Office Hours: 12-2 MWF
American Studies 150, "Introduction to American Studies: Arts and Values," explores cultural changes and artistic expression in America from the 1890s through the 1970s. The main objective of the course is to analyze how American culture and history combine to impact social values and mores. Through this examination, students are expected to come to a thorough understanding of the origins and evolution of 20th Century American identity. A cross section of elite art (the abstract paintings of Stuart Davis, for example), popular art (movies and rock n’ roll), and folk art (the dust bowl songs of Woody Guthrie) in four units will be used as a way of exploring the cultural values that these works embody and reveal, affirm, or change.
AMS 150 is also nationally known. In 1988, the American Studies Association recognized this innovative introductory course at its annual meeting in Miami (the entire AMS faculty was on the program). In 1992, AMS 150 was further recognized at a national Endowment for the Humanities conference at Vassar College titled American Studies and the Undergraduate humanities Curriculum when The Department of American Studies at The University of Alabama was chosen to represent all “large state universities.” (Professors Adrian and Salem’s presentation was titled “AMS 150, ‘Arts & Values:’ An Introductory Humanities Course at The University of Alabama.”) Many introductory courses, at our university and in colleges and universities across the country, have used our method of teaching AMS 150 as a mode.
AMS 150 is team-taught by the entire Department of American Studies faculty--Professors Lynne Adrian, Michael Innis-Jimenez, Jolene Hubbs, Richard Megraw, Jeff Melton, Stacy Morgan, Edward Tang, and Eric Weisbard. James Salem, retired faculty, edited the Handbook. Each faculty member will deliver lecture/presentations in his or her areas of expertise. The three semester exams and the final comprehensive examination will measure your learning from the required reading and from the information delivered in the class conversations, discussions, and lectures. You will also be required to do in-class writing assignments periodically, and you will have six out of class assignments to post on the American Studies 150 course web site.
To coordinate administrative matters, provide tutorial assistance, make class presentations, and conduct reviews, AMS 150 is staffed with Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs). During the first week of class you will be introduced to the TA responsible for attending to your academic needs and tracking your academic accomplishments. If you encounter problems during the course of the semester, please take them up with your TA first. Each TA will keep regular office hours to answer any questions you might have, and will hold review sessions prior to each exam. The main office of the Department of American Studies is located in 101 ten Hoor, as is Dr. Adrian’s office; other faculty offices are across the hall in 106, and 239 tenHoor (and you may feel free to consult any faculty member about their individual lectures); TAs are housed in 117. Office hours are posted on office doors.
At the completion of AMS 150, students will be expected:
1. To recognize and understand major American cultural concepts, movements, key figures,
periods, and events from the 1880s through the 1960s.
2. To acquire an appreciation of the diversity of American identities and experiences, particularly with respect to issues of race, class, gender, and region.
3. To understand a range of cultural artifacts—novels, plays, autobiographies, memoirs,
photography, film, painting, and music—that one can utilize in the study of the American
experience and cultural values.
4. To engage critically this range of cultural artifacts alone and in combination with one another in an interdisciplinary manner in order to identify and interpret significant cultural moments and concepts.
5. To understand the connections between such diverse cultural spheres as popular entertainment,
consumer culture, the fine arts and broader American cultural values.
