While this syllabus is reasonably complete, I will make alterations in it from time to time as circumstances change or as new opportunities for learning present themselves.  I will normally identify such changes with the icon:

About the Course

This is a seminar on the very recent past.  Beginning with the breakup of what might be called America’s “post World War II order,” we will explore the history of the past quarter-century, focusing on (among other things) globalization, post cold war military and foreign policies, the new politics of the 1980s and 1990s, changing demographics and the debate over multiculturalism, the rise of malls, theme parks and post-suburban" edge” cities, the impact of new information technologies, the emergence of a “new”economy, the mass media and the ways in which they shape the way we experience and interpret “reality,” and, finally, the emergence of postmodernism in recent American thought.

The course is organized around two highly debatable propositions: first, that at some point during the past two decades, the United States entered a new and distinct historical era; and second, that we may, again roughly, describe this new era as "postmodern.” Over the course of the semester, we will explore and argue the case for (and against) the recent past as a new era in American (and world) history and for (and against) whether such a new era (if it exists) ought to be characterized as “postmodern.”  Of course, not everything we read will fit neatly into this somewhat artificial set of dichotomies.  Nevertheless, they should serve as an interesting starting point for our investigation of the recent American past.

Our goal is to learn as much as possible about the last 20 to 25 years in American history.  This will require much hard work on everyone's part.  You will be required to read as many as 200-250 pages per week, to post essays and commentaries on what you have read, and to come to class prepared to actively participate in class discussions.  There will be a take home final examination that will test your ability to integrate, evaluate and communicate effectively what you have learned.
 

William C. Berman, America's Right Turn: From Nixon to Clinton (1998).
Theodore Caplo, Louis Hicks and Ben J. Wattenburg, The First Measured Century (2001), online at http://www.pbs.org/fmc/
David Lyon, Postmodernity (2nd ed.,1999).
Walter Truett Anderson, Reality Isn't What It Used to Be: Theatrical Politics, Ready-To-Wear Religion, Global Myths, Primitive Chic, and Other Wonders of the Postmodern World (1992).
Richard Rodriguez, Brown: The Last Discovery of America (2002).
Richard Sennett, The Corrosion of Character (2003).
Joseph E. Stiglitz, Globalization and Its Discontents (April 2003).
 
And, many, many articles and essays available online from the Library's databases (JSTOR, Project Muse, Proquest General Database, OCLC, etc.), via Backboard and the Library's Electronic Reserve, or elsewhere on the world wide web. The AU Library's home page, AU Library, is a good place to begin your library searches. If you haven't done so already, you will need to familiarize yourself with the library itself, as well as its many databases and search engines.   See also the Library's "Virtual Tour."

Electronic Reserves:   Electronic Reserves are available via Blackboard.  You may go to Blackboard by way of my.american.edu or directly at american.edu/blackboard. Click on Course Documents and then on Electronic Reserves.

Blackboard: 

Much of the work of the class will be conducted through Blackboard, the University's preferred "course management" software.  Blackboard provides a virtual classroom environment where you may find a link to this syllabus and other course materials.  Blackboard also provides "discussion forums" in which you will be required to post your weekly assignments and comment on the work of your classmates.

To access Blackboard, you must go to my.american.edu, enter your Eaglenet ID and Password, click on "My Academics" and then on "My Blackboard."  Login, again using your ID and Password.  Click on History 207.  Follow the instructions.  You may also go directly to Blackboard by clicking on: http://american.edu/blackboard

To learn more about Blackboard, click on: http://www.american.edu/cte-consulting/blackboard.htm.

The Groups:

Much of the intellectual work of the course will take place in small groups.  Each week you will post your assignment in your group's Discussion Board, normally by 5:00 p.m. on the Wednesday before our class meets.  Also each week,  you will read and post substantive comments on the essays that have been posted by the other members of your group.  Your comments must be posted in advance of our class meeting.

To learn which you group you are in, click on Groups.

1.  There are thirteen written assignments for the course.  You must write on the first and last of these assignments. However, your grade will be based on the ten best assignments that you submit.  You may choose to submit only ten of the assignments; or, you may write on more, knowing that only the ten best will be counted. 

2.  It is absolutely critical that you post your assignments by the scheduled deadline, which in most cases will be 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday, the day before our scheduled class.  This is to provide time for your team mates to read and submit comments on what you have posted before the class meets. Essays posted after the deadline will not receive full credit.

3.  Each assignment requires that you first carefully read a book and/or a series of articles.

4. You are then asked to prepare a brief,  essay (c.750 - 1000 words) based on the assigned reading.

5.  In preparing your essay, be sure to cite the sources from which you are drawing.  For our purposes, you may use parentheses, with a brief, informal citation.  For example,  cite David Lyon's Postmodernity as (Lyons, p. 36) or (Postmodernity, p. 36).   Remember, when you use language that is not your own you must use quotation marks and cite the source from which you have drawn the words.  Failure to do so is plagiarism, one of the most serious violation's of the University's  Academic Integrity Code.

6. The class will be divided into groups of  four or five students.  Blackboard......

7.  Your essays should be well written and free of grammatical and spelling errors.  For suggestions on good writing, see Tips on Writing.  Andrea A. Lunsford, easyWriter (2nd edition, 2002) is a compact and handy reference.  See also, Strunk and White's classic Elements of Style, available (along with many other standard references) at Bartleby.com.

8.  Finally, each of you will be expected to review and comment upon the essays posted by all the members of  your team before the scheduled class discussion.  Your comments need not be long, but should be substantive.  Often, you may wish to compare and contrast what your team mates have written with your own essay.  Like the essays, your comments should be based on the relevant readings.  And, as in the essays, you should be careful to cite your sources.

Assessment.

You will be graded on the quality of  your weekly assignments, including your comments on what others have posted.  Your weekly assignment will count for 6 points; your comments on what others have posted, 1.5 points. Collectively, the assignments and comments will count for 75% of your final grade.  To receive full credit, assignments and comments must be turned in on the assigned day. The grade for assignments that are posted late will be lowered one grade for each day they are late.

The assignments are graded on the following 6 point scale: A 6 A- 5.7 B+ 5.4 B 5.1 B- 4.8 C+ 4.5 C 4.2 C- 3.9 D 3.6 F

The comments are graded on the following 1.5 point scale: A 1.5 A- 1.475 B+ 1.45 B 1.25 B- 1 C+ 0.975 C 0.95 C- 0.925 D 0.9 F

Need Help:

tel: x5-2550 (helpdesk).

e-mail: helpdesk@american.edu.

web: http://www.american.edu/technology/sites/helpdesk/content.cfm?id=92

Thursday, August 25: The Idea of Postmodern America
 

"It was a slow day And the sun was beating On the soldiers by the side of the road There was a bright light A shattering of shop windows The bomb in the baby carriage Was wired to the radio These are the days of miracle and wonder This is the long distance call The way the camera follows us in slo-mo The way we look to us all The way we look to a distant constellation That's dying in a corner of the sky These are the days of miracle and wonder And don't cry baby, don't cry Don't cry" -- Paul Simon, "The Boy in the Bubble," Graceland (1986)

"It's the end of the world as we know it. It's the end of the world as we know it. It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine. " -R.E.M., Document (1987)

Introduction to the course: readings, assignments and expectations, together with caveats, confusions and confessions.

