Wild Wild Websites Go Live! :)

<-------- Wild Wild Website link list!!


This morning, in between bites of Halloween candy (thanks, Lou!), chocolate pastry (muchas gracias to Pasha) and even sausage biscuits (Ray Ray rocks), AMS 205 students got to share their fabulous Wild Wild Website projects with the class. The presentations showed the range of students' interests, approaches, and talents, including:

• Matt and Josh's flair for telling ghost stories;
• Lou's sophisticated critique of doll culture;
• Christina and Pasha's multifaceted presentation of the immigration issue;
• Nikki's in-depth analysis of Jack Bauer;
• Cindy's photoessay exploring The American Dream;
• Ray's original research on the badass Apache warrior, Geronimo;
• and Peter's humorous interpretive sketches of Gatsby characters and their unique perspectives.

These are some cool websites. You are some cool people.

Thanks again for a magnificent class this semester! Stop by Rentschler 219 sometime and let me know how you're doing. Until then, we beat on, boats against the current...

Prompts for Thinking About The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

Ya-hey!

You have several options for blogging about our final course text, Sherman Alexie's The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven.

As I said in class on Saturday, this is a short story collection, and each story can stand on its own as a separate literary work. So one option is to focus in depth on a single story--preferably one that intrigues or confuses you--to try and work through what Alexie is trying to do in that story. For example, you could write your whole post about "A Drug Called Tradition" and explore questions such as: why is tradition represented as a "new drug" in this story? What is the significance of each vision? Why does Alexie end the story with Big Mom and her drum? What is with all that skeleton business? Or, you might want to investigate "The Trial of Thomas Builds-the-Fire" and figure out what it means that Thomas's storytelling lands him in trouble with the law.

But I also said in class that The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven has novelistic qualities, meaning that certain characters, themes, and motifs repeat throughout the book. So another option for your blog is to focus on one of these repeating elements. The clearest examples are Victor Joseph and Thomas Builds-the-Fire, two contrasting characters who appear in many of the stories. (Alexie has said that they represent different parts of himself.) Here's an image of the two characters, played by Adam Beach and Evan Adams, from Alexie's 1998 film adaptation, Smoke Signals:

Can you tell which is which?

You might compare and contrast Victor and Thomas and think about what each contributes to the book as a whole. For example, Victor is an ex-basketball player and Thomas is a compulsive storyteller. What is significant about these characteristics?

Of course, there are other recurring elements you could blog about too, such as the issue of father-son relationships, the word "survival," or the figure of Crazy Horse. No matter what you write about, don't forget to include specific passages from the book in your post.

Prompts for Thinking about Jack Bauer and 24

"If you don't tell me what I want to know, then it'll just be a question of how much you want it to hurt." --Jack Bauer, 24

This week, we're examining the television show 24 as a "case study." In particular, we're asking what is the relationship between patriotism and torture on this show? Is Jack Bauer a contemporary, post-September-11 version of the lone American hero in the tradition of Buffalo Bill and Western films?

You will be posting before watching the show in class. If you haven't seen 24 before, just respond to the readings about the show: theoretically speaking, do you think portraying torture on television reflects something positive or negative about the current American mood? If you have seen the show, think about your own responses to the plot or to specific scenes of torture. Did you notice the increase in depictions of torture? Did it bother you, interest you, thrill you? Why do you think people are so taken with Jack Bauer, despite his violent and disturbing nature?

Of course, this kind of topic brings up all kinds of opinions about the ethics/validity/usefulness of torture in the "real world." However, I want us mostly to focus on analyzing the show: how it relates to the other themes and topics and characters we've studied this semester; how it reflects the shifting discourse of nationalism post-9/11; how television specifically and popular culture in general reflects--or shapes--the national conversation.

Analytically,
Dr. K.

Gatsby Limericks

I'm having way too much fun with my own prompts. Here are three limericks based on The Great Gatsby, each from a different perspective. Feel free to vote on your favorite in the Comments.

1. There once was a “great” man called Jay,
   Who lived an extravagant way.
   But he was too showy
   For Daisy – whose billowy
   Dress simply floated away.
   
   
2. I once met a man we called Gatsby,
   Who lived near a valley quite ashy.
   I thought he was Great,
   But Daisy wouldn’t wait
   For “Mr. Nobody from Nowhere” (too trashy).
   
   
3. We were bored, we were rich, we were hot;
   On the way to the city we fought.
   I told Jay he looked cool,
   Whereupon Tom got cruel
   And I drove into Myrtle (or not).
   

