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American Cultural Studies > American Cultural History Lecture > Flashcards

American Cultural History Lecture Flashcards

1
Q

Anthropocene

A
  • New suggested geological period succeeding the Holocene (our period since the glacial period)
  • Marking the influence of human beings on geology
    –> Decrease in biodiversity, climate change, pollution, …
  • Defined in the 1980s & 2000s
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2
Q

Culture (analytic definition)

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  • All material & symbolic practices of a society, which server as systems of orientation or interpretation –> culture is organized in discourses
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3
Q

American Exceptionalism

A
  • Idea that America is different from ALL other states
  • Because of a specific/ divine mission in world history
  • It is unique, exceptional & “the greatest country in the world”
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4
Q

American Studies

A
  • Mixture of historical & literary scholarship –> Including urban studies & media studies
  • Especially interests in structures of social differentiation –> race, class, gender, ability, age, etc.
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5
Q

Trickster

A
  • Mythological figure in indigenous American cultures (often called “Coyote”)
  • Transformer, boundary crosser
  • both good & bad, male & female
  • Friend & teacher for human beings –> Stole fire from the gods
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6
Q

Conquest according to Stuart Hall

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  • Act of taking possession  goes along with idealization or vilification of indigenous population
  • through projection & imposition of European categories & failure to respect difference
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7
Q

Invisible Bullets

A
  • indigenous people believed that they were killed by white people through “invisible bullets”
    –> died from diseases (e.g. smallpox) which Europeans brought to America
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8
Q

City upon a Hill

A
  • phrase from the bible  John Winthrop used phrase to tell puritans what he expected of them
  • be a shining example of Christianity& perfection for the whole world
  • might be the origin of American Exceptionalism
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9
Q

Middle passage

A
  • Atlantic slave tribe –> forced voyage of enslaved Africans
  • One leg of the triangular trade
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10
Q

Predestination/Providence

A
  • Providence –> book of history (according to the Puritans)
  • All events (past or future) pre-determined by divine will
    –> all human actions, fates & ideas foretold/predestined
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11
Q

King Philip’s War/Metacomet’s War

A
  • Colonial/Intercultural War between white population of New England (settler colonists) & Wapanoag Nation with their sachem (chief Metacom)
    –> Killed 40% of indigenous population in New England & prisoners sold into slavery
  • Power of indigenous nation was broken
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12
Q

American Enlightenment (age of reason)

A
  • period that led up to American Revolution
  • Characterized by writings from John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin etc.
    –> Culminated in the declaration of independence & the constitution of the Bill of rights
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13
Q

Checks and Balances

A
  • Separation of powers (executive, legislative, judiciary) through specific institutions (presidency, congress, the courts)
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14
Q

Federal Style in Architecture

A
  • Palladian style of architecture (imitations of Greek & Roman architecture)
  • Imported from Europe to Am. by Thomas Jefferson –> serve as a symbol for the new republic
  • Suggests learning, democracy, civilization & empire, whiteness & elitism
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15
Q

Ante-bellum Reform Movements

A
  • Variety of reform movements –> At the end of early republic, during Ante-Bellum era
    –> abolitionism, temperance, Sunday School movement, penitentiary reform, dietary reform, etc.
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16
Q

Abolitionism

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movement to end slavery & liberate enslaved people

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17
Q

Temperance

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promoting moderation & complete abstinence from alcohol consumption

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18
Q

Nativism

A
  • anti-immigration movement in the 1840s & 1850s (Know Nothing Movement, American Party)
  • was anti-Catholic, anti-Irish, anti-German –> wanted to reserve America for those born in Am.
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19
Q

Cult of True Womanhood

A
  • cult of domesticity –> new image of women as the angel in the house
    –> characterized by the four cardinal virtues of domesticity, purity, piety & submissiveness
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20
Q

Tocqueville’s America

A
  • Alexis de Tocqueville (French noblemen) –> travelled through America in the 1830s
  • wrote “Democracy in America” –> described the American character, notably individualism, restlessness, materialism, tyranny of the majority, etc.
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21
Q