What's in a song?  Lyrics to "Boy in the Bubble."

The End (?) of Postwar (Modern?) America  (See, Introduction to Postmodern America).  See also, Postwar Table.

“ ‘All the straws in the wind seem to confirm the wide-spread feeling that ‘modern times are now over” and that some fundamental divide, some basic coupure* or qualitative leap, now separates us decisively from what used to be the new world of the early twentieth century, of triumphant modernism.’  Among the phenomena that testified to ‘some irrevocable distance from the immediate past’ -- alongside the role of computers, of genetics, of détente, and others –- was ‘postmodernism in literature and art.’”  Franklin Jameson, Postmodernism: Or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991), as quoted in Perry Anderson, The Ideologies of Theory (1988). "If there has been some kind of transformation in the political economy of late twentieth century  capitalism, then it behooves us to establish how deep and fundamental the change might be. Signs and tokens of radical changes in labour processes, in consumer habits, in geographical and geopolitical configurations, in state powers and practices, and the like abound."  David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity (1990).

Required Readings:

David Lyon, Postmodernity (2nd edition, 1999).

Mary Klages, "Postmodernism," (1997), a sort of "Cliff notes" on postmodernism as a literary and cultural movement.

Frederic Jameson, Postmodernism: The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, excerpts from the 1991 study at:  http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us/jameson.htm.

Recommended Readings:

David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity (1990).
Frederic Jameson, Postmodernism: Or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991).
Jean Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition (1984).

Assignment One: What do we mean by "modernity"?  by "postmodernity"?  what's the dif? Drawing from Lyon, Postmodernity, prepare a brief (750 -1,000 word) essay in which you compare and contrast  developments that Lyon characterizes as "modern" with those he suggests may be "postmodern." Be sure to define what you mean by "modern" and "postmodern."  Address the difference between "postmodern" and "postmodernism"?  In drawing comparisons and contrasts between the "modern" and "postmodern," focus on three to four of what you believe to be the most important of these defining characteristics.  Be sure to cite specific passages from Lyon's book to support points you make in your essay.  (e.g.,  As Lyons argues (p. 48), "the postmodern condition....").  Post your essay no later than  5:00 p.m. on Wednesday.  Read and post comments on the essays posted by other members of the group before class on Thursday.

Thursday In Class:

Discussion: What do we mean by "postmodernity"?

Thursday, September 18: A Combined Assignment (Two & Three)

Inventing Ronald Reagan

"When Nancy Reagan spoke at the [1984] convention following the film of her life, Ronald Reagan watched her on television from their hotel suite.  'Make it one more for the Gipper,' she urged, and the mass television audience (including him) saw her tiny figure turn with arms raised in support of an enormous image on the screen behind her, larger than her and larger than life.  On camera in the hotel room, the image watched itself wave back, forming the truncated head and shoulders of her husband, the president of the United States."  Michael Rogin, Ronald Reagan, the Movie and other Episodes in Political Demonology (1987)

"It is profoundly ironic, a piece of history to make a deconstructionist's mouth water, that Ronald Reagan, who came to political power as a representative of a popular urge toward the restoration of old and understandable American values, did so by campaigning with the most sophisticated media techniques, so skillfully used as to make his opponent's campaign look like a creaking Model T.... As Reagan went on to the presidency, many political observers....commented on how strange it was that a twice-married movie star, a longtime resident of the closest thing around to a modern Babylon, could somehow emerge as the incarnation of the clean-cut simple values of small-town American life."  Walter Truett Anderson, Reality Isn't What it Used to Be (1990).

New Democrats and Compassionate Conservatives

"Clinton's presidency should be understood as an exercise in perpetual reinvention - a constantly evolving response to new circumstances and to new emergencies  threatening his political survival.  He executed this feat by using , to a degree unmatched by any predecessor, the modern techniques for managing public opinion: polling, advertising, and constant recalibration of presidential rhetoric."  John F. Harris, "A Clouded Mirror," in  Schier (ed), The Postmodern Presidency (2000). "I feel like a character in a novel."  Bill Clinton, quoted in Haynes Johnson, The Best of Times (2001).

Required Readings:

William C. Berman, America's Right Turn: From Nixon to Clinton (1998), entire book.
 

Recommended Readings (Reagan)

Caplo, Hicks and Wattenburg, The First Measured Century (2001), at http://www.pbs.org/fmc/, chapters 10 (politics), 11 (government).
Lou Cannon, President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime. (1991).
Robert Dallek, Ronald Reagan: The Politics of Symbolism. (1984).
Thomas Byrne Edsall, The New Politics of Inequality (1984).
Jerome L. Himmelstein, To the Right: The Transformation of American Conservatism (1990), 97-128.
Michael Paul Rogin, Ronald Reagan, the Movie, and the Other Episodes in Political Demonology (1987). Michael Schaller, Reckoning With Reagan: America and Its President in the 1980's (entire book).
John Kenneth White, The New Politics of Old Values (1988).

Recommended Readings (Clinton)

Anonymous [Joe Klein], Primary Colors: A Novel of Politics (1996).
Sidney Blumenthal, The Clinton Wars (2003).
Kenneth S. Baer, Reinventing Democrats: The Politics of Liberalism from Reagan to Clinton (2000).
William C. Berman, From the Center to the Edge: The Politics and Policies of the Clinton Presidency (2001). Joan Didion, Political Fictions (2002).
Shawn J. Parry-Giles and Trevor Parry-Giles, Constructing Clinton: Hyperreality & Presidential Image-Making in Postmodern Politics (2002).
Haynes Johnson, The Best of Times (2001) .
Hillary Clinton, Living History (2003).
Howard Kurtz, Spin Cycle (1998).
Robert B. Reich, Locked in the Cabinet (1997).
Steven E. Schier (ed), The Postmodern Presidency: Bill Clinton's Legacy in U.S. Politics (2000).
Theda Skocpol, Boomerang: Health Care Reform and the Turn Against Government (1997).
George Stephanopoulos, All Too Human: A Political Education (1999).

Combined Assignments (Two and Three): Part One: Inventing Ronald Reagan "Ronald Reagan was the natural and unforced product of the multiple crises of the 1960s and  1970s:  1)  of the political crisis produced by the civil rights movement and the break-up of the New Deal coalition; 2) of the crisis in American foreign policy created by the U.S. defeat in Vietnam; 3) of the economic crisis created by declining productivity and profits, stagnant wages and sharply rising inflation; and 4) of the broad cultural crisis which centered on the changing role of women, but quickly grew to encompass an even larger struggle over "lifestyle" and 'values.'  Had Reagan not existed, he would have had to have been invented."  -- anonymous history professor. Drawing on Berman, prepare an essay (c.750 words) in which you 1) explore one of these themes by first describing the crisis itself  (politics, economics, international affairs or culture); and 2) discuss and evaluate the resolution of that crisis during the Reagan presidency (what actions did the administration take, either practical and/or symbolic to address the particular crisis? with what consequences?).  Part Two:  New Democrats and Compassionate Conservatives Building on your essay on the Reagan era and again drawing on Berman's book, prepare an essay (c.750 words) discussing and evaluating how efforts to address the four broad crises of the postwar era (politics, economics, foreign affairs and culture) continued during the administration's of George Bush (the father) and Bill Clinton.  To what extent does the United States, in 2003, still struggle with each of these broad crises? Be sure to consult with your team mates in order to minimize duplication. Be sure to identify the sources of your information and interpretations. Cite author and page number in parenthesis.  Post your combined essays on your group's Blackboard Discussion Board no later than 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday.  Read and post comments on the essays posted by other members of the group before class on Thursday.

