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ANTHROPOLOGY
CO64:
American
(Visual) Culture
Instructor:
Richard Chalfen
Department of Anthropology
Temple University
Philadelphia, PA 19122 USA
Fall Semester, 2002 |
“The Truman Show offers a grand metaphor
for contemporary American culture. Its message is
that we are immersed in a media landscape of lifelike
fantasies that serves the interests of those in
power. If we want to be free and have a chance at
an authentic life, it tells us, we will have to
distance ourselves from the safety and comforts
of our media-saturated culture, and be willing to
live in the world as it is.”
(Ken Sanes, Salon, 1998) |
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Overview
This course satisfies the Core Curriculum requirement for
three (3) semester hours in the American Culture category.
We will study American culture in contexts of cultural and
visual anthropology. Several theoretical problems will guide
the lectures, readings, screenings, and discussions. For instance:
What do anthropologists mean by “American culture"?
How is this perspective similar to or different from what
is said in other disciplines in the Social Sciences or Humanities?
Is it legitimate to speak of (an) American culture? Where
do we find it? How are we a part of it? How did we get it?
And how does it get us? How would anthropologists from other
countries study "us"? Or, is that the "U.S."?
What are some relationships to popular culture, multi-culturalism,
trans-culturalism, trans-nationalism, and where is American
culture in relation to what is called “global culture”?
This semester we will focus on the question of “What
does American Culture look like?” Can we find visual
representations of such themes as multi-culturalism, multi-lingualism,
racial and ethnic relationships, regionalisms, American value
schemes, culture change? Can you see American Culture in everyday
visual/pictorial forms? We will use a survey approach to forms
of American media, to various ways of visualizing American
Culture. Our objective is to examine how American Culture
has been represented by professional image-makers as well
as you and your own family members. In other words we will
study the cultural significance of both mass media and “home
media”. The central concern of the required coursework
is how concepts of American Culture are shaped/formed/constructed/constituted
but mainly represented in forms of mass communication -- sometimes
best understood as popular culture, AND in how members of
American families construct their own pictorial versions of
American Culture.
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Required
Readings
Packet: Readings for Anthropology CO64: American Culture
This packet is available from Docucare, located at 900 North
Broad Street (call 215-235-8740 before going to make sure
of availability and stated cost).
Recommended Texts
Creating
America and the Saturday Evening Post.
by Jan Cohn (Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, 1989)
Norman Rockell’s America.
by Christopher Finch, (New York: Abradale Pres s, 1975) .
Creating America and the Saturday
Evening Post.
by Jan Cohn (Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, 1989)
Norman Rockwell’s Amerca.
by Christopher Finch, (New York: Abradale Press, 1975).
American Dreamtime: A Cultural
Analysis of Popular Movies, and Their Implications for a Science
of Humanity. by Lee Drummond (Littlefield Adams
Books,1996)
Life's America: Life and Family
in Postwar Photojournalism.
by Wendy Kozol (Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press,1998)
Dick and Jane: Learning and Living
the American Dream.
by Carole Kismaric & Marvin Heiferman (New York: Harper
Collins, 1996)
America Under Construction.
eds. Kristi S. Long and Matthew Nadelhaft (Garland Publishing,1997)
The Comic Stripped American.
by Arthur Asa Berger (Penguin Books,1973)
Snapshot Versions of Life.
by Richard Chalfen (Bowling Green State Univ. Popular Press,1987)
American Snapshots.
ed. by Ken Graves and Mitchell Payne (The Scrimshaw Press,
1977)
Gender Advertisements.
by Erving Goffman (Harper Books, 1979)
A Day in the Life of America.
(Collins,1987)
The Visual Culture Reader.
Nicholas, Mirzoeff (ed.) (New York: Routledge,1998)
Bearing Witness: A Photographic
Chronicle of American Life
by Michael Lesy (New York: Pantheon, 1982).
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