Manifest Destiny

A
  • idea (in the 1830s), that divine mission of the US is to overspread the entire American continent, because of its “superior” democratic institutions
    –> form of exceptionalism & beginning of American Imperialism
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22
Q

Indian Removal

A
  • policy of the US against indigenous nations (Choctaw, Cherokee, Seminole, Chickasaw, Creek)
    –> evicted in the 1830s to the areas west of the Mississippi (forced displacement)
  • policy of ethnic cleansing –> resulted in thousands of deaths –> Trail of Tears (1830/31)
23
Q

Self-reliance

A
  • made famous by Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • concept –> time of individuals & America to leave behind imitation (of European ideas)
  • rely on one’s own true self –> part of transcendentalist & romantic discourse of self-improvement
24
Q

Conservation

A
  • interest in protection & preservation/ restoration of natural environments & ecological communities –> came with industrialization & romanticism
  • Theodore Roosevelt called the conservationist president (1901-09)
    –> saved Yellowstone &created US forest service
    –> John Muir (ecologist & philosopher) helped establish Yosemite & Sequoia
25
Q

Fugitive Slave Law

A
  • Law –> Fugitive slaves from the South have to be returned by the north
  • Part of the compromise of 1850 between north & south –> deepened the tensions between N&S
    –> Let (among other things) to Stowe’s novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” (abolitionist novel)
26
Q

Minstrel Show

A
  • Entertainment show in the 1830s –> skits, variety acts, dancing & music performed by white people in blackface
    –> made fun of black people & affirmed stereotypes about African Americans
27
Q

American Civil War (1861-1865)

A
  • civil war between the North & the South –> over the dispute over slavery
  • end of the southern stated slave system
28
Q

Plessy vs. Ferguson

A
  • racist supreme court decision (1896) –> valid until 1954
    –> segregation in the South (Jim Crow laws) upheld though the formula “separate but equal”
29
Q

Jim Crow laws

A
  • local laws of the South that enforced racial segregation
  • introduced in late 19th & early 20th century –> remained in force until 1965
30
Q

Indian Appropriation Acts

A
  • several acts (1851,71,…) –> members of indigenous nations were moved to reservations in the West
  • from 1871 on Indian reives were not recognized as independent nations
    –> indigenous people were treated as individuals & “wards” of the federal government
31
Q

Turner Thesis

A
  • Frederick Jackson Turner suggested in 1893 that the American Character & American democratic sentiment were formed through frontier between civilization & wilderness
    –> Established the myth of the West (idealized) & rugged individualist
    –> Largely rejected today
32
Q

Realism

A
  • Western art movement (started in France, 1850s) –> reaction to romanticism & sentimentalism
  • Rejected the demand for morality (in the arts) & turned with vengeance to mundane topics (e.g. business, science, technology, social question & modern life problems
33
Q

Gilded Age

A
  • Era of big business in America in the post-bellum time (term coined by Mark Twain)
    –> Characterized by materialism, corruption, exploitation & pro-business ideology
34
Q

Horatio Alger

A
  • Writer of books for boys in the 1870s, 80s & 90sn –> invented the rags-to-riches formula
    –> Hard working, energetic & morally good boys will rise in society & become “somebody”
    –> Myth of the self-made man
35
Q

Naturalism

A
  • Later version of realism (1890s+)  explored philosophy of determinism & social Darwinism
    –> Certain people become powerful in society because they’re innately better
    –> Survival of the fittest, natural selection, struggle for survival & determination by strong forces
36
Q

Stream of Thought

A
  • William James’s description of human consciousness
    –> Describes cognition as a “stream of thought, of consciousness, of subjective life”
    –> All experiences take place within this stream & is the only know reality for the individual
    –> “absolute insulation” (within the individual) & “irreducible pluralism” of sense impressions
37
Q

Modernism

A
  • Name for various cultural movements in the west (Europe, USA, Latin America)
    –> Reaction to sense of social breakdown, alienation, acceleration& automation of modern life
    –> Against ordered ideas of Victorianism, Realism & tradition
    –> e.g. Dadaism, Surrealism, Futurism, etc
38
Q