Thursday In Class:

Discussion:  The Crisis of the 1960s & 1970s and the Origins of the Politics of the Recent Past; The Conservative as Postmodernist, New Democrats and Compassionate Conservatives

Thursday, September 25: How Politics Became Postmodern

“We live in a world which no longer questions itself, which lives from one day to another managing successive crises and struggling to brace itself for new ones, without knowing where it is going and without trying to plan the itinerary.  And everything important in our lives –livelihood, human bonds, partnerships, neighborhood, goals worth pursuing and dangers to avoid – feels transient, precarious, vulnerable, insecure, uncertain, risky.  Is there a connection between the shape of the world we inhabit and the way we live our lives?”   From the back cover of Zygmunt Bauman, In Search of Politics (1999).

Required Readings:

Walter Truett Anderson, Reality Isn't What It Used to Be, pp. 157-169.

Ronald Reagan, "A Time for Choosing" ("The Speech), 1964 at: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1964reagan1.html

Michael Paul Rogin, Ronald Reagan, the Movie, and the Other Episodes in Political Demonology (1987), pp. 1-43, on Electronic Reserve.

Carl Boggs, "The Depoliticized Society," from The End of Politics: Corporate Power and the Decline of the Public Sphere (2000), pp. 25-40, on Electronic Reserve.

Robert D. Putnam, "Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital," Journal of Democracy (Jan 1995, 65-78), available via Project Muse database at: http://muse.jhu.edu/demo/journal_of_democracy/v006/putnam.html

Michael Schudson, "A Gathering of Citizens," The Good Citizen: A  History of American Civic Life (1998), pp. 294-314, on Electronic Reserve.

Langdon Winner, "Cyberlibertarian Myths and the Prospects for Community" (1997), at: http://www.rpi.edu/~winner/cyberlib2.html.

Recommended Readings:

James Arnt Aune, Selling the Free Market: The Rhetoric of Economic Correctness  (2001)
Carl Boggs, The End of Politics: Corporate Power and the Decline of the Public Sphere (Guilford Press, 2000).
Thomas Byrne Edsall, "The Changing Shape of Power," in Steve Fraser and Gary Gerstle, The Rise and Fall of the New Deal Order, 1930-1980 (Princeton, 1989), pp. 269-293, on Electronic Reserve. 
Thomas Byrne Edsall, The New Politics of Inequality (1984)
Benjamin Ginsberg and Martin Shefter, Politics by Other Means: Politicians, Prosecutors, and the Press from Watergate to Whitewater (rev. edition, 1999)
Dennis W. Johnson, No Place for Amateurs: How Political Consultants Are Reshaping American Democracy (2001)
Francis Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward, The Breaking of the American Social Contract (1997)
Byron E. Shafer and William J. M. Claggett, The Two Majorities: The Issue Context of Modern Politics  (1995)
Michael W. Spicer, "Public Administration, the State, and the Postmodern Condition," American Behavioral Scientist, 41:1 (September, 1997), 90-102, available in pdf format via the Library's OCLC (ECO) database.

Assignment Four:  Civic Life in Postmodern America Drawing on your readings for this week, as well as the previous two weeks, prepare an essay (750 - 1,000 words) on the nature of civic life in America over the past two decades.  Have the institutions (e.g., political parties, civic organizations) through which people have traditionally expressed their roles as citizens eroded?  Has the scope of public space been reduced by privatization and commercialization?  Have fund-raisers, campaign consultants and media specialists fueled a politics that seems distant and disconnected from the lives of ordinary citizens, who feel manipulated and respond with growing cynicism about public life? Or, are such alarmist questions off the mark?  Have new organizations and institutions sprung up to replace the old ones?  If political parties have declined, are we not members of the Sierra Club or the National Rifle Club?  And if we don't bowl in a league or drink at the local bar, do we not belong to a book club, sports team or turn out to help build a house for Habitat for Humanity? Does the recent emergence of "MoveOn.org" suggest the possibility of new forms of citizen participation?  Or is it but another cyber myth, an epiphenomenon which will quickly mutate and disappear into the flux of our (post)modern world?  As always, support your argument with concrete examples, drawn from the readings for this (and other) courses.  Be sure to identify the sources of your information and interpretations. Cite author and page number in parenthesis. Post your essay no later than 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday.  Read and post comments on the essays posted by other members of the group before class on Thursday.

Thursday In Class:

Discussion: How Politics Became Postmodern

Film: "The War Room" -- the 1992 campaign,  by documentary filmmakers D. A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus
 

"I broadly accept the view that the long postwar boom, from 1945 to 1973, was built upon a certain set of labor control practices, technological mixes, consumption habits, and configurations of political-economic power, and that this configuration can reasonably be called Fordist-Keynesian.  The break up of this system since 1973 has inaugurated a period of rapid change, flux, and uncertainty.  Whether or not the new systems of production and marketing, characterized by more flexible labor processes and markets, of geographical mobility and rapid shifts in consumption practices, warrant the title of a new regime of accumulation, and whether the revival of entrepreneurialism and neo conservatism, coupled with the cultural turn to postmodernism, warrants the title of a new mode of regulation, is by no means clear.  There is always a danger of confusing the transitory and the ephemeral with more fundamental transformations in political-economic life.  But the contrasts between present political-economic practices and those of the postwar, boom period are sufficiently strong to make the hypothesis of a shift from Fordism to what might be called a "flexible" regime of accumulation a telling way to characterize recent history."  David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity (1990).

Required Readings:

Four Takes on the changing political economy of the 1980s and 1990s:

David Harvey, "From Fordism to Flexible Accumulation," from The Condition of Postmodernity, pp. 141-172, on Electronic Reserve. 

On the crisis of the 1970s, see Michael J. Piore and Charles F. Sabel, The Second Industrial Divide (1984), pp. 3-18, 165-193, on Electronic Reserve.  A neo liberal perspective.

Bennett Harrison and Barry Bluestone, The Great U-Turn: Corporate Restructuring and the Polarizing of America (1988), pp. 3-17, click on Great U-Turn.  Also available on Electronic Reserve.   The impact on workers of the crisis of the 70s, long term economic trends, and the industrial restructuring that began in the early 1980s.

Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw, "The Delayed Revolution," from The Commanding Heights (1998), on Electronic Reserve.  A compact, if overly benign, overview of the deregulatory movement that began during the Carter presidency and accelerated during the decades that followed.

