Course Syllabus

Course Information
HUHI 6340, Readings in American Culture: The Nineteenth Century Fall 2011 T 1:00-3:45 JO 4.708

Professor Contact Information Professor D. Wickberg, x6222, wickberg@utdallas.edu JO 5.428, Office Hours T1:00-2:00, R 9:00-9:30

Course Pre-requisites, Co-requisites, and/or Other Restrictions Graduate Standing, School of Arts and Humanities

Course Description This is a graduate-level introduction to, and overview of, recent scholarship in the field of nineteenth-century American cultural history. Cultural history is a dynamic and expanding field of study, currently at the forefront of historical inquiry; its perspectives and methods in the past 25 years have reshaped the entire historical profession, including the fields of political, social, economic, and intellectual history. Fields such as foreign policy history or business history have experienced a cultural turn; historians are now more likely to cite anthropologists such as Clifford Geertz or cultural theorists such as Foucault than economists, political scientists or sociologists; new concerns with narrative, cultural representation, and the production of meaning are everywhere in current historiography. Nowhere is this more true than in the historical study of the United States in the nineteenth century. The older concerns of historians of this erasuch as the emergence of market capitalism and Jacksonian democracy, the consolidation of American corporations, American expansionism, national unification, evangelical religion and reform movements, urbanizationhave been revisited in new contexts in which terms such as memory, the body, narrative, representation, sentimentalism, the humanitarian sensibility, gender and whiteness have become central to the discussion of the nineteenthcentury past. This course, then, has two primary purposes: to introduce students to the distinctive varieties of cultural history and their interpretive approaches; and to provide an overview of issues specific to nineteenth-century American culture. The first purpose involves a focus on methodology, conceptual approaches, and the ways in which cultural historians differ among themselves, as well as from non-cultural historians. One of the main questions we will be asking is whether culture should be understood as a discrete sphere of lifethe realm of the arts, or popular genres, including music, theater, literature, etc.or whether it should be seen in a broader sense as infusing all spheres of experience, including economic and political life. The second purpose is more concerned with the substantive questions of the nineteenth century: e.g. how did culture and values change in response to the emergence of a market society? In what

Course Syllabus

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way did the changing legal status of slaves and free laborers shape new values about gender and individual rights? What role did cultural memory play in reconstructing the nation in the period after the Civil War? What accounts for the appearance of new genres of horror and sensationalistic murder trial accounts, or for the fascination with deception of the senses in popular culture? What are the cultural consequences of new forms of communication, such a national print culture? This course might be viewed as a preparatory course for students thinking about doing a PhD exam field in American cultural history; it lays the foundation by introducing recent work and pointing to a larger body of scholarship that students might be expected to master. That said, as with any course of this nature, it only touches the surface of a large and complex body of scholarship. Through their papers students will be able to examine a particular subject matter in more detail.

Student Learning Objectives/Outcomes Students will be able to demonstrate knowledge of varieties of approaches to studying the past that are identified as cultural history. Students will demonstrate knowledge of principle areas of nineteenth-century American culture.

Required Textbooks and Materials The following required texts are available for purchase at both the campus bookstore and Off Campus Books. David Blight, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory James Cook, The Arts of Deception: Playing With Fraud in the Age of Barnum Ann Fabian, The Skull Collectors: Race, Science, and Americas Unburied Dead Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War Karen Halttunen, Murder Most Foul: The Killer and the American Gothic Imagination Walter Johnson, Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market Jackson Lears, Rebirth of a Nation Stephen Mihm, Nation of Counterfeiters: Capitalists, Con Men, and the Making of the United States Amy Dru Stanley, From Bondage to Contract: Wage Labor, Marriage, and the Market in the Age of Slave Emancipation Michael Zakim, Ready-Made Democracy: A History of Mens Dress in the American Republic, 1760-1860 Additional required readings of periodical literature will be indicated (*) in the schedule, and will be available through electronic journal databases maintained by McDermott Library. Other readings will be available through electronic reserve.