I'm also trying to compose a limerick entirely out of lines from the novel, but we'll see if that actually happens. If you beat me to it, there might be extra credit in it for you.

Poetically(-ish),
Dr. K.

Prompts for Thinking about Gatsby

If you don't know what to blog about this week, here are five ideas (sorry they're a bit late):

1. Novelist Jonathan Franzen said of The Great Gatsby: "In 50,000 words, [Fitzgerald] tells the central fable of America...and yet you feel like you are eating whipped cream." What might he have meant by this statement?
   
   
2. Imagine that you are directing a film adaptation of The Great Gatsby. Whom would you cast in each role (Nick; Gatsby; Daisy; Jordan; Tom; Myrtle; Wilson; others?), and why?
   
   
3. Rewrite The Great Gatsby as a limerick. Then explain your limerick.
   
   
4. Rewrite The Great Gatsby as a haiku. Then explain your haiku.
   
   
5. Consider how the novel would be different if it were written from the perspective of a character other than Nick--Daisy, for example.
   

For more information on Banned Books Week...

In class on Saturday, I offered you the opportunity to participate in MUH's Banned Books Week event for extra credit. You'll get 5 points added to one assignment (at my discretion) if you participate.

Please remember: in order to receive your extra credit points, you must ask a librarian for your trusty Banned Books Week Certificate and bring it to me.

For more information on book banning in the United States and the nationwide Banned Books Week project, see: http://www.bannedbooksweek.org/ . For a list of the Top Ten Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2008, see http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/frequentlychallenged/21stcenturychallenged/2008/index.cfm.

As always, let me know if you have questions.

Sample Wild Wild Website Project Has Gone Live!

AMS 205-ers,

Saturday, we'll be spending part of our class session talking about the Final Research Project: Wild Wild Website. For your blog post this week (due tomorrow by 3:00 pm), I've asked you to write about your website ideas, even if they're rough.

I've created a sample Wild Wild Website project so you can get an idea of the kinds of things you can do with this assignment. I had a lot of fun making mine, and I hope you have fun with yours too. Check it out if you get a chance before class: http://sites.google.com/site/ams205benfranklin/

Please also bring your Wild Wild Website assignment prompt to class on Saturday; we will be referring to it as we discuss the sample site.

See you soon.
Dr. K.

a poem from e.e. cummings

self-portrait, oil painting. cummings in the 1950s. source: Modern American Poets

american poet e.e. cummings wrote this elegiac poem about william cody:

Buffalo Bill's

Buffalo Bill's
defunct
who used to
ride a watersmooth-silver
stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
Jesus

he was a handsome man
and what i want to know is
how do you like your blueeyed boy
Mister Death


i've always liked this poem because of its layered tone. it's as if cummings is celebrating and mocking buffalo bill (and, by extension, american mythology) at the same time. (in this way, it resembles another cummings poem, "next to of course god america i.")

plus he's mocking death. can death handle buffalo bill?

President Obama's Health Care Speech Invokes Frederick Jackson Turner

Did anyone listen to President Obama's speech last night to the joint session of Congress?

Don't worry, I'm not inviting us to debate health care reform. I'm fascinated by something else.

If you listened until the end, you may have noticed the president's subtle reference to Frederick Jackson Turner's "The Significance of the Frontier in American History." He was talking about the "American character," and he said:

I've thought about that phrase quite a bit in recent days — the character of our country. One of the unique and wonderful things about America has always been our self-reliance, our rugged individualism, our fierce defense of freedom and our healthy skepticism of government. And figuring out the appropriate size and role of government has always been a source of rigorous and, yes, sometimes angry debate. That's our history.

How Turnerian is that?!

A Visit from Chinese Students

Hi everyone!

I hope you all had a fabulous long weekend. I wanted to let you know that I've invited Miami Hamilton's visiting Chinese students to visit our class for 30 minutes or so on September 19. I am still working out the details, but my thinking is that I'll talk to them earlier that week about "the idea of American Studies," then they can talk to you guys that Saturday and get a sense of what we're actually studying and doing in class.

How does that sound? As always, I'm open to your suggestions for what to do that morning. I'd love to show them your blogs, for one thing. What else?

Inquiringly,
Dr. K.

Prompts and Links for thinking about Davis, Anzaldúa, & Mora

¿Qué tal?

Some of you have been indicating a desire to connect our class readings to political news and issues in the "real world." I think this week is a fine opportunity to do some of that. So I'll kick us off with some discussion-starters, and you can add to this list in your own blogs (or respond to these) (or not, if you prefer).

