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LECTURE TEN

Explore the evolution of urbanization, department stores, and clothing revolution in America. Uncover factors promoting city growth, consumer palaces, civil war's impact on clothing, and the city as a complex text. Delve into competing versions of the city, threat perceptions, and positive views through literary and theoretical perspectives. Understand the city's operation, literature's portrayal, and youth culture as a junction of various societal discourses.

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LECTURE TEN

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  1. LECTURE TEN THE RISE OF THE CITY

  2. URBANIZATION • From a rural nation to an urbanized nation • Westward Movement: urban movement, leads to new cities, San Francisco, Denver • New cities grow along the Transcontinental Railroad, Los Angeles in the 1980s • Urbanization in the South: Durham: tobacco production, Birmingham: iron making, Houston: cattle, oil industry

  3. FACTORS PROMOTING THE RISE OF THE CITY • American Industrial Revolution—concentration of industry • Transportation: rise of mass transport • Elevator, streetcar, automobile • Immigration • Cast iron structures

  4. THE PALACE OF THE CONSUMER • Shopping and buying become communal acts • Alexander Turney Stewart: founder of first dept. store • Cast iron framing: James Bogardus: exploits the advantages of new technology: lightness, adaptability, strength, openness • Other factors: glass, elevator

  5. THE DEPARTMENT STORE • Democratization of luxury—Zola • Any person can be a buyer • Fixed price policy instead of haggling, or seller and buyer agreeing on price • Customer joins a nationwide consumption community

  6. THE CLOTHING REVOLUTION • Ferenc Pulszky: in New York no characteristiccostumes mark thegradesinsociety (1852) • The invention of thesewingmachine:warofthesewingmachines: Elias HoweJr. and Isaac Singer • Ready made clothingbecomespopular • Previouslyonlyslaves and sailorsworeready made clothing • New Immigrants: many of themweretailors • Ready made clothingAmericanizedtheimmigrant

  7. THE CIVIL WAR’S IMPACT ON CLOTHING • Antebellum period: trade in cast-off, second hand clothing • Demands for uniforms—standardization • Demand for shoes (earlier: straights, no difference between left and right foot, now: crooked ones)

  8. THE CITY AS A TEXT • A gathering of meanings interpreted by people who create their own stories, histories • Barthes: the city is constructed as a text, inscription of man in space • Reading a city: from high to low: skycraper to street level, uptown to ghetto, rich or poor • A chain of meanings with competition with each other

  9. MANHATTAN SKYLINE

  10. COMPETING VERSIONS OF THE CITY • 1630: City upon a hill—John Winthrop • Heavenly city, orderly and godly because the eyes of the world are looking on • John Bunyan: passing through Vanity Fair (corruption and disorder) to reach the Celestial City • Thomas Jefferson: cities are pestilential to the moral,health, and liberties of men

  11. THE CITY AS A THREAT • Encourages vice, sin, and indulgence • Underminesthe Jeffersonian Republicbasedonvirtuousfarmers • Josiah Strong: Our Country (1885) City is a nerve center, butalso a storm center full of menace, swayof Mammon, luxuriesgathered—ennui of surfeit, desperationofstarvation, socialdynamite: robbertsthieves, foreigners, wageworkers, multiplying and focalizingtheelements of anarchy and destruction

  12. POSITIVE VIEWS OF THE CITY • Walt Whitman: organic bodies, a simple, compact, well-join’d scheme • Celebration of the city: Crossing Brooklyn Ferry • William James: center of the cyclone, dynamic, forward looking, with a transformative potential

  13. THE THEORETICAL CITY • Frederick Howe: Society is an organism like a human body, city is the head, heart, and center of the nervous system • A text created by people who impose their vision of order on the wilderness to create a contained and disciplined environment • An old knot of contrariety (Whitman), a place of competing discourses

  14. MICHEL de CERTEAU • Social theorist, theorist of the city (Walking in the City) • New York City is an ever-changing space/text, that invents itself from hour to hour • Reading the city is by walking, a multidimensional text • The most immoderate of human texts

  15. MICHEL de CERTEAU • On top of skyscrapers: man becomes a voyeur, an Icarus,a solar Eye • Walking in the city: bodies are following an urban text • Creation of a manifold story with neither author or spectator

  16. OPERATION OF THE CITY • A utopian and urbanistic discourse: • Produces its own space: via rational organization, city planning • Creation of a universal and anonymous subject: the city itself

