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Long before the founding of the republic, Americans were telling stories to make sense of their experiences. These stories often follow deeply rooted and sometimes little-understood American characteristics, optimism, practicality, individualism, and a genial disregard for rules prominent among them. This course will explore the sources of these characteristics in American popular culture. We will survey the legends, tall tales, and popular stories that have both grown out of and shaped American life and culture. We will dissect the rhetoric and propaganda of American political figures, especially their exploitation of American myths. One aim will be to make connections between early and recent American popular culture.
We will examine legendary figures such as Davy Crockett, Sally Ann Thunder Ann Whirlwind, Johnny Appleseed, and John Bunyan as well as relatively recent re-creations of the gangster as a folk hero in Damon Runyon's _Guys and Dolls _and in_ _the figure of Tony Soprano from the hit series _The Sopranos._ We will look at the American cowboy and his connections to the American gangster. We will explore popular images of marriage the family, and gender in at least one popular T.V. show, _I Love Lucy, _and if time, in a classic comedy, _Some Like it Hot. _We will hear Vietnam-era and civil rights movement protests from folk singers Arlo Guthrie and Joan Baez. Students are encouraged to suggest aspects of American life and culture that they would like to have
discussed—the current American presidency, for example.
Requirements: Come to class, do the readings, do a brief talk on any aspect of a reading you like, and write two short papers.
STUDENTS SHOULD ALSO PURCHASE THE FOLLOWING THROUGH THE UNIVERSITY
BOOKSTORE OR AN INTERNET SOURCE; ONE OF THESE BOOKS MAY BE ON THE NET AS
A PDF:
_American Tall Tales_, by Mary Pope Osborne (Alfred A. Knopf)
_Myths, Legends, and Folktales of America: An Anthology_, by David
Leeming, and Jake Page (Oxford University Press)
_A Treasury of Great American Scandals: Tantalizing True Tales of
Historic Misbehavior by the Founding Fathers and Others Who Let Freedom
Swing b_y Michael Farquhar (Penguin) _See also electronic versions._
RECOMMENDED _(not_ required):
_A People's History of the United States,_ by Howard Zinn
(HarperPerennial)
Americanfolklore.net
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/top100speechesall.html [1]
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