AMS601: AMERICAN IDENTITY
CLASS AND WORK

Fall 1996
Dr. Sherry Linkon
e-mail: sjlinkon@cc.ysu.edu

"What do you do?" This familiar phrase pops up constantly in American culture. It's one of the first things people ask each other when they meet, and it allows us to assign people to familiar categories, to make assum ptions about their identities, their status, even their attitudes. What we do creates patterns in our day to day lives as well as in our life his tories. Our work may determine our economic condition as well as our soc ial class status. And our class status may, in turn, determine the kind of work we end up doing. In this course, we'll explore the meaning of work and class in American culture, focusing specifically on how our work and class affects our identities -- both how we see ourselves and how we are seen by others. We'll discuss the history and the future of work, the class structure in the U.S., how class intersects with other elements of identity (gender, race, age, region, sexuality), and American myths and m essages about work.

Because this is an American Studies course, our examination of these themes will draw on a variety of materials and approaches, including literary and popular texts, history, visual arts, demographics, and economics, to name just a few. American Studies is an interdisciplinary field, meani ng that it not only uses ideas and materials from different "disciplines," but it also integrates those materials. So we'll read literary texts a s tools for studying history and we'll use demographics to help us unders tand literature.

Course goals:

• This course is designed to help you accomplish the following goals:
• Learn about concepts of identity and culture
• Gain understanding of the relationship between work, class, identity, and culture
• Learn about some central American ideas about class and work
• Think critically about your own experience and about several kinds of tex ts
• Improve your communication skills, including writing and speaking.

Texts:

• Horatio Alger, Ragged Dick
• Dale Maharidge and Mike Williamson, Journey to Nowhere
• Kurt Vonnegut, Player Piano
• Janet Zandy, ed. Liberating Memory

In addition, we'll use a CD-ROM entitled Who Built America?, which provides a rich history (complete with audio and video tapes, photographs, cart oons, historical documents, and graphs) of work in the U.S. from the 1870s to the 1910s. I have set up the Mac computers in the English Department PWE lab (second floor, DeBartolo Hall) to work with this CD, and you can check the CD out from me. We'll spend part of two class sessions in the lab, but you'll probably also want to do some work on your own with this.

Assignments:

You'll complete four assignments in this course:

Family history or autobiography essay --20%

Images of work/workers analysis -- 30%

Final project on an issue or topic of your choice -- 40%

(Mostly) in-class group projects, such as leading discussion of a reading or presenting a segment of Who Built America? -- 10%

Grading will be based on several factors: appropriateness, clarity, strength of analysis, effective support for your arguments, and effective demonstration of your understanding of course concepts. I'll give you more complete information on each assignment as the time is right.

Revised Course Schedule:

9/30: Liberating Memory, "Introduction" and "The Education of an Italian- American Girl Child"

10/2: Guest lecture, Dr. Rane Arroyo, English: Writing Autobiography (tentative)

10/7: Liberating Memory, "Leaving It All Behind" and "Living and Learning Some Reflections on Emergence from and Service to the Working Class" Group work

10/9: Some basic definitions: culture, class, identity

10/14: The history of work and class in the U.S. Who Built America? session Family histories or autobiographies due MEET IN DEBARTOLO HALL, ENGLISH DEPARTMENT SUITE

10/16: Liberating Memory, tba Groups lead discussion

10/21: Who Built America? session -- groups work

MEET IN DEBARTOLO HALL, ENGLISH DEPARTMENT SUITE

10/23: Ragged Dick

10/28: Group presentations on history of work and class

MEET IN DEBARTOLO HALL, ENGLISH DEPARTMENT SUITE

10/30: Youngstown Museum of Labor and Industry

11/4: Models of class in contemporary America

11/6: Guest lecture, Dr. John Russo, Labor Studies: The Future of Work

11/11: No class -- University closed

11/13: Player Piano

11/18: Contemporary images of work and workers

11/20: Images papers due

11/25: Journey to Nowhere, Chs. 1-4

11/27: Journey to Nowhere, Chs. 5-14 and "Epilogue"

12/2: Student presentations of final projects

12/4: Student presentations of final projects

Note: Additional group work days may be announced during the term.