Our readings this week address the issue of borders and belonging in the United States. Unlike last week's readings by Turner and Limerick, these readings are about contemporary American life, so they're much more concrete. They're about Latinos and Chicanos in America, how they came here, and how their presence is affecting American culture and experience. These are fascinating questions, but they can lead to heated debates too.

For example: Consider that according to 2008 census data, white Americans will constitute a minority by the year 2042. This projection comes from an article in a recent issue of The Atlantic about the election of Barack Obama, titled "The End of White America?" (Side note: the article opens with a discussion of The Great Gatsby. See how it all ties together?) In Magical Urbanism, Mike Davis draws on the 2000 census to make a similar point: "Shortly after 2050, non-Hispanic whites (25 percent of whom will be 65 or older) will become a minority group" (8). And as Davis points out in his book, many of the new "majority" of nonwhite Americans will be Latino. Moreover, this discussion extends back to the 1990s, the heyday of Patricia Limerick's multicultural American Studies movement: way back in 1993, Time magazine released a special issue on immigration, with a cover digitally created to reflect the precise multiracial character of the U.S. (click on the photo, below, to see how much of each ethnicity is in the composite and to link to the issue's contents).

What are the consequences of these demographic shifts? Certainly, public discussion and debate about immigration, border security, and cultural difference is easy to find. In Butler County, Sherriff Richard Jones' 2006 campaign against illegal immigration caused controversy. More recently, "Wise Latina" became a popular buzzword in midsummer, when Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court led to a debate about how her ethnicity might affect her judgment. (Sotomayor claimed that a "wise Latina" would likely have experience that a white man wouldn't have, and that this experience would prove useful in some cases.) President Obama is planning future immigration reforms. The New York Times has two whole pages devoted to news items related to immigration and the border patrol.

I wonder how the readings by Davis, Anzaldúa, and Mora add to, or otherwise alter, your perspective on these debates. Are we nearing the "end of white America," and what does that mean? Ought we to welcome newcomers, or are we obligated to protect our borders? What does it mean to imagine the United States as a mestiza country?

Thanks for a great class! :)

Hi everyone,

Thanks for a great class this morning!

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Prompts for Thinking about Turner & Limerick

Here are some prompts to get you thinking about Frederick Jackson Turner's "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" and Patricia Limerick's "Adventures of the Frontier in the 20th Century."

Where did the idea of the frontier come from, and to what extent is the concept still useful today? This is this week's "key question."

While we are used to thinking about the U.S. as a "frontier culture" and Western expansion as the most important story of America, this idea wasn't invented until the end of the 19th century. Turner's "frontier thesis" developed the idea of the frontier and its importance that we still hold today. More recently, historians like Patrica Limerick have criticized Turner's frontier thesis, arguing that it is one-sided and does not take the story of other "frontiers"--such as the U.S.-Mexico border, or Asian Americans' movement from East to West--into account. In other words, Limerick is writing with a contemporary perspective, shaped by multiculturalism, while Turner is the more "traditional" historian.

These are difficult readings, and you may find yourself stuck when you sit down to write this week's blog post. If this happens to you, think smaller. Take a short section of the Limerick essay, for example, and respond to that. What is her main point? Why does she think it's so important to revise Turner's thesis? What do you think about her arguments?

Don't forget: your 500-word post is due FRIDAY by 3:00 pm!! Make sure you give yourself enough time to finish the readings and reflect so that you can post by then.

New American Studies Journal

I received an e-mail today about a new periodical: Journal of American Studies. It might be a good resource for AMS 205. Here's a description:

Journal of American Studies seeks to critique and interrogate the notion of "America", pursuing this through international perspectives on the history, literature, politics and culture of the United States. [...] The journal is intended not only for students and scholars, but also for general readers with an interest in the United States.

You can see their homepage here and the full-text contents of their most recent issue here. My favorite article so far? "Benjamin Franklin and the Leather-Apron Men: The Politics of Class in Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia."

Howdy! Here's 5 random things about me.

1. I've been teaching American literature and American studies for about 10 years.
   
   


2. My favorite genre is autobiography. I like thinking about how people understand their lives, and how they represent themselves to others.
   
   


3. Non-academic jobs I've had include: assistant editor and web manager for Foundry Management & Technology Magazine (now defunct, but not because of me); McDonald's manager; freelance writer for a Cleveland-based private investigator / televangelist.
   
   


4. I'm a runner and swimmer, and I used to be an orange belt in Shotokan karate.
   
   


5. I am obsessed with Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography.