Amst 301

AMERICAN STUDIES 301 MIDTERM Please include a backing for the midterm examination, TA name, and staple Description of assignment hoard an anthology of thirteen course credits worn from the materials designate for the graduation exercise three sections of this course (Parts I, II and III). The anthology will lie in of a preface, short commentaries on individually quotation, and a conclusion. The anthology should be governed by a theme (or a stage set of two topics aligned to the concerns of the first four sections of the course of instruction) that offer a way to immix together the several(a) materials for this course.The dress hat anthologies (those that will receive an A or A- grade) will be ones where the theme en equals the student to inquire into the complexities of the Statesn burnish and where both the organize and content of the midterm manifest democratic thinking (i. e. , examining an issue by looking at it from multiple points of view) and integrative thinking (i. e, finding similarities or making syntheses between separate, diverse voices). Texts for the assignment Draw one quotation from individually of the following textual matters or set of texts.Present the quotation and cite the text and page number of the quote (if the page number is available). Then go forth your analysis of the quotation. Note You should feel free and encouraged to arrange the quotes and commentaries in whatever order you find approximately appropriate and compelling. Its best not to arrange the quotes in the order presented in the name of texts that follows. Compose an arrangement that allows you to create the most interesting and revealing conversationor discourse and debateamong the texts. . Carroll, ed. , Letters from a Nation 2. Katz, ed. , Why exemption Matters 3. Smith, Twilight Los Angeles, 1992 4. Cumings, Dominion from Sea to Sea, chapters 2, 10 or 11 5. OHearn, ed. , fractional + Half Writers on Growing Up Biracial and Bicultural 6. Essays on Lo s Angeles by Christopher Isherwood, Sonora McKeller, Wanda Coleman, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Lynell George, or Bill Bradley. 7. Political discourse or writings by John Winthrop, Abigail Adams, Thomas Jefferson or Frederick Douglass 8.Herman Melville, Bartleby, the scribe A Story of Wall Street or Nathaniel Hawthorne, A grey Champion 9. Black, Our Constitution The Myth That Binds Us 10. Political oratory by Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Jr. , Thurgood Marshall, Mario Cuomo, Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama, or Bernie Sanders. 11. Essays or Speeches by Tony Kushner, James Baldwin, Stanley Crouch or Cornell West 12. Poetry by Pat Mora, Gloria Anzaldua, Ariana Waynes, Beau Sia, Steve Connell, Langston Hughes, or lines from comedy skits and writings by Culture Clash 13.John Leland, Hip The Hi chronicle, David Brooks, On nirvana Drive How We Live Now (and Always Have) in the Future Tense, or any quotation of your own infusion drawn from Ameri pile music, film, litera ture, history, politics, including lines from movies or lyrics from a song. Analysis of the texts Write a commentary on each quotation that is between 3-5 sentences in length. The commentary should be more than a paraphrase of the musical passage it should seek to illuminate the signification of the passage and wed the passage to separate passages through comparisons and contrasts.The commentary should develop the theme or governing idea of the anthology as a whole. It is vital in these commentaries to arise the passage first and foremost from the point of view of its author alternatively than to offer your personal opinion of it. Consider the commentary an act of empathetic listening and of comparative or contextual analysis. Seek to under vantage point the passage in its own context rather than just declaring its personal significance to you. Comment on the language and specific details of the passage and engender both comparisons and contrasts to other texts in the antholo gy. enter Write a 1-2 page Preface to this anthology in which you introduce and apologize the orchestrating theme or themes of this anthology-the topics, concerns, issues, arguments that govern selection of the quotations you use to compose this anthology. The Preface should be similar to a presenting a thesis to a 5-7 page critical essay in penning 140 or 340. Conclusion Conclude the anthology with a paragraph in which you briefly explain which text or reading assignment was most important for your education so far.Select the one text or assigned reading that you feel should definitely be included in the syllabus when I teach this course in a future semester. The caper of this anthology (beyond revealing that you strike studied the wide range of materials assigned so far for this course) is to find sources of unity in the diversity of the materials. Advice for the Midterm When commenting upon texts for the midterm and when choosing a theme or set of themes to orchestrate your midterm anthology, I recommend that you keep in mind the approaches of Anna Deavere Smith and Michael Kammen to American culture as described below.Smith believes that nomenclature can be the doorway into the soulfulness of a culture, and in sing to Me Listening Between the Lines (2000), she writes, I set out across America, on a take care for American character. My face was specifically to find America in its language. I interview concourse and communities about the events of our clip, in the hope that I will be able to absorb America. This is a outlandish of many tongues, even if we stay on to English. Placing myself in other peoples words, as in placing myself in other peoples shoes, has portrayn me the opportunity to get below the surfaceto get real. When you comment upon these texts, try to place yourself in other peoples words as if placing yourself in their shoes. Listen to what is tell and what may be hidden between the lines, and comment upon both. Consider a s well what might be revealed about a text by canvass and contrasting its words with voices from other texts or by juxtaposing its words against the words of a diametric text. Compose this anthology, in other words, by downloading and fuse and sampling voices to burn your own CD representing