HOW YOU EVER GOT TO TEACH A COURSE IN ANYTHING IS TOTALLY AMAZING: Greetings, Fellow ThingThrowers. I’m Professor Jeff, a/k/a occasional commenter Hawkhill, and I teach American history at a Philadelphia-area university. This semester, I’m offering a course on Popular Culture in the United States, and I thought it might be fun to offer a sort of online version of the course, to give you all a sense of how one college professor looks at the history of pop culture. Adam & Co. have generously given their blessings to this proposal (once I promised to eschew footnotes and colons), and I’m pleased to announce that I’ve been named ALOTT5MA's Distinguished Visiting Lecturer for the Fall 2007 term.
I’ll be posting every couple of days for the next fifteen weeks, giving a brief rundown of the topic for that day’s class, pointing you toward relevant readings and websites, and tossing out some ideas for discussion. There will be no formal grades, but neatness counts. And please remember to turn off your cell phones during class.
For starters, here are the books I’ve assigned this semester.
I’ll be posting every couple of days for the next fifteen weeks, giving a brief rundown of the topic for that day’s class, pointing you toward relevant readings and websites, and tossing out some ideas for discussion. There will be no formal grades, but neatness counts. And please remember to turn off your cell phones during class.
For starters, here are the books I’ve assigned this semester.
- Popular Culture in American History, edited by Jim Cullen. A useful collection of scholarly articles about various pop-culture topics, supplemented with relevant primary sources and commentary by Cullen (who’s also written a nice one-volume survey of American pop culture, The Art of Democracy).
- Hollywood’s America: United States History Through Its Films, edited by Steven Mintz and Randy Roberts. A mix of primary and secondary sources covering everything from the earliest nickelodeons to the “yuppie films” of the 1980s.
- Amusing the Million: Coney Island at the Turn of the Century, by John Kasson. Sharply written and provocatively argued study of the pioneering amusement parks and their impact on American society and culture. Beautifully illustrated, too.
- The Adventures of Amos ‘n’ Andy: A Social History of an American Phenomenon, by Melvin Patrick Ely. A remarkably balanced and thoughtful assessment of one of the most controversial and popular radio shows ever.
- Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media, by Susan J. Douglas. An examination of girls and women in baby-boomers’ culture, from Gidget and the Shirelles to Charlie’s Angels and Dynasty. Also the most polarizing book I assign: students either love its mix of academic critique and personal reflection or think it’s strident and self-indulgent.
- Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today’s Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter, by Steven Johnson. Made a big media splash when it appeared a couple of years ago. Argues that today's pop culture is more cognitively stimulating and mentally engaging than it's ever been before.
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