AMST 325 W/ Beauty & the Body in American Culture

AMST 325W/Fall 2010/1

AMST 325 W/ Beauty & the Body in American Culture

American Studies Department

Stetson University

Tu/Th 4 - 5:15 pm/ Elizabeth Hall 309

Fall 2010

Dr. Emily Mieras

Office: Sampson 218/386-822-7532

Office Hours: M 4-5pm, W noon-2pm, Th 1-2 pm

Other times by appointment

“’Beauty’ is a currency system like the gold standard.” --Naomi Wolf

“ …the body doesn’t carry only DNA, it also carries human history with it.” –Susan Bordo

COURSE DESCRIPTION AND GOALS

In the United States, health and beauty fads come and go ever more rapidly in our post-industrial, highly technologized world: from jogging and race-walking to pilates and yoga; from the Adkins Diet to the South Beach Diet; from waif-like women to voluptuous sirens, from male slenderness to ripped, waxed chests; from midriff-bearing fashions to the new preppy look. Thanks in part to the mass media, images of ideal beauty and body types are everywhere: permeating our world through television, published advertisements, billboards, film, beauty products and countless other venues. At any given time, dominant ideas about beauty and the body appear immutable, timeless, and natural. However, the notions of beauty that we see today are neither constant nor random. Ideas about beauty and the body exist in specific cultural and historical contexts and reflect much about societal attitudes toward gender, race, sexuality, class and age (to name just a few categories). They are also integrally connected to commercial culture and national identity.

Attitudes about beauty and the body hold extraordinary power in American culture, and for that reason alone, they merit close study. But through studying American society’s preoccupation with beauty and the body, past and present, we can also shed light on broader cultural values and patterns. In this class, we will investigate these issues, using contemporary and historical examples, and ranging over themes including gender identity and the body, race and the body, definitions of normalcy, the quest for perfection, attempts to mold the self, commercial implications of the beauty culture, and beauty as self-affirmation.

My goals include: a) for you to develop a more thorough understanding of the different historical and cultural bases for attitudes about beauty and the body; b) for you to think critically about ideas that people often take for granted; c) for you to ask questions about attitudes and perceptions that may seem “normal,” “natural,” or inevitable; d) for you to balance a range of theoretical components (including the meanings of race, class, and gender) when you analyze any example of cultural attitudes toward beauty and the body; e) for you to hone your written and spoken communication skills.

COURSE FORMAT

This class is an upper-level seminar, and thus, each of you is an important part of making this class a success. You do so by coming to class prepared and remaining actively engaged throughout the class period. Being a good participant requires being able to make your own contributions to the class as well as taking action to propel the discussion forward. Think of this process much as any conversation in which you might introduce new topics for conversation at a dinner party, coffee shop, or bar when your friends run out of things to say. The difference, of course, is that your topics will be about beauty and the body in the United States.

Blackboard: This course has a site on Blackboard. All students registered for the class should be able to access Blackboard. If you cannot do so, contact Instructional Technology

(x7217) for help. I expect you to visit the course site regularly; I will post announcements, readings, and class documents, including assignment descriptions, on the site as well as other materials. You are responsible for keeping up to date by visiting the website. Course assignments also require you to post to Blackboard on various topics (see below).

Please note that you should treat your Blackboard posts as serious writing. You can be informal (you may use “I” or colloquial terms if necessary), but you must write in grammatically correct sentences, check your spelling, and make an effort to develop and support your ideas.

COURSE TEXTS

These books are available for purchase at the Bookstore and on reserve at the library.

Joan Jacobs Brumberg, The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls

Shari L. Dworkin and Faye Linda Wachs,Body Panic : Gender, Health, and the Selling of Fitness

Davis W. Houck and Amos Kiewe, FDR's Body Politics :The Rhetoric of Disability (e-book; see WebCat)

Philip Scranton, Ed. Beauty and Business: Commerce, Gender, and Culture in Modern America

Elwood Watson and Darcy Martin, Eds. “There She Is, Miss America,” The Politics of Sex, Beauty, and Race in America’s Most Famous Pageant

Additional readings will be posted on Blackboard or available as e-books on the Library website.

EVALUATION:I will evaluate your work based on the following assignments:

I. Participation 15 percent

Your active participation is essential. Because this course is a seminar, you are expected to take a very active role in making it a success. You are responsible for closely reading course texts with an eye towards exploring the themes of the course and coming up with topics for class discussion.

