Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Course Syllabus: HST 485, Cars and Film

SEMINAR—HST 485P1 SPRING, 2015
The Automobile and Film
Class Meeting: Wednesday, 3:00-5:50 p.m.
HM 468

Instructors: Dr. John A. Heitmann, Dr. James Todd Uhlman
Office: Heitmann-HM 435, Uhlman-HM 448
Telephone:  Heitmann-x92803
Office Hours:
Heitmann:  MW10-10:50 a.m., W 2-2:50 p.m., or by appointment
Uhlman:   TR 1:00-2:45 p.m., or by appointment

This Syllabus is Incomplete and will be Altered
Dr. Heitmann and Uhlman Reserve the Right to Change this Syllabus

It has been said that the automobile is the perfect technological symbol of American culture, a tangible expression of our quest to level space, time and class, and a reflection of our restless mobility, social and otherwise.  Film, a technology that emerged at the same time as the automobile, has today become the dominant medium of communication in the world.  In this seminar we will explore together the place of the automobile in film.  This story is most complex, demanding insights and expertise from a host of disciplines.  We have to understand the cultural and social history of the 20th Century.  We also have to know the history of technology and business.  Both of these technologies have influenced the foods we eat; music we listen to; risks we take; places we visit; errands we run; emotions we feel; stress we endure; the air we breathe; and the stories we tell ourselves.

Required Texts:
John Heitmann, The Automobile and American Life (McFarland, 2009).
Heitmann’s  book The Automobile and American Life is our key common reading in this class and the touchstone for our discussions.  While you will not be tested on this reading, you will be responsible for reading this book and critically commenting on it in class.
The remaining readings will be in the form of PDF files located at the course’s Isidore website.  The readings can be found under the “Content Section” and under the button for each of the numbered weeks of the class.
           
Grades:
Leading Class Discussions                                    100 points
Discussion Participation                                         100 points
Annotated Bibliography                                          100 points
Draft #1 of Paper (due before April 8)                    100 points
Review of Classmates Paper                                   50 points
Film Review Essay                                                100 points 
Film History and Editing Quiz                                   50 points
Standard Symposium Presentation                        100 points
Final Paper                                                              300 points
Total                                                                        1000

In this class we will define the seminar as a shared learning experience in which one of its purposes is to create new knowledge. Therefore, the research paper is the most significant assignment of this course. It should critically explore an area of knowledge related to the automobile and American life, and ideally should be 10 to 15 pages double spaced in length, with additional footnotes and bibliography, and furthermore draw on minimally 15 sources, primary and secondary. We plan to meet with you individually and collectively during the semester to ensure that your topic has a proper focus and that sources are readily available for your project. A late paper will be penalized one-half letter grade per day.
Schedule of Assignments and Class Meetings

Week 1 — January 12
Topic:  Introduction:  The Advent of the 20th Century and New Technologies of the Car and Film

Films:
“Horatio’s Drive”

Assignment:  Signup for Leading Class Discussion

Week 2 — January 21
Topic:  The Promise of Mobility in American History

Period:  1890s-2000s

Readings:
John Heitmann, The Automobile, Intro. and ch. 1-2.
Julian Smith, “A Runaway Match:  The Automobile in the American Film, 1900-1920” in Lewis, ed., The Automobile and American Culture
Kenneth Hey, “Cars and Films in American Culture, 1929-1959” in Lewis, ed., The Automobile and American Culture
James J. Flink, "Three Stages of American Automobile Consciousness," American Quarterly, 24 (October, 1972), 451-473.
Todd Uhlman, “Using Film to Understand the Past”

Films:
“Wild Wheels” (1992) [don’t need to watch all of this film if you don’t want]
“Henry Ford’s Mirror of America” (1915-1930)
“Roger and Me” (1989)

Week 3 — January 28
Topic:   The Silent Era

Period:  1910s-1920s

Readings:
John Heitmann, The Automobile, ch. 3-4
Jennifer Parchesky, “Women in the Driver’s Seat:  The Auto-Erotics of Early Women’s Films,” Film History, 18, no. 2, (2006): 174-184.
Melissa E. Weinbrenner, “Movies, Model Ts, and Morality:  The Impact of Technology on Standards of Behavior in the Early Twentieth Century,” The Journal of Popular Culture, 44, no. 3 (2011):  647-659.
Todd Uhlman, “A Short History of the Film Industry”

Films:
 “Mabel at the Wheel” (1914)
 “The Wife and Auto Trouble” (1916)

Assignment:  Term Paper Proposal is Due

Week 4 — February 4
Topic:  Mobility and the Great Depression

Period: 1930s-1940s

Readings:
John Heitmann, The Automobile, ch. 4, 6
David Laderman, Driving Vision:  Exploring the Road Movie
Ch. 1: “Paving the Way:  Sources and Features of the Road Movie”
Douglas Kellner, “Hollywood Film and Society,” in Hill and Gibson, eds., Oxford Guide to Film Studies.
Todd Uhlman, “Learning to Read Movies”

Films:
“It Happened One Night” (1934)
“Grapes of Wrath” (1940) [not available through the UD service]

Assignment:  Library Research Tutorial

Week  5 — February 11
Topic:  The Reconversion Economy and Film Noir

Period: 1940s and 1950s

Readings:
John Heitmann, The Automobile, ch. 7
Paul Mason Fotsch, “Film Noir and Automotive Isolation in Los Angeles,” Cultural Studies and Critical Methodologies, 5, no. 1 (2005): 103-125.
Geraint Bryan, “Nowwhere to Run:  Pulp Noir on the Road,” in Jack Sergeant and Stephanie Watson, eds., Lost Highways:  Illustrated History of Road Movies.
Jack Sargeant and Stephanie Watson, “Looking for Maps:  Notes on the Road Movie as a Genre,” in Jack Sergeant and Stephanie Watson, eds., Lost Highways:  Illustrated History of Road Movies.

Films:
“They Drive by Night” (1940)
“Detour” (1945)

Assignment:  Film History and Editing Quiz

Week 6 — February 18
Topic: Chrome Dreams of the 1950s and the Tarnished Underside

Period: 1950s

Readings:
John Heitmann, The Automobile, ch. 8
David Laderman, Driving Vision:  Exploring the Road Movie
Ch. 2: “Blazing the Trail:  Visionary Rebellion and the Late-1960s Road Movie”:  pages 43-50.
Karal Ann Marling, "America's Love Affair with the Automobile in the Television Age," Design Quarterly, 46 (1989), 5-20.
Nicholas Ray, “Story into Script”, in J. David Slocum, ed., Rebel Without a Cause:  Approaches to a Maverick Masterwork
George M. Wilson, “Nicholas Ray’s Rebel Without a Cause”, in J. David Slocum, ed., Rebel Without a Cause:  Approaches to a Maverick Masterwork
“Rebel Without a Cause-Primary Documents Set”

Films:
“Rebel Without a Cause” (1955)
“Thunder Road” (1958)
TBD

Week 7 — February 25
Topic:  Consensus and Counter Culture

Period: 1960s

Readings:
Cotton Seiler, "Statist means to Individualist Ends: Subjectivity, Automobility, and the Cold War State," American Studies, 44 (Fall, 2003), 5-36.
Mark Alvey, “Wanderlust and Wire Wheels:  The Existential search of Route 66,” in Cohen and Hark, eds., The Road Movie Book.
David Laderman, Driving Vision:  Exploring the Road Movie
Ch. 2: “Blazing the Trail:  Visionary Rebellion and the Late-1960s Road Movie”: pages 50-81.
Katie Mills, The Road Story and the Rebel:  Moving Through, Film, Fiction & TV
            Ch. 3:  “TV Gets Hip on Route 66”
            Ch. 4:  “Kesey’s Quixotic Acid Road Film”

Films:
“Magic Trip” (2011)
Episode from “Route 66”:  “Goodnight Sweet Blues”

Week 8 — March 4
Topic:  Chase Movies and the Racing of Automobility

Period:  1900-2000

Readings:
John Heitmann, The Automobile, ch. 9
Donald W. McCaffey, “The Evolution of the Chase in Silent Screen Comedy,” Journal of the Society of Cinematologists, 4 (1964-65): 1-8.
Jeremy Packer, Mobility Without Mayhem: Safety, Cars, and Citizenship
            Ch. 5:  “Of Cadillacs and ‘Coon Cages’:  The Racing of Automobility”
Thomas J. Sugrue, “Driving While Black: The Car and Race Relations in Modern America”
Cotton Seiler, “‘So That We as a Race Might Have Something Authentic to Travel By,’ African American Automobility and Cold-War Liberalism,” American Quarterly, vol. 58, no. 4 (Dec. 2006).
Todd Uhlman and John Heitmann, " Stealing Freedom:  Auto-Theft and the Rebellious Revitalization of the Masculine American Self in Visual Culture" Journal of Popular Culture, forthcoming.

Films:
“Bullitt” (1968)
“New Jersey Drive” (1995)
TBD

Week 9 — March 11
Topic:  Special Emeriti Lecture Visit—Biker Films

Period:  1960s-1970s

Readings:
Katie Mills, The Road Story and the Rebel: Moving Through, Film, Fiction &  TV
            Ch. 5:  “Road Film Rising:  Hells Angels, Merry Pranksters, and Easy Rider”
Carmen Indurain Eraso, “Thelma and Louise: ‘Easy Rider’ in a Male Genre,” Atlantis, 23, no. 1 (2001): 63-73.
Jim Morton, “Rebels of the Road:  The Biker Film,” in Jack Sergeant and Stephanie Watson, eds., Lost Highways:  Illustrated History of Road Movies.
Alistair Daniel, “Get Your Kicks:  ‘Easy Rider’ and the Counter-Culture,” in Jack Sergeant and Stephanie Watson, eds., Lost Highways:  Illustrated History of Road Movies.
Barbara Klinger, “The Road to Dystopia:  Landscaping the Nation in Easy Rider,” in Cohen and Hark, eds., The Road Movie Book.

Films:
“Easy Rider” (1969)
“Vanishing Point” (1997)

Assignment:  The Completion of a Working Bibliography of no less than 15 Sources, 5 of which are articles.

Week 10 — March 18
Topic:  Nostalgia and the Existential Highway of the 1970s

Period:  1970s

Readings:
David Laderman, Driving Vision:  Exploring the Road Movie
Ch. 3: “Drifting on Empty:  Existential Irony and the Early-1970s Road Movie.”
David R. Shumway, “Rock’n’Roll Sound Tracks and the Production of Nostalgia,” Cinema Journal, 38, no. 2 (Winter 1999): 36-51.
Jack DeWitt, “Cars and Culture:  Song of the Open Road,’” The American Poetry Review, 39, no. 2 (March.-April. 2010): 38-40.
Jack DeWitt, “Cars and Culture:  The Cars of ‘American Graffiti,’” The American Poetry Review, 39, no. 5 (Sept.-Oct. 2010): 47-50.
Andreas Killen, 1973 Nervous Breakdown:  Watergate, Warhol, and the Birth of Post-Sixties America, “Reinventing the Fifties”: 163-194.
Adam Webb, “No Beginning.  No End.  No Speed Limit:  ‘Two-Lane Blacktop’”, in Jack Sergeant and Stephanie Watson, eds., Lost Highways:  Illustrated History of Road Movies.
Jack Sargeant, “‘Vanishing Point’: Speed Kills”, in Jack Sergeant and Stephanie Watson, eds., Lost Highways:  Illustrated History of Road Movies.