Armory Show

A
  • art exhibition in NY in 1913 –> introduced modernist art to America
    –> Picasso, Matisse, Brancusi, Gaugin, etc.
39
Q

Film Noir

A
  • Modernist American cinema in the late 1930s & 1940s –> working with low key lighting (noir)
  • Reacts to modern experiences of urbanization, rise of suburbia, changes in manners & values, alienation, transformation of gender roles, middle class life & doubts about the future
40
Q

Harlem Renaissance

A
  • Lively & multifaced cultural movement centred in Harlem, NY
    –> produced African-American art (literature, paintings, photography, film & music
  • characterized by pride, self-assertion –> but haunted by the trope of “primitivism
41
Q

Popular Culture

A
  • popular forms of entertainment –> exploited by the culture industry since the end of 19th century
  • characterized by a belief in the common man, egalitarianism, liberalism, moral community & pragmatic problem solving
42
Q

Populism

A
  • agrarian protest movement after the Civil War –> calling for the support of the “common man”
  • cheaper money, nationalization of railroads, graduated income tax, direct election of senators
  • partially haunted by whit supremacy
43
Q

Progressivism

A
  • reform movement at the end of the 19th century
    –> in reaction to the industrialization & the problem of the Gilded Age
  • called for government activities against corruption & social misery & for more efficiency in all areas of society
44
Q

WPA Photography

A
  • documentary photography sponsored by the Roosevelt Administration
    –> in the new deal though the Works Progress Administration
  • e.g. Lange’s “Migrant Mother”, works by Walter Evans
45
Q

Social Realism

A
  • a return to realist techniques within modernist literature –> to explore questions of poverty, history, middle class life etc.
  • e.g. Steinbeck, Lewins, Faulkner
46
Q

Civil Rights Movement

A
  • African American protest movement led by Martin Luther Kink & others
  • Insisted in non-violent action & civil disobedience, organized demonstrations, boycotts, sit-ins & legal interventions
47
Q

Counterculture

A
  • Youth movement in the 1960s –> inspired by civil rights movement
  • Opposing militarism (Vietnam), technocracy, bureaucracy & conformism
  • Influenced by philosophy, psychoanalysis & Buddhism
48
Q

Black Panther Party

A
  • Militant African American Organization, founded in Oakland, CA –> inspired by Malcom X & Marxism
  • Patrolled with arms, organized community social programs
  • Discredited & destroyed by the FBI
49
Q

Postmodernism

A
  • International art movement –> embraces eclecticism, historical nostalgia, play, paradox, dissonance
  • themes: identity, history, consumer culture, loss of orientation & disbelief in grand narratives
50
Q

Grand Narratives (meta narratives)

A
  • belief systems –> claim to explain the course of history & necessities of the future in a comprehensive & normative way (Liberalism, Marxism, Christianity, Judaism, the Islam,…)
51
Q

Gender Performance

A
  • idea that gender (socially sanctioned masculine or feminine behaviour) does not “naturally” follow biological sex, but in fact a publicly supported or suppressed performance
    –> has a normalizing consequence
52
Q

Orientalism

A
  • imitation/ depiction of middle eastern, south Asian & East Asian cultures by writers/painters, etc. from the West
  • East depicted as “the other” (othering) & as underdeveloped, barbaric, exotic, wild, etc.
    –> With a patronizing point of view
53
Q

Hybridity

A
  • Suggestion that cultural identities are not marked by essential/natural qualities, but by blends, mixtures, appropriations & imitations of diverse elements
  • on account of various colonialisms & neo-colonialisms (including globalization)
54
Q

Post/Neo-colonialism

A
  • Theoretical orientation which explores the consequences of colonializations, de-colonializations & (capitalist, neo-liberal) neo-colonializations
  • The consequences are present in questions of identities (hybridity, nostalgia), observations (orientalism, colonial gaze), migration (diasporas, borderlands) & forms of power (subalternity, hegemony, othering)

American Cultural Studies (3 decks)

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