Obviously, you cannot participate effectively if you do not read or do not come to class. If you miss more than two classes, your participation grade will drop. Here are some criteria to help you understand how “participation” works and how to do well. Good participation involves being in class, being prepared for class (you have read the texts, you have notes on the text, you have your materials with you), being articulate about your opinions on course readings, helping move discussion to new places, engaging other students’ points, being alert, and taking responsibility for how the class goes.

II. Reading Responses (15 percent)

To prepare for discussion, you should write a response that identifies different issues in the day’s reading that you think are important. You will do EIGHT of these reading responses (one can be a response to the documentary film, Good Hair). Duedates indicated by RRA,RRB, or RRC on course schedule below (groups for organizational purposes only). You will bring a copy of your response to class AND post it in the appropriate forum on Blackboard by noon on the day class meets. These responses should be at least 200 words and should discuss themes and broad points related to the day’s reading, as opposed to asking specific questions designed to generate a factual answer. For example, you could pick out a specific passage in the reading to explore or discuss a theme that recurs throughout our readings and discussions. You could make connections between two texts. You could critique an author’s interpretation. In your responses, you should refer to specific aspects of the course texts, including citing the relevant pages, and you should make an effort to engage ideas that are central, not peripheral, to the text and to our course. If we are reading more than one article for that day, you should try to make connections between the two texts. Of course, not having to write for a particular day does NOT exempt you from preparing. Note that you have TEN choices for response dates, including the film, but need only do EIGHT.

III. Course Blog (5 percent) We will have a course blog to discuss issues related to our study. I’d like you to contribute about once a week, including responding to other students’ posts at least three times over the semester. At the end of the semester, you should have at least ten posts of your own—spaced out throughout the semester—and at least three responses to others. More is even better. You can use the blog to share experiences, observations, and ideas that you encounter outside the class but that relate to class material. You can also use it to carry on a discussion about course material in more depth or to follow up on points made in class. Like your Blackboard reading response posts, the blog posts should be carefully written and proofread, though they can be written in an informal style. Each post should be about 200 words. I will have the blog set up by the second week of class. Periodically, we will discuss your blog posts in class.

The first blog post is due by our third class meeting (Aug. 26); I’d like you to write a post in which you describe your own ideas, interests, and issues related to the role that ideas about beauty and the body play in American culture and to practices, rituals, and behaviors related to those ideas. This is an open-ended prompt intended to encourage you to write about topics of interest to you, so I know what those are as we start out. After this one, you can write whatever you want.

IV. Analytical Essays on Course Reading(two; 15 percent each)

You will write twoessays that analyze course readings in depth. One way to approach these essays would be to expand one of the reading responses you posted on Blackboard. Otherwise, you can develop a new idea about the unit of readings you’ll address. These papers should identify a key theme in the reading (s), form a thesis about it, and support your thesis using specific examples from the text(s). 6-8 pages each. You will sign up for these papers in the second week of class; papers will be organized by course units, and you will have a choice of topics. More information to follow on Blackboard.

V. Group Teaching Project (15 percent of grade)

For this assignment, you will work in groups to teach the class about a topic that is related to course material. Your first step is to identify a topic related to this course that we have NOT covered in class but that you wish to learn more about. You will choose a reading about that topic for the whole class to do, and you will play a major role in leading class discussion on the day we read your assigned text. Doing so means coming up with questions for discussion and providing some supplementary material for us to discuss during the class session (additional examples or background material or images, for example). Your topic should connect to the themes and issues we have studied this semester; see how you can use the historical context, approaches, and major concepts to help you identify important topics to cover and figure out how to teach those issues to the class. You will work in groups on this assignment, but your grade will be a combination of individual and group evaluation. Part of the challenge here involves working effectively—and fairly—in your groups. You will submit your topics by October1 (e-mail me a paragraph description of topic, listing group members and responsibilities) and meet with me as a group in the following week to discuss your strategy. Tentative class outline and tentative reading list due by October 19. Final readings due to me by e-mail or hard copy on November 1; I will distribute readings to the class via Blackboard. You must meet these deadlines so that I can approve both the topic and the reading material and so you have time to do more work if I don’t approve the topic or materials you’ve chosen. More details about requirements, interim deadlines, and topic suggestions to follow on Blackboard!

VI. Final Exam (20 percent of grade)

The final exam will be a take-home essay exam that covers material from the whole semester. Due Dec 8 by 1 pm in hard copy at my office.