Characteristics of the New Economy:

 Robert D. Atkinson and Randolph H. Court, " Introduction:  The New Economy Index: Understanding America's Economic Transformation (The Progressive Policy Institute,1998) at: http://www.neweconomyindex.org/introduction.html. (See, especially, the chart at the bottom of the page.)

W. Michael Cox and Richard Alm,  "America's Move to Mass Customization," Consumers' Research Magazine, available via the University's Proquest General Database.

Joseph Turow, "Breaking up America," American Demographics (Nov 1997), available via the Proquest General Database. 

John E. Schwarz, "The Hidden Side of the New Economy," The Atlantic Monthly (October, 1998), Internet Version.

Recommended Reading:

Robert D. Atkinson and Randolph H. Court, "The Progressive Policy Institute, The New Economy Index: Understanding America's Economic Transformation (1998) at: http://www.neweconomyindex.org/index_nei.html. (See especially, Section I, What's New About the New Economy" and "Nine Myths of the New Economy.")  The Progressive Policy Institute reflects the views of prominent "New Democrats," including former President Bill Clinton.

Patricia Aufderheide, Communications Policy and the Public Interest (1999). A study of the Communications Act of 1996 by an AU professor.

John Cassidy, Dot.com (2002). Available as an e-book.
 
J. Bradford De Long, "What 'New' Economy," Wilson Quarterly (Autumn, 1998), accessible online via the Library's Proquest General Database. A thoughtful contrarian view of the "new economy."

Richard H. Hirsh, Power Loss: The Origins of Deregulation and Restructuring in the American Electric Power Industry (2000).

Robert Britt Horwitz, The Irony of Regulatory Reform: The Deregulation of American Telecommunications (1989).

Derek Leebaert (ed.), The Future of the Electronic Marketplace (1998)

B. Joseph Pine, Mass Customization: The New Frontier in Business Competition (1992, new paperbound edition, 1999).

Dan Schiller, Digital Capitalism: Networking the Global Market (1999)

Joseph Turow, The Breaking Up of America: Advertisers and the New Media World (1999).

Harvey Wasserman, The Last Energy War: The Battle over Utility Deregulation (2000).

Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw, The Commanding Heights (1998)

Assignment Five: Is there (was there?) a New Economy and, if so, what's new (or postmodern?) about it? Prepare a brief essay on the "New Economy" in which you explore some of the following themes.  What are the characteristics of the new economy?  How is the new economy different from the old economy?  How is the new economy similar to the old economy?  How did the new economy come about?  Was it a response to the economic crisis of the 1970s?  Or were it's origins deeper (and farther back) in U.S. history? How do the authors of the first four articles differ in how they describe this process?    If such a new economy does exist, is this more evidence that we have entered a new historical era?  A "postmodern" era? Or do the phenomena we call the "new economy" constitute merely a riff on the "old economy"?  Looking back, what connections can you draw between the "new economy" and the politics of the recent era? How, for example, do the economic changes associated with the shift to a "new economy" relate (either as cause or effect) to the break up of the old, Democratic, New Deal coalition?  Looking ahead to later weeks, can you draw connections between the new economy and the phenomenon of "globalization"?  Does the recent crash of high technology companies tell us anything significant about the state of the economy, new or old?  What about the accounting and other scandals that have overtaken Enron, Worldcom and Xerox, among others.  Where, in your view, is this economy, new or old, taking us.  Can you discern the future?  Does it work? Again, try to cite specific examples to support your argument; and be sure to identify the sources of your information and interpretations. Cite author and page number in parenthesis. Post your essay no later than 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday.  Read and post comments on the essays posted by other members of the group before class on Thursday.

Thursday in class:

Discussion of "New Economy"

Thursday, October 9: Making It (or Not) in the New Economy

Bill Gates' House, over 48,000 square feet at a cost of $97,000,000.	Dismissed Boeing workers at a Seattle unemployment office.	Park bench, about 20 square feet, no cost save comfort and self-respect

Required Reading:

Richard Sennett, The Corrosion of Character (2003), entire book.
John E. Schwarz, "The Hidden Side of the New Economy," The Atlantic Monthly (October, 1998), Internet Version.
Edward N. Wolff, Recent Trends in Wealth Ownership, 1983-1998, (April 2000), Jerome Levy Economics Institute at: http://www.levy.org/docs/wrkpap/papers/300.html

Recommended Readings:

Stephanie Coontz, The Way We Really Are (1997)
Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (2001)
Nancy Folbre, The Invisible Heart: Economics and Family Values (2001)
Frank Levy, The New Dollars and Dreams (1998)
 

Assignment Six: Making It (or not) in the New Economy. In the previous week, we tried to understand the origins and main characteristics of the "new economy."  This week we seek to explore the impact of the "new economy" of people's lives.   On the one hand, it's champions boasted, the new economy was characterized by strong economic growth, especially during the 1990s.  On the other hand, argued critics, the new economy was also characterized by growing inequality and increased instability.  Drawing on both last week's and this week's readings, prepare an essay (750-1,000 words) in which you assess the impact of the new economy on the lives of ordinary Americans.  What do you find that is positive?  What's negative?  What bearing does any of this have on what you anticipate you will be doing when you leave college? Again, try to cite specific examples to support your argument.  And be sure to identify the sources of your information and interpretations. Cite author and page number in parenthesis. Post your essay no later than 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday.  Read and post comments on the essays posted by other members of the group before class on Thursday.

In Class:

Discussion: The Corrosion of Character.
Film: startup.com.  (Running time, 103 minutes.)  For details, click on: http://startupthefilm.com/

Thursday, October 16: One World, Ready or Not

“The concept of globalization is indeed inextricably bound up with the debate over the postmodern.”  David Lyon, Postmodernity. "Because we are the biggest beneficiaries and drivers of globalization, we are unwittingly putting enormous pressure on the rest of the world. Americans  may think their self-portrait is Grant Wood's "American Gothic," the strait-laced couple, pitchfork in hand, standing stoically outside the barn. But to the rest of the world, Americans actually look like some wild, multicolored Andy Warhol print.  To the rest of the world, American Gothic is actually two 20 something software engineers who come into your country wearing beads and sandals, with rings in their noses and paint on their toes. They kick down your front door, overturn everything in the house, stick a Big Mac in your mouth, fill your kids with ideas you never had or can't understand, slam a cable box onto your television, lock in the channel to MTV, plug an Internet connection into your computer and tell you, 'Download or die.'"  Thomas Friedman, "Manifesto for A Fast World," New York Times, March 28, 1999.