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Assignments & Academic Calendar Week I: Tuesday, August 30 Introduction. No Reading Week II: Tuesday, September 6 Defining Cultural History Reading: Lynn Hunt, Introduction: History, Culture, and Text in The New Cultural History (University of California Press, 1989): 1-22 William Sewell, The Concept(s) of Culture in The Logics of History: Social Theory and Social Transformation (University of Chicago Press, 2005): 152-174 Daniel Wickberg, Heterosexual White Male: Some Recent Inversions in American Cultural History, Journal of American History vol. 92 (1), 2005: 136157 Daniel Wickberg, What is the History of Sensibilities? On Cultural Histories, Old and New, American Historical Review vol. 112 (3), 2007: 661684 James W. Cook and Lawrence B. Glickman, Twelve Propositions for a History of U.S. Cultural History, in The Cultural Turn in U.S. History: Past, Present & Future, eds. Cook, Glickman, & OMalley (University of Chicago Press, 2008): 3-57 Week III: Tuesday, September 13 Gender and Reading Culture through Fashion Reading: Michael Zakim, Ready-Made Democracy Jeanne Boydston, Gender as a Question of Analysis, Gender & History 20.3 (2008): 558-583 Joanne Meyerowitz, A History of Gender, American Historical Review 113.5 (December 2008): 1346-1356 Week IV: Tuesday, September 20 The Cultural History of Capitalism Reading: Stephen Mihm, Nation of Counterfeiters: Capitalists, Con Men and the Making of the United States Week V: Tuesday, September 27 Slave Historiography and the Culture of Commodities Reading: Walter Johnson, Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market Nell Irvin Painter, Soul Murder and Slavery: Toward a Fully-Loaded Cost Accounting, in U.S. History as Womens History: New Feminist Essays ed. Linda Kerber, Alice Kessler-Harris, Kathryn Kish Sklar (1995): 124-46 Week VI: Tuesday, October 4 Library Session Due: short paper Week VII: Tuesday, October 11 The Trial as Popular Culture Text: Gender, Ideology, and Genre Reading: Karen Halttunen, Murder Most Foul

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Karen Halttunen, Cultural History and the Challenge of Narrativity, in Beyond the Cultural Turn: New Directions in the Study of Society and Culture eds. Victoria Bonnell, Richard Biernacki, and Hunt, Lynn (University of California Press, 1999): 165-181

Week VIII: Tuesday, October 18 Seeing is Believing: Popular Culture and the Problem of Knowledge Reading: James W. Cook, Arts of Deception: Playing With Fraud in the Age of Barnum Leora Auslander, Beyond Words American Historical Review vol. 110 (4). 2005: 1015-1045 Chris Jenks, The Centrality of the Eye in Western Culture: An Introduction, in Jenks, ed., Visual Culture, pp. 1-25 James Cook, Seeing the Visual in U.S. History, Journal of American History September 2008: 432-41 3 Week IX: Tuesday, October 25 No Reading Paper Proposals Due

Week X: Tuesday, November 1 Civil War and Culture Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War Week XI: Tuesday, November 8 Discourse, Power, and Science Reading: Ann Fabian, The Skull Collectors: Race, Science, and Americas Unburied Dead Week XII: Tuesday, November 15 Liberalism, the Market, and the Problem of Dependency Reading: Amy Dru Stanley, From Bondage to Contract Elizabeth Clark, The Sacred Rights of the Weak: Pain, Sympathy and the Culture of Individual Rights in Antebellum America, Journal of American History vol. 82(2), 1995: 463-493 Week XIII: Tuesday, November 22 Week XIV: Tuesday, November 29 Race and Cultural Memory Reading: David Blight, Race and Reunion Barbara Jeanne Fields, Ideology and Race in American History in Region,Race and Reconstruction, ed. J. Morgan Kousser and James M. McPherson (1982): 143-77 Kerwin Lee Klein, On the Emergence of Memory in Historical Discourse, Representations 69 (Winter 2000): 127-150 Week XV: Thursday, December 6 Gilded Age and Progessive Era Culture Reading: Jackson Lears, Rebirth of a Nation

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Exam Week: Tuesday, December 13 No Class Meeting. Final Paper Due in JO 5.428 by 3:00 pm

Grading Policy
Grades will be determined on the following basis: Short paper (due October 4) 20% Class participation: 40% Final Paper (due December 13) 40% All assignments must be completed. Participation grade will be determined by a combination of the following: attendance, demonstrated evidence of having completed and thought about assigned readings, quality of comments, questions, and criticisms about readings. Failure to do the readings and to participate in class discussion will result in a low participation grade. Course grades will be made on the scale of A, A-, B+, B, B-, C+, C, C-, D, F. My understanding of grades is as follows: A and A- grades indicate satisfactory performance at the graduate level. Graces of B and lower indicate serious problems and failure to perform at the level expected of graduate students.

Course & Instructor Policies

Students are expected to attend all class meetings prepared to participate in discussion of assigned readings. The only legitimate excuses for failing to attend class are illness and personal/family emergencies. Any other absence will be regarded as a choice made by the student not to attend. Tardiness disrupts class meetings. Please make every effort to be on time. Repeated tardiness will lead to a lower participation grade. Please make sure all cell phones are off or disabled during class. Please do not use laptops or other electronic devices during class unless required to do so by a disability. Students are expected to treat one another with civility, and to allow all students the freedom to participate in discussion. Debate is the lifeblood of intellectual work, and vigorous debate is encouraged. Rudeness and personal remarks, however, will not be tolerated. As much as is possible, I encourage students to consider ideas on their merits, and not take criticism of ideas personally. I try to encourage a classroom that is both intellectually lively and open to a variety of views, and at the same time, respectful of the views and concerns of others. I will do my best to abide by that spirit; I ask that you do as well. All assignments are due on the designated dates. Students should meet all deadlines. If there are legitimate reasons why an assignment cannot be completed, it is the students responsibility to request an extension. If no extension is granted, late assignments will not be accepted, and the student will fail the class.

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