Yes – it’s all over. You have written an exam, posted journals, handed in papers and produced blogs….well-done.
Sorry for giving you all hand cramps yesterday, but such is the nature of English exams. I can’t know what you’ve learned until you actually write it out.
Best of luck with everything you pursue in the future. You’ve been a great class.
The problem with teaching a course in American culture (using a cultural studies approach) in Canada is the abundance of anti-American feeling that pervades Canadian sensibilities. Most Americans, I believe, do not have a clue that most Canadians, I believe, are involved in a tumultuous love-hate relationship with American culture. When I teach the various discourses that comprise the concept of “America,” I am invariably inundated with papers that have a decided Canadian smugness about American naughtiness.
This class has been quite good about seeing America as networks of multivalent concepts-discourses-myths etc… and not simply “good” or “bad.” However, I think teaching anything about American culture these days will necessarily involve anti-American sentiment. All I can do is remind my students that the concept of nations and nationhood is complex and that Canada has committed its own indecencies in the name of nationalism…
America
It’s the New Jerusalem
It’s the great experiment
It’s the errand in the wilderness
It’s the vast frontier
So now we enter into the last part of our course…and study the American autobiography…the obsession with the exceptional.
Like all things we study in this course – exceptionalism is both bad and good…that is, to desire the exceptional based on a fixed set of principles, such as progress and expansion………….well, perhaps such desires are problematic?
On the other hand, when we visit the exceptional in The Color Purple, we will see a much different approach to exceptionalism….
Away we go!
Thank you both for commenting on our blog….believe me, you are helping to teach the class…
In response to the latest comment on the frontier myth: you are absolutely right – but you are talking about the reality whereas the frontier myth is sold as fantasy via popular cultural products, such as film and lit.
Your comment = everyday reality
Frontier myth = national fantasy
Vanishing Indian = national fantasy
And so the tension between everyday life and national fantasy continues…
If you want to read more regarding this tension, then try out Lauren Berlant’s book National Fantasy and Everyday Life (that’s a stab at the title – but it is something along those lines). Be warned though – her work is liberally peppered with theory jargon, which can be a bit intimidating if you aren’t trained in that sort of thing…..still, it’s a great read.
The frontier myth in America solidifed in the late nineteenth century in the form we see today in popular culture. So why does the concept of the frontier endure? What is it about settling an untamed world that fascinates Americans? Just one answer will not suffice – however, I think it is safe to say that claiming rights to a land and taming the wild offers a strong belief in cultural superiority.
What do you think?
Perhaps some of you are wondering why the course is so focused on race? Well, we will be discussing issues of class when we discuss the popular western, but I will say that issues of race are difficult to avoid when studying American literature. In fact, I believe that academics have to work extremely hard to not discuss race in American literature.
In addition to the class site on ACE, you are invited to participate in the class blog. I will be posting my comments on certain readings and materials on the course….plus cultural objects outside the course domain (ahem, such as today’s discussion on Grey’s Anatomy?)
The rules of engagement remain within the boundaries of UW’s policy on ethics, but we may have others who might post. Let’s just see what happens.