Required Readings:

Joseph E. Stiglitz, Globalization and Its Discontents (2002)

Also, see document: Corporate Empires (1995)

Recommended Readings:

Benjamin Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld: How Globalism and Tribalism are Reshaping the World (1996); for a good introduction, see Barber, "Jihad vs. McWorld," The Atlantic Monthly (March, 1992), 53-63.  Available via the Library's Proquest General Database.
William Greider, One World, Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism (1997)
Thomas L. Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization (2000). For a good introduction, see Thomas Friedman, A Manifesto for A Fast World," New York Times (March 28, 1999) at: http://www.globalpolicy.org/nations/fried99.htm
Michael Hardt & Antonio Negri, Empire (2000)
Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996)
Moises Naim (ed), "Globalization: The Debate," Foreign Policy (Summer, 1997)
Kenichi Ohmae, The End of the Nation State: The Rise of Regional Economies (1995)
____________,  The Borderless World: Power and Strategy in the Interlinked Economy (revised edition, 1999)
Saskia Sassen, The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo (2001).
____________, Losing Control? (1996)
 

Assignment Seven: One World, Ready or Not "Globalism" was the big story of the 1990s.  Of course globalism was by no means entirely new -- globalism (or "globalization") has a long history stretching back at least to the expansion of Europe in the 15th century, if not before.  The late 19th and early twentieth centuries were marked by a surge of globalization which included, among many other things, the migration of over 23 million people into the United States.  Many prominent U.S. leaders have supported efforts to create an American-led international system; a more or less straight line runs from Woodrow Wilson's "Fourteen Points" and  Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "Atlantic Charter,"  through the early Cold War policies of Harry Truman, to the recent initiatives of George Bush (the father) and Bill Clinton.   One might even argue that the policies of the current Bush (the son) administration represent a particularly aggressive and militarized version of this century-old vision.  Globalization has also had its critics, from conservative isolationists (think Pat Buchanan) and leftist students  to threatened farmers and European critics of American culture. In the post Cold War era of the 1990s, the scope of globalization grew and its pace sharply accelerated.  This week's readings trace that era from the perspective of a Nobel prize wining economist who served as a member of the Clinton Administration's Council of Economic Advisors and as Senior Vice President of the World Bank. Drawing on Stiglitz's account, prepare an essay (750 - 1,000 words) on the role of the United States in the global economy of the 1990s. What is Stiglitz's assessment of the U.S. role?  What have been the consequences of globalization, in the United States and Western Europe?  In the "Third" World?  Thinking back to the readings on the "new economy," can you discern a connection between U.S. policies abroad and those at home?  What was the "Washington consensus"?  One might argue that in his conclusions, Stiglitz attempts to chart a course somewhere in between the free-market bromides of the Washington consensus and the shouted slogans of the protestors in the streets of Seattle, Washington, D.C. and other cities.  Do you find his conclusions persuasive?  As always, illustrate your arguments with specific examples drawn from the readings.  And be sure to identify the sources of your information and interpretations.  Post your essay no later than 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday.  Read and post comments on the essays posted by other members of the group before class on Thursday.

Thursday In Class:

Discussion: Stiglitz, Globalization and Its Discontents.

Film: Since the Company Came, Borderline Cases or Working Women of the World.

October 23: New World (Dis)Order

"Out of these troubled times...a new world order...can emerge."   George H.B. Bush,  Address to Congress on the Persian Gulf Crisis, September 11, 1990. "The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist -- MacDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the builder of the  F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps." Thomas Friedman, "Manifesto for a Fast World." New York Times (March 28, 1999). "This is not, then a class of civilizations or religions, and it reaches far beyond Islam and America, on which efforts are being made to focus the conflict in order to create the delusion of a visible confrontation and a solution based on force. There is, indeed, a fundamental antagonism here, but one which points past the spectre of America (which is, perhaps, the epicenter, but in nonsense the sole embodiment, of globalization) ...and the spectre of Islam (which is not the embodiment of terrorism either), to triumphant globalization battling against itself." Jean Baudrillard, The Spirit of Terrorism (2002)

Required Readings:

The United States has now fought two wars in the Middle East. For a very thoughtful essay that places the first Persian Gulf war in the context of the tangled history of U.S. interests in the region, see Diane B. Kunz, "Toward Our Splendid Little War," Reviews in American History, Vol. 21, No. 2. (Jun., 1993), pp. 335-339, available through the Library's JSTOR database.

Document:  George H.B. Bush's address to a Joint Session of Congress on the subject of the Gulf crisis, click on: http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/papers/1990/90091101.html

Document: Strobe Talbot, "American Eagle Or Ostrich: Challenges For U.S. Leadership In The Post-Cold War World," Clinton's Deputy Secretary of State makes the case for "internationalism" at: http://oll.temple.edu/hist249/course/Documents/dep_sec_of_state_strobe.htm

Dwight D. Murphy, "The Post Cold War American Interventions in Haiti, Somalia, Bosnia and Kosovo," The Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies (Winter, 2000), available via the Proquest General Database.

Benjamin  Barber, "Jihad vs. McWorld," The Atlantic Monthly (March, 1992), 53-63.  Available via the Library's Proquest General Database.

Thomas Friedman, A Manifesto for A Fast World," New York Times (March 28, 1999) at: http://www.globalpolicy.org/nations/fried99.htm

Stanley Hoffman, "Clash of Globalizations," Foreign Affairs (July/August, 2002), available via the Proquest General Database.

Jean Baudrillard, The Spirit of Terrorism (November 14, 2001 version), at: http://awake.sparklehouse.com/downloads/papers/baud_terr.html

Recommended Readings:

Bruce Berkowitz, The New Face of War: How War Will Be Fought in the 21st Century (2003)
Mark Bowden, Black Hawk Down : A Story of Modern War (1999). 
George H. W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed (1998)
Philip Gourevitch, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda (1998). 
John L. Esposito, Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam (2002)
Chris Hables Gray, Postmodern War: The New Politics of Conflict (1997)
David Halberstam, War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton, and the Generals (2002)
Richard N. Haass, The Reluctant Sheriff: The United States after the Cold War (1998)
Michael Ignatieff, The Warrior’s Honor (1997)
 ______________, Virtual War: Kosovo and Beyond (2000)
Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror (2003)
Robert W. Tucker and David C. Hendrickson, The Imperial Temptation: the New World Order and America's Purposes (1992)

Assignment Eight: New World (Dis)Order Last week's assignment focused on the economics of globalization.  This week's assignment focuses on its political and military aspects.  Of course, as Thomas Friedman crudely suggests, the two are by no separate. The varied readings for this week challenge you to try and make sense of the past decade or so.  Prepare a brief (750 - 1,000 word) essay on the U.S. role in the world since 1989.  Among the themes you should consider are the following: 1) How has the end of the Cold War changed America's relation to the world? 2) Is the world safer and/or more prosperous following the end of the Cold War?  3) Under what (if any) circumstances, how and for what purposes should the U.S. use military force?  4) To what extent have events in Iraq, the Balkans, Somalia and Rwanda highlighted the dilemmas confronting the United States in the post Cold War era? 5) How have the events of September 11, 2001, affected how these questions might be answered.  Was 9/11 the product of globalization?  (Is Osama Bin Laden globalization's dark twin?)  Or was 9/11 the product of specific U.S. actions (and their unintended consequences) in the Middle East? Or both?   6) How does the most recent (2003) war in Iraq fit into your thinking?  Do the first and second Persian Gulf wars mark the emergence of a new "postmodern" style of warfare?  7) The 1990s were characterized by relatively benign view of globalization and by the assumption on the part of many journalists and social scientists that governments were losing control of the process and that, indeed, the future of the nation state itself was now in doubt. Has 2/11 changed this?  Certainly, the power of the U.S. government has grown.  And the current administration has sought to extend American power abroad farther and more aggressively than any administration in recent history.  Do these efforts presage an abrupt end to the era of globalization?  Or, like the little Dutch boy, are U.S. leaders trying to stem a flood they cannot contain for long.  Be specific.  A topic as large as that invites broad (and therefore inevitably misleading) generalizations.  Be sure to identify the sources of your information and interpretations.  Post your essay no later than 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday.  Read and post comments on the essays posted by other members of the group before class on Thursday.