6. To develop the ability to be actively involved in advancing his or her learning.
Fall 2010: AMS 150 Tentative Class Schedule
Wed. Aug 18 Course Business
Fri. Aug. 20 The American Studies Approach
Unit I: Transforming Populations, Transforming Culture
Mon. Aug 23 Overview
Wed. Aug. 25 Ellis Island: Welcome to America LAST DAY TO ADD
Fri. Aug. 27 The Great Mexican Migration
Mon. Aug 30 The American Game
Wed. Sept. 1 Art of the Ragtime Era: Idealists, Ash cans and Moderns
Fri. Sept. 3 Music of the Ragtime Era
Mon. Sept 6. LABOR DAY
Wed. Sept 8 Material Culture and Consumerism Posting #1 Due
Fri. Sept 10 Consuming the Orient
Mon. Sept.13 The Silver Screen: Amusement for the Millions
Wed. Sept. 15 Ragtime: The Novel
Fri. Sept. 17 EXAM I
Unit II: The Popularization of Modernist Assumptions
Mon. Sept. 20 Overview: Transition to Modernism
Wed. Sept.22 Literary Modernism and Popular Culture
Fri. Sept 24 Harlem and Modernism
Mon. Sept. 27 Inherit the Wind
Wed. Sept 29 Precisionism, Regionalism and Social Realism in American Art
Posting #2 Due
Fri. Oct. 1 Music of the Jazz Age
Mon. Oct 4 Labor, Deportation and the Grapes of Wrath
Wed. Oct. 6 Laughing in spite of it all: 1930s Humor
Mid-Term Grades Due
Fri.. Oct. 8 Making Do Posting #3 Due
Mon. Oct. 11 EXAM II
Unit III: Creating a Post-War Consensus
Wed. Oct 13 The Flow Chart as Icon: Overview of The Post World War II Era
Fri. Oct. 15 Women and Suburbia
Mon. Oct. 18 American Automobility—Roads to Respectability or Rebellion
Wed. Oct 20 Victory Culture Through the Western Movie Posting #4 Due
Fri. Oct. 22 TV Nation
Mon. Oct 25 Social Change and the Politics of Respectability
LAST DAY TO DROP WITH A “W”
Wed. Oct 27 Stand-Up Subversion: Lenny Bruce
Oct. 28-29 FALL BREAK
Mon. Nov. 1 The Rise of rock ‘n’ Roll Posting #5 Due
Wed. Nov. 3 Coming of Age in Mississippi: Book Discussion
Fri. Nov 5 EXAM III
Unit IV: Yes, but……
Mon. Nov. 8 The Rise of Confrontation politics
Wed. Nov. 10 El Movimiento: The Chicano Civil Rights Movement
Fri. Nov. 12 1969 and the Culture Crash
Mon. Nov. 15 Stand-Up Subversion: Richard Pryor and George Carlin
Posting #6 Due
Wed. Nov. 17 Rock, Soul, and Country: Three Versions of Counterculture
Fri. Nov. 19 The Unraveling of America in Hollywood’s Post-War Western
Mon. Nov. 22 The Things They Carried: Book Discussion
Tues. Nov. 23 AMS MAKE-UP EXAM DAY
Wed..- Fri. Nov. 24-26 THANKSGIVING BREAK
Mon. Nov. 29 Exploitation Films and 1970s America
Wed. Dec. 1 What’s next?: The American Studies approach revisited
Fri. Dec. 3 Teaching Evaluations and Review for the Final Exam
Monday Dec. 6 11:30-2:00 FINAL EXAMINATION
GRADING FORMULA AND SYSTEM
20% Exam I (Ragtime Era) 200 points
20% Exam II (Jazz Age/Depression) 200 points
20% Exam III (WWII/Postwar Era) 200 points
Exam VI (1960s)* 200 points
10% Comprehensive Exam* 100 points
10% Citizenship 100 points
In Class Writing 30 points
On Line Postings 30 points
Attendance 40 points
Total possible in AMS 150 1000 points
*Exams IV and the Comprehensive Exam are taken together the day of the scheduled final examination.
All students enrolled in AMS 150 will be expected to take three fifty-minute exams on the readings and in-class material (exams on The Ragtime Era, The 20s & 30s, and The War and Postwar Period). Though we do not return exams, you may arrange with your TA to review it with him or her.
In addition, all students must complete six (6) posting assignments on the AMS 150 web site, and six (6) short in-class writing assignments. The postings, in-class writings, and attendance will be combined to form your Citizenship grade. Attendance is taken almost every class meeting with a lecture where no in-class writing is done (two points are awarded for attendance). In-class writing will NOT be announced in advance. This gives a total of 30 points on in-class writing, 30 points on postings, and 40 points on attendance. Together they make up the Citizenship Grade, which is 10% of your final grade.
