold, STRIKE!: A MASS RECITATION (1926) Clifford Odets, WAITING FOR LEFTY (1935) John Dewey, INDIVIDUALISM OLD AND NEW (1930) Susan Glaspell and George Cram Cook, SUPPRESSED DESIRES (1916) Sigmund Freud, "Miss Lucy R." Judith Butler, "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution" (1990) Joan W. Scott, "Experience" (1992) Michael Foucault, THE HISTORY OF SEXUALITY: VOLUME 1 (1980)

EXAMINATIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS

Three seven page papers, lead class discussion once or twice.

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS and/or COMMENTS

This course meets the English Department's historical knowledge requirement. Unless preregistered students attend the first class meeting or communicate directly with the instructor prior to the first class, they will be dropped from the class list. NOTE: Students must still submit a completed Drop/Add form to the Registrar's Office.

COURSE FORMAT: Lecture

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Level: UGRD    Credit: 1    Gen Ed Area Dept: HA ENGL    Grading Mode: Student Option   

Prerequisites: NONE Links to Web Resources For This Course.

Last Updated on MAR-26-2001

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