Thursday In Class: Discussion of U.S. Post Cold War Foreign and Military Policies

The Changing American Family

"You can have a hell of a time nowadays just trying to answer very simple questions. What, for example, is a family? What is a household? What is a class? I call these zombie categories because they are dead but somehow go on living, making us blind to the realities of our lives. Ask yourself: what actually is a family nowadays? What does it mean? Even parenthood, the core of family life, is beginning to disintegrate under conditions of divorce. Families can be constellations of very different relationships. Take, for example, the way grandmothers and grandfathers are being multiplied by divorce and remarriage (without any genetic engineering). They get included and excluded without any say in the matter. The grandchildren meanwhile have to make their own decisions about their families. Who is my main father, my main mother, my grandma and grandpa? And the answers may vary at different stages of life." Ulrich Beck, New Statesman (March 5, 1999)

 

"...[W]hile younger women are struggling with how to balance work and family, they have said good-bye to the radical dreams of Feminism."  Kay S. Hymowitz, "The End of Herstory,"  City Journal (Summer 2002).

 

"When everything is for sale, women in particular begin to wonder why so much of the work they do goes unrewarded. Our modern economy has weakened many forms of patriarchal power that once gave women little choice but to specialize in caring for others.  But it has also intensified competitive pressures that penalize women, men and institutions for engaging in activities that don't improve the bottom line."  Nancy Folbre, The Invisible Heart (2001).

Required Reading:

John D'Emilio and Estelle Freedman, Intimate Matters (2nd edition, 1994), excerpts (chapters 13,14, 15 & afterward) on Electronic Reserve.

Kay S. Hymowitz, "The End of Herstory," City Journal (Summer 2002) at: http://www.city-journal.org/html/12_3_the_end_of.html

See, also, these three brief excerpts on "Third Wave" Feminism:

From the Introduction to Leslie Haywood and Jennifer Drake (ed), Third Wave Agenda (1997) at: http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0816630054/ref=sib_dp_rdr/104-8666905-3803134#reader-link 

An interview with Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards know this implicitly, which is one of the reasons they wrote Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2000) at: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=9986

 Second and Third Wave Feminists Debate at: http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/920/context/cover

Caplo, Hicks and Wattenburg, The First Measured Century (2001), at http://www.pbs.org/fmc/, chapters (trends) 4,5.

Recommended Readings:

Jennifer Baumgardner, Amy Richards, Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future (2000)
Stephanie Coontz, The Way We Really Are (1997).
Susan Faludi, Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Woman (1991)
Nancy Folbre, The Invisible Heart: Economics and Family Values (2001)
Leslie Heywood and Jennifer Drake (eds.), Third Wave Agenda: Being Feminist, Doing Feminism (1997)
Arlie Hochschild, The Second Shift (1989)

See also, the wide-ranging "advice" literature for women:  e.g., Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider' s post-Yuppie The Rules: Time Tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right (1996); Laura Doyle's formulas for submission in The Surrendered Wife : A Practical Guide to Finding Intimacy, Passion, and Peace with Your Man (2001); and a variety of feminist, post-feminist and anti-feminist books on how to manage conflicts between work and family.

Assignment Nine: After the Revolution The chapters from D'Emilio and Freedman, Intimate Matters, trace the intertwined changes in sexual roles and sexuality that have taken place over the past thirty years.  Prepare an essay (750-1,000 words) in which you explore these and other changes in American life. Among the questions you might address are the following: 1) The growing, if still not fully equal, role of women in American life; is the glass half full or half empty? 2) Changes in the relationship of men and women, both in the workplace and at home; how (and to what extent) have power relations shifted in both arenas?  With what consequences? 3) Changing views (and behaviors) regarding sexual intimacy.  What do D'Emilio and Freedman mean by "sexual liberalism"?  by "the business of sex"?   4)  How would you assess the increased visibility and  acceptance of gay and lesbian individuals or, for that matter, those whose sexual identify is ambiguous (Michael Jackson, David Bowie, etc.)? 5)  What opposition have these changes produced?  With what political consequences?  Are cultural conservatives correct in their critiques of abortion, divorce, illegitimacy, pornography, etc.?  Are they simply old-fashioned, out of step, clueless and "uncool"?  Or are their protests symptomatic of real if mis-framed problems?  5)  Are these changes related (as cause, effect, or both) to such putatively "postmodern" phenomena as the "new" economy, the erosion of boundaries (e.g., between the public and the private, the political and the personal), and/or what some see as the growing instability of identities. As always, be as specific as you can and be sure to identify the sources of your information and interpretations.  Post your essay no later than 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday.  Read and post comments on the essays posted by other members of the group before class on Thursday.

Thursday:  

Discussion: After the Revolution?

"[T]he problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line."  W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903).

"Of every hue and caste am I...I resist any thing better than my own diversity."  Walt Whitman, Song of Myself.

Time Magazine's computer-generated "The New Face of America."

Required Readings

Richard Rodriguez, Brown: The Last Discovery of America (2002)

Ronald Takaki, "America as a New World Borderland," in Griffith and Baker, Major Problems in American History since 1945, available on Electronic Reserve.

Michael A. Omi, "The Changing Meaning of Race," pp. 243-263, in Neil J. Smelser, William Julius Wilson, and Faith Mitchell (eds.), America Becoming: Racial Trends and Their Consequences; 2 vols., (National Academy Press, 2001). Volume 1 is available online at: http://www.nap.edu/catalog/9599.html [Loads slowly.] 

Recommended Readings:

Amy Gutmann and Kwame Anthony Appiah, Color Conscious (1996).
Color Conscious is also available as an e-book from Amazon.com.

David A. Hollinger, Postethnic America.

Thomas Holt, "Race, Nation and the Global Economy," from The Problem of Race in the Twenty-First Century (Harvard University Press, 2002), pp. 89-115,  available on Electronic Reserve.

Darnell M. Hunt, O.J. Simpson Facts and Factions: New Rituals in the Construction of Reality (1999)

David Roediger, Color White (2002)

George Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American (1993)

Saskia Sassen, "Beyond Sovereignty: Immigration Policy Making Today," from Susanne Jonas and Suzie Dod Thomas, Immigration: A Civil Rights Issue for the Americas (1999), pp. 15-26, available on Electronic Reserve.