Postings are made on the eLearning website for AMS 150. Your grades on exams and postings also can be accessed through the eLearning site. Log into MyBama with your ID and password In the middle column will be a large box labeled “eLearning.” Click on AMS 150 and follow the links to the class in eLearning.
System to Determine Final Course Grade:
98-100 A+ 97-92 A 91-90A-
89-88 B+ 87-82 B 81-80 B-
79-78 C+ 77-72 C 71-70 C-
69-68 D+ 67-62 D 61-60 D-
A curve may be established to help students at the end of the semester on the total 1000 possible points.
Any exams missed during the semester can be made up only at the AMS Departmental Make-Up Day on Tuesday, November 23th, at 3:30 p.m. in 103 ten Hoor. Since you obviously will know the material best immediately after you have studied it, we strongly encourage you to take the exams at the time they are regularly given.
Students enrolled in AMS 150 are expected to attend class, take notes, and intellectually address the subject matter. Regular attendance for this course is MANDITORY. Consistent class attendance enhances student learning and performance on exams, postings, and other assignments. It is understood that students may need to miss class occasionally for personal, family, or health matters, or in emergency situations, so students are allowed up to five (5) excused absences for the semester. However, the final course grade will be lowered one grade (i.e., a “B-“becomes a “C+”) for each unexcused absence beyond five. (The number of excused absences may be exceeded due to extraordinary circumstances, but these must have proper documentation and be approved by Dr. Adrian.) What should be kept in mind is that these set limits are not devised to punish individual students; rather, they protect the majority who make a continual good faith effort throughout the semester. It is possible to fail AMS 150 through unexcused absences!
We have long observed that grades tend to correlate with attendance and attentiveness--in other words, students who attend regularly listen-up do better than those who do not. In the course of the semester you will receive information regarding the current class standing of your attendance after each exam. If you have any questions about the number of absences recorded, please see your TA right away. NOTE: Questions about current class standing on attendance must be raised by the next class period--no changes will be made after that time.
E.L. Doctorow, Ragtime
Jerome Lawrence & Robert E. Lee, Inherit the Wind
Anne Moody, Coming of Age in Mississippi
Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried
James M. Salem, ed., American Studies 150 Handbook
Screenings
The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
All students in attendance at the University of Alabama are expected to be honorable and to observe standards of conduct appropriate to a community of scholars. The University expects from its students a higher standard of conduct than the minimum required to avoid discipline. Academic misconduct includes all acts of dishonesty in any academically related matter and any knowing or intentional help or attempt to help, or conspiracy to help, another student.
The Academic Misconduct Disciplinary Policy will be followed in the event of academic misconduct.
In the case of a tornado warning (tornado has been sighted or detected by radar; sirens activated), all university activities are automatically suspended, including all classes and laboratories. If you are in a building, please move immediately to the lowest level and toward the center of the building away from windows (interior classrooms, offices, or corridors) and remain there until the tornado warning has expired. Classes in session when the tornado warning is issued can resume immediately after the warning has expired at the discretion of the instructor. Classes that have not yet begun will resume 30 minutes after the tornado warning has expired provided at least half of the class period remains.
UA is a residential campus with many students living on or near campus. In general classes will remain in session until the National Weather Service issues safety warnings for the city of Tuscaloosa. Clearly, some students and faculty commute from adjacent counties. These counties may experience weather related problems not encountered in Tuscaloosa. Individuals should follow the advice of the National Weather Service for that area taking the necessary precautions to ensure personal safety. Whenever the National Weather Service and the Emergency Management Agency issue a warning, people in the path of the storm (tornado or severe thunderstorm) should take immediate life saving actions.
When West Alabama is under a severe weather advisory, conditions can change rapidly. It is imperative to get to where you can receive information from the National Weather Service and to follow the instructions provided. Personal safety should dictate the actions that faculty, staff and students take. The Office of Public Relations will disseminate the latest information regarding conditions on campus in the following ways: