Reading List/Bibliography for Concepts of Culture

Course Outline/Reading List/Bibliography for Concepts of Culture

I. INTRODUCTION TO COURSE

Week One--Jane Tompkins, "At the Buffalo Bill Museum June 1988." West of Everything: The Inner Life

Of Westerns. New York: Oxford UP, 1992.

And articles, letters, and editorials concerning the controversy over the Smithsonian Enola Gay

Exhibit, including

Edward Linenthal and Tom Englehardt, eds., History Wars: The Enola Gay and

Other Battles for the American Past. New York: Holt, 1996.

Martin Harwit, An Exhibit Denied: Lobbying the History of the Enola Gay. New

York: Springer-Verlag, 1996.

"Senate Documents Concerning the Enola Gay Controversy." Journal of

American History 1995 82(3): 1136-1144.

Yakel, Elizabeth. "Museums, Management, Media, and Memory: Lessons from

The Enola Gay Exhibition." Libraries & Culture 2000 35(2): 278-310.

Discussion of constituencies, perspective, terms including culture, popular, public, mass, high and low and their relevance to various disciplines.

II. UNDERSTANDING/ANALYZING THE PERSPECTIVES AND METHODS IN THE DISCIPLINES

Week Two-- Recent representative articles from various

disciplines (English, History, Anthropology, Geography, Sociology) and discussion

concerning what the articles reveal about how those working within these disciplines view

themselves, their work, the nature of truth, valid methods of study, etc. Week two readings

and discussion should focus on English and Anthropology.

Readings in English:

Barbara Herrnstein Smith. "Contingencies of Value." Contingencies of Value: Alternative

Perspectives for Critical Theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1988. 30-53.

(includes subheadings "Contingency and Interdependence," "Matters of Taste,"

"Processes of Evaluation," and "The Dynamics of Endurance."

Cyndy Hendershot. "The One-Sex Body in a Two-Sex World." "(Re)Visioning the Gothic: Jane

Campion's Film The Piano." The Animal Within: Masculinity and the Gothic. Ann

Arbor: U of Michican P, 1998. 9-41, 203-218.

Michael Rogin. "'The Sword Became a Flashing Vision': D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation."

The New American Studies: Essays from Representations. Ed. Philip Fisher.

Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. 346-92.

Patrick Brantlinger. "Heart of Darkness: Anti-Imperialism, Racism, or Impressionism?"

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism.

Ed. Ross C. Murfin. 2^nd Ed. Boston: Bedford, 1996. 277-98.

Readings in Anthropology/Folklore:

Clifford, James. "On Ethnographic Authority." In The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth

Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art by Clifford. (Cambridge: Harvard Univ.

Press, 1988): 21-54.

Asad, Talal. "The Concept of Cultural Translation in British Social Anthropology." In

Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Culture, edited by James Clifford

and George E. Marcus (Berkeley: U of CA Press, 1986): 141-164.

Glassie, Henry. "Tradition." Journal of American Folklore 108 (1995): 395-412.

Titon, Jeff Todd. "Text." Journal of American Folklore 108 (1995): 432-448.

Week Three--Continued discussion of disciplines of English and Anthropology/Folklore. Invited

Guest: Anthropologist/Folklorist.

Week Four--Begin discussion of representative articles in History, Geography, and Sociology

History articles:

Steven Lubar and David Kingery, eds., History from Things: Essays on Material Culture.

Smithsonian Institution P, 1996.

Roy Rosenzweig and David Thelen, The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History

In American Life. Columbia UP, 1998.

Susan Porter Benson, Roy Rosenzweig, and Steven Brier, eds., Presenting the Past: Essays

On History and the Public. Temple UP, 1986.

Robert Putnam, "Bowling Alone"

Lou Ann Jones' work on "Flour Sack Garments"

Kenneth Goings, "Black Memorabilia"

Readings in Geography:

Matthew H. Edney, "Cartography Without 'Progress': Reinterpreting the Nature and

Historical Development of Mapmaking." Cartographica 1993 30(2-3): 54-68.