Neil J. Smelser, William Julius Wilson, and Faith Mitchell (eds), America Becoming: Racial Trends and Their Consequences; 2 vols., (National Academy Press, 2001). Volume 1 is available online at: http://www.nap.edu/catalog/9599.html; Volume 2 at: http://www.nap.edu/catalog/9719.html

James P. Smith and Barry Edmonston (eds.), The New Americans: Economic, Demographic and Fiscal Effects of Immigration (Executive Summary), National Academy Press, 2001 at: http://stills.nap.edu/html/newamer. Read the Executive Summary, The New Americans, at: http://stills.nap.edu/html/newamer

Charles Taylor, Multiculturalism and the Politics of Recognition (expanded edition, 1994)

Ronald Takaki, A Distant Mirror (1993)
 
Leon E. Wynter, American Skin: Pop Culture, Big Business and the End of White America (2002)

Assignment Ten: E Pluribus Unum? The past twenty years have been marked by the emergence (or more accurately, reemergence) of a highly diverse America.  1.  African Americans, Latinos and other groups have continued the struggles for equality and recognition begun during the 1950s and 1960s.  2.  New immigrants have arrived in the United States in numbers not experienced since the early 20th century.  3.  These developments have occurred, moreover, during a period of rapidly expanding internationalism or "globalization."  These three phenomena have been merged (not always smoothly) into the concepts of "multiculturalism" and "diversity." One consequence of these changes was a heightened awareness of race and ethnicity, both on the part of groups struggling for equality and recognition and by those who were threatened by such struggles.  Fierce battles were (and still are) fought over discrimination, affirmative action, racial harassment, and the representation of "minorities" in schoolbooks and other media.  Liberals have sought to weave the strands of racial and ethnic diversity into a pluralist quilt or tapestry they called "multiculturalism," in which difference should be respected, even celebrated, as integral to the meaning of America itself.  Conservatives have worried that the emphasis on what they label "identity politics" would lead to a "disuniting" of America and a radical transformation of what it means to be an American. In Brown, Richard Rodriquez offers an ironic and often skeptical view of these developments from the point of view of a gay, male, middle class, politically moderate, Mexican-American academic.  Like Tiger Woods, who once described himself as "Cablinasian" -- a self-invented term that refers to his Caucasian, African, Native American and Asian background -- Rodriquez self-consciously resists the crude classifications that are often used to represent (and contain) identity. Prepare an essay (750-1,000 words) in which you discuss Rodriquez's observations and place them in historical context. 1) Do his arguments suggest that ethnic and racial identities are eroding?  2) Are they evidence of the decline of the "modern" era and the emergence of a new "postethnic" (as well as "post modern") era? 3) Are such developments, assuming they exist, to be welcomed as transcendence of the old and ugly world of racial bigotry?  Are they yet another sign of the relentless homogenization of global culture and the resulting erosion of difference?  Is "multi-culturalism" a genuine effort to forge a vision of a new inclusive and tolerant America?  Or, as conservatives charge, is it an effort to divide Americans and dilute American nationality.  Or, as some radicals charge, is it a liberal evasion of the continuing problem of race in American life? 4)  How might one relate changes in racial or ethnic identity with the changes in sex and sexuality that we explored last week?   5)  Rodriguez offers many provocative observations?  Do you agree or disagree (or agree and disagree) with these observations?  Why? As always, be sure to identify the sources of your information and interpretations. Cite author and page number in parenthesis. Post your essay on your group's Blackboard Discussion Board no later than 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday.  Read and post comments on the essays posted by other members of the group before class on Thursday.

Thursday in Class:

Discussion: Multi-cultural America (and the World?)

"On The Internet, nobody knows you're a dog."

 

"In case after case, the move to computerize and digitize means that many preexisting cultural forms have suddenly gone liquid, losing their former shape as they are retailored for computerized expression. As new patterns solidify, both useful artifacts and the texture of human relations that surrounds them are often much different from what existed previously. This process amounts to a vast, ongoing experiment whose long term ramifications no one fully comprehends. " Langdon Winner, "Cyberlibertarian Myths and the Prospects for Community."

"Who owns the Internet? Until recently, nobody. That's because, although the Internet was "Made in the U.S.A.," its unique design transformed it into a resource for innovation that anyone in the world could use. Today, however, courts and corporations are attempting to wall off portions of cyberspace. In so doing, they are destroying the Internet's potential to foster democracy and economic growth worldwide." Lawrence Lessig, "The Internet Under Siege."

Required Readings:

History of the 'Net:

Bruce Sterling, "A Short History of the Internet" at: http://www.library.yale.edu/div/instruct/internet/history.htm

_____________, "Wizards, Bureaucrats, Warriors, and Hackers: Writing the History of the Internet,"  American Historical Review (December, 1998), 1530-1552. Available via JSTOR at: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8762%28199812%29103%3A5%3C1530%3AWBWAHW%3E2.0.CO%3B2-N

New Economy, Old Economy?:

Lawrence Lessig, "The Internet Under Siege," Foreign Policy (Nov/Dec 2001)  at: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/issue_novdec_2001/lessig.html  See also the interview with Lessig by the Multinational Monitor at: http://multinationalmonitor.org/mm2002/02march/march02interviewlessig.html

Hypertext, Cyberspace and Postmodernity:

George P. Landow, Hypertext 2.0: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology (1992,1997).  Introduction, at: http://65.107.211.206/cpace/ht/jhup/contents.html

Julian H. Scaff, "Art and Authenticity in the Age of Digital Reproduction," at: http://pixels.filmtv.ucla.edu/community/julian_scaff/benjamin/essay.html

Sven Birkerts, The Gutenberg Elegies, excerpts at: http://archives.obs-us.com/obs/english/books/nn/bdbirk.htm#Hyp

Peter Kollock and Marc Smith, Communities in Cyberspace (introduction) at: http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/kollock/papers/communities_01.htm

Donna Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century," in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York; Routledge, 1991), pp.149-181, at: http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html

Resource Center for Cybercultural Studies at: http://www.com.washington.edu/rccs/
David Silver, "Exploring Technoculture: Computers, Society, Pedagogy (An Annotated Bibliography),"
at: http://eserver.org/cyber/tcbiblio.html

Recommended Readings:

Albert Borgemann, Holding On to Reality: The Nature of Information at the Turn of the Millennium. (2000).
John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid, The Social Life of Information (2002).
John Cassidy, Dot.com (2002). Available as an e-book.
N. Katherine Hayles, How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature and Informatics (1999).
George P. Landow, Hypertext 2.0: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology (1992,1997).
Lawrence Lessig, The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World (2002).
Michael Lewis, Next: The Future Just Happened
John Naughton, A Brief History of the Future (1999, 2000).
Donna Haraway, Modest_Witness@Second_Millenium.FemaleMan(c)Meets_OncoMouse^TM (1997)
William Gibson, The Nueromancer (1984) and/or Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988).
Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT P, 2000.

