In this class, we will explore America's diversity through questions of immigration, race, gender/sexuality and class--some of the major ways our culture is organized. It is comprised of 9 lessons based on online resources, plus 2 auto-ethnography assignments. This class was originally taught by Huma Mohibullah at Renton Technical College. 

What is a “life” when it’s written down? How does memory inform the present? Why are autobiographies and memoirs so popular? This course will address these questions among others, considering the relationship between biography, autobiography, and memoir and between personal and social themes. We will examine classic authors such as Mary Rowlandson, Benjamin Franklin, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, and Mark Twain; then more recent examples like Tobias Wolff, Art Spiegelman, Sherman Alexie, Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Edwidge Danticat, and Alison Bechdel.

Although this class starts by critically examining the term “ethnic” as it defines a wide range of cultural forms over time, we will focus mostly on contemporary writers. Questions to consider will include: How has ethnic writing changed American culture and renovated forms of literary expression? What are the varieties and nuances of what we might call an ethnic subjectivity? What could it mean to harbor fugitives within the self: transgressive thoughts or a “foreign” identity? And what is the future of “ethnic” literature in a global space?

This course concentrates on close analysis and criticism of a wide range of films, from the early silent period, classic Hollywood genres including musicals, thrillers and westerns, and European and Japanese art cinema. It explores the work of Griffith, Chaplin, Keaton, Capra, Hawks, Hitchcock, Altman, Renoir, DeSica, and Kurosawa. Through comparative reading of films from different eras and countries, students develop the skills to turn their in-depth analyses into interpretations and explore theoretical issues related to spectatorship.

Tuning into the radio is now an integrated part of our everyday lives. We tune in while we drive, while we work, while we cook in our kitchens. Just 100 years ago, it was a novelty to turn on a radio. The radio emerged at the turn of the twentieth century, the result of decades of scientific experimentation with the theory that information could be transmitted over long distances. Radio as a medium reached its peak—the so-called Radio Golden Age—during the Great Depression and World War II. This was a time when the world was rapidly changing, and for the first time Americans experienced those history-making events as they happened. The emergence and popularity of radio shifted not just the way Americans across the country experienced news and entertainment, but also the way they communicated. This exhibition explores the development, rise, and adaptation of the radio, and its impact on American culture.

This course explores the international trade in television text, considering the ways in which ‘foreign’ programs find places within ‘domestic’ schedules. Looking at the life television texts maintain outside of their home market, this course examines questions of globalization and national cultures of production and reception. Students will be introduced to a range of positions about the nature of international textual trade, including economic arguments about the structuring of international markets and ethnographic studies about the role imported content plays in the formation of hybrid national identities. Students will be encouraged to consider the role American content is made to play in non-American markets.

This is a module framework. It can be viewed online or downloaded as a zip file.

As taught in Autumn/Spring Semesters 2009/2010

This resource presents material from four different courses taught across the School of American and Canadian Studies and Film and Television Studies. It addresses various aspects of nineteenth and early twentieth century American entertainment culture.

You can view module outlines for 4 modules taught within the school:

* American Drama (undergraduate year 3 level)
* American Sensations (undergraduate year 3 level)
* Film History (undergraduate year 1 level)
* Emergence of Mass Culture (undergraduate year 2 level)

The information contained within the module outlines includes: module objectives, lecture schedules, reading lists, teaching and learning methods, module resources, modes of assessment and essay questions.

This resource also presents examples of materials from each of the modules listed above. The materials available address:

* The Sensational Novels of the 1850's (from the American Sensations module)
* Mass Market Magazines around 1900 (from the Emergence of Mass Culture module)
* The movie Palaces of the 1920's (from the Film History module)
* The Depression-Era Theatre of the 1930's (from the American Drama module)

Suitable for: undergraduate study years one to three depending upon topic selected (see individual module titles above for more information)

Dr Matthew Pethers, Dr Graham Thompson, Dr Paul Grainge, Dr John Fagg, School of American and Canadian Studies.

Matthew Pethers is a Lecturer in American Intellectual and Cultural History in the School of American Studies. His research largely focuses on the American Enlightenment and early 19th century print culture, but he also has an ongoing interest in the history of the American stage.

Graham Thompson is the author of Male Sexuality under Surveillance: The Office in American Literature (2003), The Business of America: The Cultural Construction of a Post-War Nation (2004) and American Culture in the 1980s (2007). He is currently working on a new research project on Herman Melville's magazine fiction which re-locates Melville within the print culture industry of the 1850s and explores in more detail how magazine publishing developed and operated in order to better understand how cultural products like Melville's fiction were formed and circulated within it.

Paul Grainge is Associate Professor of Film Studies at the University of Nottingham. His teaching and research focuses on Hollywood and contemporary media culture. He is the author of Brand Hollywood: Selling Entertainment in a Global Media Age (Routledge, 2008), Monochrome Memories: Nostalgia and Style in Retro America (Praeger, 2002), Memory and Popular Film (as editor) (Manchester UP, 2003), and Film Histories: An Introduction and Reader (as co-editor) (Edinburgh UP, 2007). Within the Institute of Film and Television Studies at Nottingham, he teaches modules on film history, the cultural industries, the New Hollywood, and media memories.

Dr John Fagg is a lecturer in the School of American and Canadian Studies at the University of Nottingham. His research focuses on literature and painting around 1900 and the representation of everyday life. He teaches courses on American Literature, The Emergence of Mass Culture and the art and literature of New York City.

The purpose of this lesson is for High Intermediate to Advanced adult ESOL students to learn new vocabulary, practice reading, and hone their conversation skills while learning about the use of the penny in the United States.

The general goal of the Reel American History project is to foster critical thinking about a matter of enduring cultural attention, especially where young people are concerned: the formation of our national identity.

Reel American History is designed to be a "Collaborative Shared Resource". It aims at being a large, ongoing, cumulative, collaborative project that involves many students and many faculty over a long period of time. We strive to engage students in authentic learning – making students partners, even leaders, in researching American culture. Not only do we want to host the "novice in the archive", but we want to be an archive built by novices. We value pedagogy that is active, hands-on, inquiry-driven, student-centered, dialogic, constructivist, and based on discovery.

Therefore, we invite high school, college, and university teachers to share ownership in the project by not only teaching from the archive but, especially and even more importantly, by adding student work to it.

Specifically, we encourage teachers to consider our suggestions for using our site in these five ways:

as a textbook for your classroom work
as a first-stop resource for research projects by your students on films in the archive
as a publisher of good work by your students
as a stimulant for the creation of other kinds of projects relating to film representation of American history
as a broker for projects that join students from different schools

The purpose of this lesson is for students to be exposed to, understand, and begin using common American-English idioms. Students will practice using the idioms through speaking, listening, reading, and writing activities.