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American Cultural Studies > American Cultural History Lecture (New & more precise) > Flashcards

American Cultural History Lecture (New & more precise) Flashcards

1
Q

Anthropocene

A
  • New suggested geological period succeeding the Holocene (period since glacial period)
  • Marking 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)

A
  • All material & symbolic practices of society, which server as systems of orientation & interpretation
  • Culture is organized in discourse
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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
  • “the greatest country on earth”
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4
Q

American Studies

A
  • Mixture of historical & literary scholarship -> including urban studies & media studies
  • Especially interested 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
  • Called “Coyote”
  • Transformer, boundary crosser
  • Both good &bad, male & female
  • Friend & teacher for humans -> stole fire from the gods
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6
Q

Conquest according to Stuart hall

A
  • act of taking possession -> goes along with idealization & vilification of indigenous population
  • trough projection 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
  • Transportation of millions of people from Africa to the americas on slave ships
  • Many died during passage
  • Traumatic climax & symbol for their deportation
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10
Q

Predestination/Providence

A
  • Providence -> book of history (by Puritans)
  • All events (past & future) pre-determined by divine will
    -> All human action, fates & ideas foretold/predestined
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11
Q

King Philips’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

A
  • Age of reason
  • Period that led up to the American revolution
  • Characterized by writings form John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Benjamine 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, 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 America 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, etc.
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16
Q

Abolitionism

A
  • Movement to end slavery & liberate enslaved people
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17
Q

Temperance

A
  • 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
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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 -> 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, Creek, …)
    -> Evicted in the 1830s to the areas west of 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 true self
  • Part of transcendentalist & romantic discourse of self-improvement
24
Q

Conservation

A
  • Interest in protection & preservation of natural environments & ecological communities
    -> Came with industrialization & romanticism
  • Theodore Roosevelt called the conservationist president (1901-1909)
    -> 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 north & south
  • Let 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

A
  • 1861-1865
  • Civil war between the north & the south -> over the dispute over slavery
  • End of the southern states slave system
28
Q

Plessy vs. Ferguson

A
  • Racist supreme court decision (1896) -> valid until 1954
    -> Segregation in the south (Jim Crow laws) upheld through formula “separate but equal”
29
Q

Jim Crow laws

A
  • Local laws of the south that enforced racial segregation
  • Introduced in the 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 was formed through a frontier between civilization & wilderness
    -> Established the myth of the West (idealized)
    -> Largely rejected today
32
Q

Realism

A
  • Western art movement (1850s)
  • Reaction to romanticism & sentimentalism
  • Rejected the demand for morality (in the arts)
  • Turned to mundane topics -> business, science, technology, modern life problems
33
Q

Gilded Age

A
  • Era of big business in America
  • In the post-bellum time
  • Characterized by materialism, corruption & exploitation
34
Q

Horatio Alger

A
  • Writer of books for boys in the 1870s, 80s & 90s
  • Invented the rags-to-riches formula
    -> Hard working, 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 & it is the only known reality for the individual
37
Q

Modernism

A
  • Name for various cultural movements in the west
  • Reaction to sense of social breakdown & alienation
  • Against ordered ideas of Victorianism, Realism & tradition
  • E.g. dadaism, surrealism
38
Q

Armory show

A
  • Art exhibition in NY in 1913
  • Introduced modernist art to America
    -> Picasso, Gaugin
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, change in manners & values,…
40
Q

Harlem Renaissance

A
  • Livley & multifaced cultural movement centred in Harlem, NY
  • Produced African-American Art (literature, music, film,…)
  • 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 the 19th century
  • Characterized by a belief in the common man, liberalism, pragmatic problem solving,…
42
Q

Populism

A
  • Agrarian protest movement after the civil war
  • Calling for support of the “common man”
  • Cheaper money, graduated income tax, direct election of senators,…
  • Haunted by white supremacy
43
Q

Progressivism

A
  • Reform movement at the end of the 19th century
  • In reaction to the industrialization & the gilded Age
  • Called for government activities against corruption, social misery & more efficiency in all areas of society
44
Q

WPA Photography

A
  • Documentary photography sponsored by the Roosevelt Administration
    -> In the new deal through the works progress administration
  • E.g. Langes’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. works of Steinbeck, Lewins, Faulkner
46
Q

Civil Rights Movement

A
  • African American protest movement led by Martin Luther King & others
  • Insisted in non-violent action & civil disobedience
    -> Organized demonstrations, boycotts, sit-ins,…
47
Q

Counterculture

A
  • Youth movement in the 1960
    -> Inspired by civil rights movement
  • Opposing militarism (Vietnam, 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, paradox,…
  • Themes: identity, history, disbelief in grand narratives,…
50
Q

Grand narratives

A

-> Meta narratives
- Belief systems
- Claim to explain the course of history & necessities of the future in a comprehensive & normative way
- E.g. Liberalism, Marxism, Christianity,…

51
Q

Gender performance

A
  • Idea that gender (socially sanctioned masculine/feminine behaviour) does not “naturally” follow biological sex
  • But in fact a publicly supported or supressed performance
    -> Has a normalizing consequence
52
Q

Orientalism

A
  • 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, 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,…
  • on account of various colonialisms & neo-colonialisms (including globalization)
54
Q

Post/neo-colonialism

A
  • theoretical orientation wich explores the consequences of colonialization, de-colonialization & neo-colonialization
  • consequences are present in
    -> question of identities (hybridity)
    -> observations (orientalism)
    -> migration (diasporas)
    -> forms of power (hegemony, othering)

American Cultural Studies (3 decks)

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