Assignment Eleven: How New Information Technologies Are (Are Not) Forging a New World Computers, the internet, new information technologies -- we encounter them, directly or indirectly,  in almost every assignment.  Prepare an essay (750-1,000 words) in which you explore some or all of the following themes: 1) The "modern" (e.g. WWII, the Cold War) origins of computers and the internet. 2) The role of new information technologies in driving "globalization."  The "new economy."  3) The impact of new information technologies on how we think about "texts."  4) The impact of new information technologies on how we think about our bodies, our identities and what it means to be human. 5)  Does the rapid growth of the internet mark the emergence of newer, more fluid (and possibly "postmodern") forms of communication and community? Or do new technologies merely reinforce the command and control impulse of modern institutions?  Consider, for example, the increased use of new technologies for surveillance or what Lawrence Lessig describes as the "enclosure" of the internet by large corporations. Be sure to identify the sources of your information and interpretations. Cite author and page number in parenthesis. Post your essay on your group's Blackboard Discussion Board no later than 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday.  Read and post comments on the essays posted by other members of the group before class on Thursday.

Thursday:  There will be no class meeting tonight.  While your essays will be due on Wednesday, as usual, we will not discuss the readings until next week.

*(with apologies to W.B. Yeats, whose "The Second Coming" (1919) may be found online at: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/5379/TheSecondComing.html)

"Are fantasy cities the culmination of a long-term trend in which private space replaces public space? Do these new entertainment venues further entrench the gap between the haves and have-nots in the "dual city"? Are they the nuclei around which new downtown identities form or do they simply accelerate the destruction of local vernaculars and communities? And, finally, do they constitute thriving urban cauldrons out of which flows the elixir to reverse the decline of downtown areas or are they danger signs that the city itself is rapidly becoming transformed into a hyperreal consumer commodity?" John Hannigan, Fantasy City: Pleasure and Profit in the Postmodern Metropolis.

Required Readings:

 Joel Garreau, "Edge Cities in Profile," American Demographics (February, 1994), available through the Library's Proquest General Database. An article by a Washington Post reporter who was among the first to call attention to the emergence of "edge cities."

Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck, Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream ( 2000 ).  Read two excerpts: from the introduction at:  http://www.rut.com/misc/2000/SuburbanNation.html; and on the paradox of highway construction (why adding lanes doesn't ease congestion) at: http://bicycleaustin.info/articles/roadbuilding-futility.html.

Joseph L Arnold, "History, profits, and social justice in the old central city," Journal of Urban History (July 2000). Available via the Proquest General Database.

James Howard Kuntlser, The Geography of Nowhere (1994), pp. 217-244, on Electronic Reserve.

For a darker forecast of the metropolitan future, see Mike Davis, Ecology of Fear : Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster (1999).  See also, by the same author, City of Quartz:  Excavating the Future of Los Angeles (1990).  For a brief introduction to Davis' work, see his essay, "Beyond Blade Runner," in the online "home" issue of Mediamatic Magazine at: http://www.mediamatic.nl/magazine/8_2/Davis-Urban.html

Recommended Readings:

Mike Davis, Ecology of Fear : Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster (1999).
__________, City of Quartz:  Excavating the Future of Los Angeles (1990).
Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck, Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream ( 2000 )
John Hannigan, Fantasy City: Pleasure and Profit in the Postmodern Metropolis. (1998).
Joel Garreau, Edge City: Life on the New Frontier (1991), which includes a chapter on the evolution of Tysons Corners.
 James Howard Kuntlser, The Geography of Nowhere (1994).
Andrew Ross, The Celebration Chronicles: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Property Value in Disney's New Town (1999).
Saskia Sassen, The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo (2001).
Edward W. Soja, Postmodern Geographies : The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory (1989)
_____________, Postmetropolis : Critical Studies of Cities and Regions (2000).
Michael Sorkin (ed.), Variations on a Theme Park. The New American City and the End of Public Space. (1992).
Robert Venturi, Learning from Las Vegas (1972, 1977), the classic text on postmodern architecture.

 

Assignment Twelve: Sprawling Toward Bethlehem The goal of this assignment is for us to become more conscious of the built environment in which we live and of the changes that are occurring within it.  In your essay for this week, consider the following:  How have cities and suburbs changed over the last 20-30 years?  How have suburbs that in an earlier era served as residential bedrooms for high modernist central cities been reconfigured into "edge" cities, de-centered networks of work, residence and play connected by congested ribbons of highway?  How have cities been transformed, in part at least, into theme parks?  Baltimore's Inner Harbor is a terrific example.  What about the poor, segregated in undeveloped stretches of the city or in old, declining suburbs?  Baltimore is, sadly, a good example of their plight as well.  What do you make of the rapid increase in "gated" communities of one kind or another?  Finally, and most importantly, how are these developments connected with the other questions we have investigated - the emergence of a "new economy?  of a new ("postmodern"?) era?  of changes in politics and the way we understand community and citizenship? of the way we experience "reality"? As always, support your arguments with concrete examples and be sure to identify the sources of your information and interpretations. Cite author and page number in parenthesis.  Post your essay no later than 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday.  Read and post comments on the essays posted by other members of the group before class on Thursday.

Thursday in Class:

Discussion: How New Information Technologies Are (Not) Forging a New World

Discussion: Sprawling Toward Bethlehem

Thanksgiving: November 27
 
 

"His fate belongs to him.  His rock is his thing…Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks.  He too concludes that all is well.  This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile.  Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself forms a world.  The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart.  One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”  Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus (1955; original, 1942)."

Required Readings:

Walter Truett Anderson, Reality Isn't What It Used to Be: Theatrical Politics, Ready-To-Wear Religion, Global Myths, Primitive Chic, and Other Wonders of the Postmodern World (1992).

 

Assignment Thirteen: Prepare an essay exploring what might be called "the postmodern crisis of belief."  Is there such a crisis?  If so, how does it exhibit itself?  What are its markers?  How does it find expression in the "culture wars" of the 1980s and 1990s?  In debates about science and literature?  In arguments about politics, nationalism and the state? Be sure to identify the sources of your information and interpretations. Cite author and page number in parenthesis. Where possible, connect the arguments offered by Anderson in Reality Isn't What It Used to Be with other readings for the course. Post your essay by 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday. Read and post comments on the essays posted by other members of your group no later than before class on Thursday.

Thursday in Class: Discussion: Reason and Faith in a Postmodern Age

Final Examination: O Brave New World: Reflections on the Past, Present and Future of Postmodernity

Final Exam:  Based on the readings for the entire course prepare a essay of 6-8 pages (approximately 1,500-2,000 words) in which you address the following questions:  1.  Do the changes that have occurred over the past 20-25 years constitute a new era in U.S. (or world) history?  Yes or no? Or, yes and no.  In any case, be sure to cite specific examples to substantiate the points you make.  Wherever appropriate, cite your sources.  2.  Should we call this new era "post modern"?   Again, yes or no, or yes and no.  Again, be specific and cite your sources.   3.  In a concluding paragraph or two, discuss how men and women of your generation may lead full, productive and ethically engaged lives in the world (postmodern or not) that you have described in parts one and two.  For a quick, if oversimplified, summary of some of the themes of the course, see the two tables: New World Order One and New World Order Two. Send your exam (as a Word attachment) to me at bgriff@american no later than Thursday, December 11.