J. B. Harley, "Maps, Knowledge, and Power." The Iconography of Landscape: Essays

In the Symbolic Representation, Design & Use of Past Environments. Denis Cosgrove and

Stephen Daniels, eds. Cambridge UP, 1988.

Readings in Sociology:

Herbert Gans. "The Critique of Mass Culture." Popular Culture and High Culture: An Analysis and Evaluation of Taste. New York: Basic, 1975. 17-64.

Janice A. Radway. Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature. Chapel

Hill, NC: U of North Carolina P, 1984. Skim Introduction and first four chapters.

Week Five--Continue discussion of articles in History, Geography, and Sociology. Invited guests:

Historian, Geographer, Sociologist.

INTERDISCIPLINARY/MULTIDISCIPLINARY THEORY

Week Six--Presentation of "models" for students, which may include Eudora Welty's Depression-

era photographs and reviews/editorials concerning the controversy over their recent

exhibit. I would also like one "model" to be an as-yet unexhibited Delta material culture

collection. Students would become familiar with the materials in class, discuss ways/

reasons they might be exhibited, and the materials will be held for them so that they

can have further access to them during the rest of the semester. During the presentations

and discussions on theory, students will be asked to use these materials as "common

texts" to ground their understanding of theory. For instance, as part of their presentations

they should consider how the theory/theories they are covering could be understood in

terms of these "models" or materials. Other possible "models": a Delta-related

music collection.

Week Seven--Beginning of discussion of theories regarding social class. Articles

including the following:

Karl Marx, "The Ruling Class and Ruling Ideas" and "The Real Basis of Ideology."

The German Ideology. New York: International, 1989. 64-81.

----. "The Fetishism of the Commodity and its Secret." Capital, Volume One.

Trans. Ben Fowkes. New York: Vintage, 1977. 163-77.

Walter Benjamin. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" and

"Theses on the Philosophy of History." Illuminations. New York: Schocken,

1969. 217-64.

Theodor Adorno. "Cultural Criticism and Society." Prisms. Cambridge: MIT Press,

1967. 17-34.

Fredric Jameson. "Reification and Utopia in Mass Culture." Social Text 1 (1979): 130-48.

Stuart Hall, "Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'." People's History and Socialist Theory,

Ed. Ralph Samuel. London: Routledge, 1981. 227-240.

---. "Signification, Representation, Ideology: Althusser and the Poststructuralist

Debates." Critical Studies in Mass Communication 2 (1985): 91-114.

Louis Althusser. "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses." Lenin and Philosophy

And Other Essays. New York: Monthly Review, 1971. 127-186.

Raymond Williams. "Cultural Theory." Marxism and Literature. Oxford: Oxford UP,

1977. 75-141.

Week Eight--continued discussion of theory about social class.

Week Nine--Discussion of theories regarding race, including the following:

George Lipsitz, "The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: Racialized Social Democracy

And the 'White' Problem in American Studies." American Quarterly 1991 47(3):

369-387.

Michael Omi and Howard A. Winant, Racial Formation in the United States: 1960-1990.

Routledge, 1994.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. The Signifying Monkey: a Theory of African-American Literary

Criticism. New York: Oxford UP, 1988.

---. "The Trope of a New Negro and the Reconstruction of the Image of the Black."

The New American Studies: Essays from Representations. Ed. Philip Fisher.

Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. 319-45.

Anthony Appiah. "The Uncompleted Argument: DuBois and the Illusion of Race."

Critical Inquiry 12:1 (Autumn, 1985).

Elizabeth Spelman. "The Ampersand Equation." Inessential Woman:Problems of Exclusion in

Feminist Thought. Beacon, 1990.

Maria Lugones. "Playfulness, 'World'-Travelling, and Loving Perception." The Woman

That I Am: The Literature and Culture of Contemporary Women of Color.