  17. THE CITY IN LITERATURE • Poe: The Man in the Crowd: the undivulged city, like a crime mystery can be understod and solved • Dreiser: Sister Carrie, the city as a persuasive light,: the promise of the night: the street, the lamp, the lighted chamber set for dining…these are mine in the night

  18. BRIGHT LIGHTS, BIG CITY • Jay McInerney, 1984 • InfluencedbyDosPassos’ Manhattan Transfer • City is a dialogue, arepublic of voices • City is a collagewheretextsinteractwithothertexts • Foucault: heterotopia: juxtaposingseveralspaceswhichareincompatiblewithinoneplace-saladbowl, ethniccommunitieslivingsidebyside

  19. LECTURE 11 THE CULTURE OF YOUTH • Youth is a conjuction point for numerous discourses including race, class, power, gender, and sexuality • Youth as a crossroad • Historical formation of the country is connected with youth • Young, vigorous, unique, on the cutting edge of history

  20. PERCEPTIONS OF THE NEW WORLD • A place of renewal • Rebirth • Enegy of childhood and youthfulness represents a chance to begin again • To undo the corruptions of the Old World • The American Revolution as an Oedipal Revolution—the rebellion of the child against the parent

  21. PERCEPTIONS OF THE NEW WORLD • America as a Good Bad Boy—Leslie Fiedler • Crude, unruly, but knows what is right • A side of sanctioned rebellion—Judith Fetterley • Youth is incorporated in the whole society, a constant challenge to the adult—parent culture

  22. VISIBLE YOUTH CULTURE • 1955: Blackboard Jungle—Richard Brooks • 1955: Rebel without a Cause—James Dean, Natalie Wood • Challenge to father figure • 1985 The Breakfast Club-John Hughes • Challenge to school, society

  23. CONTAINING YOUTH • The house as a metaphorforadult-parentalspace • An established, solid, economicterritorycontainingyouth, reminding of itsconstantsubordinateposition • FerrisBueller’s Day Off—cuttingschool, yetreturningtoparent’s house • House is sedentary, lifeless, banal v. desiretomoveaway, motion • Surveillance, control, normalizingpower of adultsociety

  24. THE HOUSE • Douglas Copeland—Generation X • When someone tells you they’ve just bought a house, they might as well tell you they no longer have a personality….they are locked into jobs they hate….they are broke….they no longer listen to new ideas… What few happy moments they possess are those gleaned from dreams of upgrading

  25. THE HOUSE AS A PANOPTICON (Foucault) • Onegroupholdspower over others and transformsthemintosubjects • A circumscribedworld of surveillance—a guardatthe centre of thecircle, whomtheprisonerscannotsee, allactscomeunderregulation and inspection • Bytransforminghumansintosubjects, objectificationtakesplaceaswell—theformation of theOther

  26. PANOPTICON

  27. YOUTH TEXTS • Tom Sawyer (1898)—Tom after some rebellion accepts the position of the Other • Between pull of the outside and the restrictions of the comforting controls finds a compromise solution --He does not transgress into the seductive outside

  28. THE CATCHER IN THE RYE (1951) • The ultimate youth novel • A vision of alienation in the post-war world of conformity • Holden Caulfield—rejecting the phoney adult world • Rebellion against the school whose mission is to mould young boys into splendid , clear thinking young men

  29. THE CATCHER IN THE RYE (1951) • Holdeninsistsonsincerity, decency, honesty • Transgressingadultcodesbecausetheybelieveitto be false, desireforlostvalues • Lostvalues of thepastarerepresentedbydeadbrotherAllie, oryoungersisterPhoebe • The role of theImaginary—pre-Oedipalphase, undivided, coterminouswiththemother, untroubledbythecrisesofsexuality—Jacques Lacan

  30. THE SPACES OF SELF-CREATION • Struggle of youngsterstofindspacesforindividualorgroupexpressionoutsidetheadultmainstream • Learningfromoppressedcommunities • Authoringtheself: toarticulatemeanstoordertheworld, toexercisepower over and controlaspects of reality • Rock music—hybridization of theoppressedculture’s musical traditions: blues, jazz, country music

  31. YOUTH MUSIC • A living discourse, a countervoice to alienated society • Dancing—losing oneself to beat and motion, opening up a social space outside public and private boundaries • Roll over Beethoven—Chuck Berry • Rock as a protest