and reflecting upon the American sound. And just as in Hendrixs version of The Star Spangled Banner, your anthology can give us sounds and voices of dissonance as well as harmony. Smith similarly writes in Talk to Me My interest group of American character is, basically, a pursuit of difference. Character lives in that which is unique. What is unique about America is the extent to which it does, from eon to time, pull off being a merged culture. Finding American character is a process of looking at fragments, of looking at the unmerged. One has to do the footwork, one has to move from place to place, one has to stand outside. Your anthology will be composed of a set of 12 quotations, and e ach quotation can be considered a fragment. When commenting upon each fragment or text, try to relate the fragment to other fragments. Seek out and explain places of merger or agreement among the fragments. But also be uncoerced to see each fragment as unique, as a different take or look or perspective on your theme. The motley quotations will come from different places, different times, and along with noting the specific time and place of each quotation, you should note on occasion how the quotations differ or disagree with each other.The anthology should, in effect, create a conversation and dialogue and debateor a drama or a tell apart writ of executionamong the texts, playing one text off another. Consider each voice a solo or a monologue whose performance you analyze, however let your commentaries and the structure of the anthology as a whole be a jazz orchestra, or a play, or a sex act of voices checking and balancing each other. A crucial part of the anthology will be y our selection of a theme or themes that will enable you to unite together the different materials for the course.If you conceive of the anthology as part of an travail to visualize some aspect of the American character, you can follow the path of Michael Kammen who advises us to seek out paradoxes and contradictions within American culture. He notes that many have tried to provide a master key to unlock the enigma of the American character, proposing such single explanations as the Puritan sense of mission, the west movement of the frontier, the desire for opportunity and open land, the effects of immigration, or the story of freedom.But any quest for issue character, culture, or style, Kammen cautions, plunges one into a cart of complex historical considerations, and he draws upon the writings of Erik Erikson to remind us, It is commonplace to earth that whatever one may come to consider a really American trait can be shown to have its equally diagnostic opposite. There is no simple answer and no one ripe answer to the question What is the American character? You might say that America is a place of mixed messages and that it will take some unuttered work to understand the complexity of the struggle for democracy, freedom, justice, equation, and a more sinless union in America. Godfrey Hodgson in his book, More Equal Than Others American from Nixon to the refreshing Century (2004) gives us an wonderful update on Kammens attempt to see Americans as a people of paradox. Hodgson writes, At the beginning of of the 21st century, the United States was a mature civilization marked by striking, well-rooted contradictions.It is (and the list of pairs by no means exhausts the difficulties facing anyone who attempts a simplistic analysis) mainly pacific unless occasionally bellicose religious heretofore worldly innovative but conservative tough but tender ravening heretofore reluctant to incur casualties egalitarian by instinct but stratified in tier s of wide and growing inequality puritan yet self-indulgent conformist but full of independent-minded people devoted to justice, but in many ways remarkably unfair idealistic yet disposed(p) to cynicism. (Nice guys finish last is almost a national motto. At some times it can be self-confident to the bound of complacency, at others self-doubting to the point of neurosis. When choosing a theme for you anthology, I recommend that you search for a topic that allows you to study America by highlighting at least one or two of the contradictions or paradoxes within its character. You can draw upon the list of contradictions/paradoxes/ tensions/conflicts as possible topics of themes for your anthology. Freedom vs. Tyranny improperness vs. Slavery Equality vs. Hierarchy (or Supremacy) country vs. Monarchy/Aristocracy or Imperialism/empire Democracy vs.Racism/Sexism (or the Tyranny of the Majority) Tradition vs. Revolution/Innovation Purity (or virtue) vs. depravity Exclusion vs. Inclu sion Culture clashculture merger retentivity (studying the past) vs. Forgetting (letting go, living in the present) Born to Run/Born to be barbarous vs. Stability/Civilization/the Home The Founding Fathers Know Best vs. The Sins of the Fathers Democracy vs. Theocracy ChurchState Religionpolitics Letter of the law timbre of the law (or a higher law) Unity-diversity Melting pot-mosaic preoccupancyroots MajorityMinority Insidersoutsiders (outcasts) More perfect unionindividualismSelf-interest vs. company (brotherhood) Care for self vs. Care for others (caritas) Materialism-spirituality GoldGod Success-failure rapturemisery Bluesgospel Mobility-fixity Traditioninnovation Conformity mutiny Parentschildren (generational conflict) Machismofeminismo Countrycity Civilizationsavagery Hope-fear Privilegeequality Reverenceirreverence Authority-rebellion Provincialismcosmopolitanism Country-city Myth vs. history Stories we pauperism to hear vs. stories we need to hear Format Title Preface 1. Anna Deavere Smith, Talk to Me Listening Between the Lines (2000)I set our across America, on a search for American character. My search was specifically to find America in its language. I interview people and communities about the events of our time, in the hope that I will be able to absorb America. This is a country of many tongues, even if we stick to English. Placing myself in other peoples words, as in placing myself in other peoples shoes, has given me the opportunity to get below the surfaceto get real. (p. 12) 3-5 sentences of commentary 2. Author, backup quotation xxxxxxxxxxx 3-5 sentences of commentary Conclusion