Ed. D. Soyini Madison. New York: St. Martin's, 1994. 626-37.

Morrison, Toni. "Romancing the Shadow." Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the

Literary Imagination. New York: Vintage, 1992.

Gloria Anzaldua. "La consciencia de la mestiza: Towards a New Consciousness."

The Woman That I Am: The Literature and Culture of Contemporary Women

Of Color. Ed. D. Soyini Madison. New York: St. Martin's, 1994. 560-572.

bell hooks. Selections from Talking Back: thinking feminist, thinking black. Boston:

South End, 1989.

Houston A. Baker, Jr. "Critical Memory and the Black Public Sphere." The Black

Public Sphere Collective, The Black Public Sphere. Chicago: UP of Chicago,

1995. 7-37.

Week Ten--Continued discussion of theories concerning race.

Week Eleven--Discussion of theories concerning gender and sexual orientation, including the

following:

Alcoff, Linda. "Cultural Feminism versus Poststructuralism: The Identity Crisis in Feminist

Theory." Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 13:3 (1988).

Gilligan, Carol. In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1982.

---. "Joining the Resistance: Psychology, Politics, Girls and Women." From Tanner Lecture in

Human Values at University of Michigan, on March 16, 1990.

Jaggar, Alison M. "Love and Knowledge: Emotion in Feminist Epistemology."

Gender/Body/Knowledge. Eds. Alison M. Jaggar and Susan R. Bordo. New Brunswick,

NJ: Rutgers UP, 1990.

Kimmel, Michael. The Gendered Society. New York: Oxford, 2000.

Rich, Adrienne. "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence." Feminist Literary Theory.

Ed. Mary Eagleton. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1994.

Sedgwick, Eva Kosofsky. "Introduction" and "Gender Asymmetry and Erotic Triangles."

Feminisms: An Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism.

Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll. "The Female World of Love and Ritual: Social Relations Between

Women in Nineteenth-Century America." Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and

Society 1:1 (1975).

Kaplan, Cora. "Pandora's Box: Subjectivity, Class and Sexuality in Socialist Feminist

Criticism." Feminisms: An Anthology of Feminist Literary Theory and Criticism.

Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. "'Under Western Eyes': Feminist Scholarship and Colonial

Discourses." Feminist Literary Theory.

Joan Scott. "Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis." Gender and the Politics

Of History. New York: Columbia UP, 1988. 28-50.

Kaja Silverman. "The Dominant Fiction." Male Subjectivity at the Margins. New York:

Routledge, 1992. 15-51.

Judith Butler. "Contingent Foundations: Feminism and the Question of Postmodernism."

Feminists Theorize the Political. Eds. Judith Butler and Joan Scott. New York:

Routledge, 1992. 3-21.

Teresa De Lauretis. "Technology of Gender." Technologies of Gender. Bloomington:

Indiana University Press, 1987.

Foucault, Michel. "What Is an Author?" and "The Discourse on Language." Critical Theory

Since 1965. Eds. Hazard Adams and Leroy Searle. Tallahassee: UP of Florida,

1987. 138-63.

Lacan, Jacques. Feminine Sexuality. Ed. Juliet Mitchell and Jacqueline Rose. New York:

Norton, 1982.

---. "The Mirror Stage." Critical Theory Since 1965. Eds. Hazard Adams and Leroy

Searle. Tallahassee: UP of Florida, 1986.

Week Twelve--Continued discussion of gender theory. Guests: Cyndy Hendershot on Lacan and

Janelle Collins on Foucault.

Week Thirteen--A Visit to the ASU Museum. Using theory to analyze exhibits from new perspectives.

Week Fourteen--Discussion of findings at ASU Museum and presentation of student analyses of

Exhibits using a theoretical perspective. Invited Guest: Museum Director.

Week Fifteen--Presentation of student projects from their disciplines.

Week Sixteen--Final exam.