  32. YOUTH AT THE EDGE • Donna Gaines: Teenage Wasteland (1992) • A study of dead-end kids in suburbia • Claiming authority over the self via expression • Breat Easton Ellis Less Than Zero—Gloom rules, the world is shrinking, a desire to disappear,

  33. GENERATION X • Rejection of a manufactured history • Rising on the debris of post-modern society • Existing with the attitude of irony, playfulness among advertising, TV, muzak, McJobs (part-time non-career jobs)

  34. LECTURE 12 THE SPREAD OF FREEDOM • Inaugural address of George W. Bush, 2001 • We have a place, all of us in a long story, a story we continue, but whose end we will neve see. It is the story of a new world that became friend and liberator of the old, the story of a power that went into the world to protect but not to possess, to defend, but not to conquer

  35. REALPOLITIK V. MORALITY • Von Clausevitz: war is a continuation of diplomacy with other means • Establishment of spheres of interest, the importance of national interest • Idealistic approach: to make the world safer for democracy, to fight a war to end all wars

  36. THE REDEEMER NATION • George Bush’s second inauguration address: • American is a nation with a mission, we have no desire to dominate, no ambitions of empire • This great republic will lead the cause of freedom • American exceptionalism • Mission concept

  37. THE REDEEMER NATION • Following 9-11 a newmanifestation, and reaffirmedcommitmenttothenotion of theredeemernation • Forerunners: John Winthrop, city upon a hill (1630) • Thomas Paine: Wehaveitinourpowertobegintheworldall over again (CommonSense 1776) • 1839: John L. Sullivan: America had a blessedmissiontothenations of theworld… tosmiteuntodeaththetyrannyofkings

  38. THE REDEEMER NATION • Woodrow Wilson: in World WarOne right was more preciousthanpeace, American soldierswerecrusadersprovingthemight of justice and right • Lyndon B. Johnson: American wantsnothingforitselfin Vietnam, onlyfightsforthe right of South Vietnamesetoguidingtheirown country intheirownway • WarinIraq: todefendliberty and justicebecausetheseprinciplesare right and trueforallpeople • WarinAfghanistan: toprotect and advancewomen’srights

  39. CULTURAL SUPERIORITY • Expansionist policies are justified on the ground of superior cultural values (Anglo-Saxon superiority, Christianity, democracy) • Racial arguments, Anglo-Saxon race • Defeat and dispossession of Native Americans • White Man’s Burden—brother’s keeper • Nineteenth century attitudes reappear in the twentieth century

  40. IMPERIAL DISCOURSE • World War Two: dehumanization of Japanese, racial slurs • Vietnam War: enemy: Indians, jungle: Indian Country • Iraq War: Abu Ghraib prison abuses

  41. AMERICA AS A MODEL • An assumptionthatthe American pattern of development has a universalapplication • AlthoughAmericawasbornas a result of a revolution, notallrevolutionswereacceptedbythe U.S. • RussianRevolution of 1917 • Allan Bloom: World WarTwo: an educational project toforce American values and modelonnationswhowouldnotdoso—occupation of Germany and Japan

  42. THE CHANGING CONCEPT OF FREEDOM • A fluid concept • Henry Luce: founder of TIME, LIFE, FORTUNE magazines • Born of missionaryparentsinChina • February, 1941 editorialin LIFE, The American Century • U.S. shouldjoinBritaininwaragainstGermany • U.S. shouldreplaceBritainas a worldleader • American principlesshould be appliedglobally

  43. THE AMERICAN CENTURY • February, 1941 editorialin LIFE, The American Century • U.S. shouldjoinBritaininwaragainstGermany • U.S. shouldreplaceBritainas a worldleader • American principlesshould be appliedglobally • U.S. has right and moralobligationtouseits military and economicpowertopromotedemocracy and freedom

  44. THE FOUR FREEDOMS • Freedom from want • Freedom from fear • Freedom of speech • Freedom of worship • FDR: the twentieth century is the century of the common man, January 6, 1941 address to Congress

  45. THE FOUR FREEDOMS

  46. NEW STRATEGIES after 9-11 • Pre-emption: deterrence is notsufficienttoguaranteethesecurity of the U.S. • Eitheryouarewithusorwiththeterrorists • A right acceptedunderinternationallawtotakeactionagainst a stateabouttoattack • Prevention: takingactionagainst a statethatmight be a threatinthefuture • A unilateralexercisein American power, a pro-activedoctrineinstead of containment

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