Films:
“Vanishing Point.” (1971)
“American Graffiti” (1973)
“Badlands” (1973)

Week 11 — March 25
Topic:  Steel Cowboys and the Apocalyptic Highway

Period: 1970s-1980s

Readings:
John Heitmann, The Automobile, ch. 10
David Laderman, Driving Vision:  Exploring the Road Movie
Ch. 4: “Blurring the Boundaries:  The 1980s Postmodern Road Movie.”
Todd Uhlman, “Delivering Manhood” [draft of article]
“The Trucker Craze-Primary Documents Set”
Jim Morton, “Road Kill:  Horror on the Highway,” in Jack Sergeant and Stephanie Watson, eds., Lost Highways:  Illustrated History of Road Movies.
Jack Sergeant, “Killer Couples:  From Nebraska to Route 666,” in Jack Sergeant and Stephanie Watson, eds., Lost Highways:  Illustrated History of Road Movies.

Films:
“Smokey and the Bandit” (1977)
“Death Race 2000” (1977)

Assignment:  Draft #1 of Paper is Due
Exchange of papers with Classmates—review will be due next week

Week 12 — April 1 (Guest Instructor)
Topic:  The Feminist Road

Period: 1980s-1990s

Readings:
John Heitmann, The Automobile, ch. 5
Harvey R. Greenberg, Carol J. Clover, et al., “The Many Faces of ‘Thelma and Louise,’” Film Quarterly 45, no. 2 (Winter 1991-1992): 20-31.
“Thelma and Louise and the Cultural Generation of the New Butch-Femme,” in Jim Collins, et al, Film Theory Goes to the Movies (1991), 129-141.
Jim Healey, “’All This for Us’: The Songs in Thelma & Louise,” The Journal of Popular Culture, ???: 103-119.
Aspasia Kotsopoulos, “Gendering Expectations:  Genre and Allegory,” in Left History [Readings of Thelma and Louise] 8 (2003):  10-33.

Films:
“Thelma and Louise” (1991)
“Natural Born Killers” (1994)

Assignment:  Return of Reviewed Papers

Week 13 —  April 8
Topic:  The Post-Modern Road to Uncertainty

Period: 1990s-2000s

Readings:
David Laderman, Driving Vision:  Exploring the Road Movie
Ch. 5: “Rebuilding the Engine:  The 1990s Multicultural Road Movie.”
Katie Mills, The Road Story and the Rebel:  Moving Through, Film, Fiction & TV
            Ch. 9:  “First-Person Players:  The Digital, ‘Tranmedia’ Road Story”
Jeremy Packer, Mobility Without Mayhem: Safety, Cars, and Citizenship
            Ch. 6:  “Raging with a Machine:  Neoliberalism Meet the Automobile”
“Debating Crash-Primary Document Set”
Rae Hark, “Fear of Flying:  Yuppie Critique and the Buddy-Road Movie in the 1980s,” in Cohen and Hark, eds., The Road Movie Book.

Films:
“Crash” (1996)
“Crash” (2004)

Week 14 —  April 15

NO CLASS:  STANDER SYMPOSIUM

Assignment:  Presentations at the Symposium
           
Week 15 — April  22
Topic:  NASCAR Culture and The Fast and Furious

Period:  2000-2014

Readings
Lawrence W. Hugenberg and Barbara S. Hugenberg, “It it Ain’t rubbin’, It Ain’t Racing:  NASCAR, American Values, and Fandom,” The Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 41, no. 4, 2008.
M. Graham Spann, “NASCAR Racing Fans:  Cranking Up an Empirical Approach,” The Journal of Popular Culture, ???, 2003
Don Cusic, “NASCAR and Country Music, Studies in Popular Culture, vol. 21, no. 1 (October 1998).
“Talladega Nights:  The Ballads of Ricky Bobby” (2006)


Assignment:  Final Papers are Due

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