GRADE BREAKDOWN

Participation 15 percent

Blog5 percent

Reading Responses15 percent

Papers15 percent each

Teaching Project15 percent

Exam20 percent

Course Policies

Deadlines

Course work is due on the date indicated on this syllabus. I will take off three points for each day a paper is late up to two weeks late; after that, I will no longer accept the paper. But NOTE: I will accept only one late paper from any student this term in any case. Obviously, if severe personal circumstances interfere with your completing your work on schedule, you can discuss those circumstances with me and we can negotiate options.

Completion of Work

Work is complete when it contains all the required elements (for example, if I ask you to turn in fieldwork notes with your essay, it is incomplete if you do not include them). Incomplete work will lose points. In-class work cannot be made up.

Academic Integrity

I will not tolerate cheating and/or plagiarism in this course. I will refer suspected cheating to the Honors Council, and penalties may range from failing an assignment to failing the course.

Stetson’s honor pledge applies to all work done in this course.

As a member of Stetson University, I agree to uphold the highest standards of integrity in my academic work. I promise that I will neither give nor receive unauthorized aid of any kind on my tests, papers, and assignments. When using the ideas, thoughts, or words of another in my work, I will always provide clear acknowledgement of the individuals and sources on which I am relying. I will avoid using fraudulent, falsified, or fabricated evidence and/or material. I will refrain from resubmitting without authorization work for one class that was obtained from work previously submitted for academic credit in another class. I will not destroy, steal, or make inaccessible any academic resource material. By my actions and my example, I will strive to promote the ideals of honesty, responsibility, trust, fairness, and respect that are at the heart of Stetson's Honor System.

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Possessing academic integrity does not mean you learn in a vacuum. Learning is a shared venture. Thus, I expect and hope that you will discuss the course and your work with your classmates. HOWEVER, all final work that you submit in this class must be your own, and you must follow Stetson’s Honor System, as well as this course’s guidelines for citing and using research materials. I expect you to consult me if you have any questions about whether your methods of study, research, or writing fit these guidelines for academic integrity.You can consult any style manual (the Henry Holt Guide; The Chicago Manual of Style; the MLA Handbook, for example) on the proper way to cite your sources and avoid plagiarism.

Academic Support Resources

Stetson has both a Writing Center (Flagler Hall) and an Academic Resources Center (in the CUB) to support and assist you.

Academic Accommodations

If you determine that disability-related accommodations are necessary for you to succeed in this course, please register with the Academic Resources Center (822-7127; which will then notify me of your eligibility for reasonable accommodations. We can then plan how best to coordinate your accommodations.

Common Courtesy

Come to class on time. Turn off cell phones and other forms of technological communication in class. If they ring by accident, turn them off; do not answer them. Hide them somewhere where I never have to see them.

COURSE SCHEDULE

Th 8/19 Introduction

Beauty, Body, and the National Good

Tu 8/24RRAReading Due: Harvey Green, ‘“Bad Air’ and the ‘Movement Cure,’” In Green, Fit for America: Health, Fitness, Sport, and American Society (BLACKBOARD)

Th 8/26RRBReading Due:

1) Roberta J. Park, “Healthy, Moral, and Strong: Educational Views of Exercise and Athletics in Nineteenth-Century America” (BLACKBOARD)

2) James C. Whorton, “Eating to Win: Popular Concepts of Diet, Strength, and Energy in the Early Twentieth Century” (BLACKBOARD)(Both essays come from Kathryn Grover, Ed., Fitness in American Culture)

Tu 8/31RRCReading Due: 1) Mary Anne Schofield, “Miss America, Rosie the Riveter, and World War II,” In “There She Is, Miss America”

2) Sarah Banet-Weiser, “Miss America, National Identity, and the Identity Politics of Whiteness” In “There She Is, Miss America”

Th 9/2 RRAReading Due:

1) April Michelle Herndon, “Collateral Damage from Friendly Fire?: Race, Nation, Class and the ‘War Against Obesity,’ ” Social Semiotics 15 (August 2005)127-141. (BLACKBOARD)

2) Cassandra L. Jones, “The Patriotic American is a Thin American: Fatness and National Identity in The Biggest Loser” (Blackboard, from Julie Anne Taddeo and Ken Dvorak, Eds, TheTube Has Spoken: Reality TV and History)

The Business of Beauty

Tu 9/7RRB Reading Due: 1) Sarah A. Gordon, “’Any Desired Length’”; 2) Carole Turbin, “Collars and Consumers” (in Scranton, Ed., Beauty and Business)

Th 9/9RRC Reading Due: 1) Jill Fields, “Fighting the Corsetless Evil,” (in Beauty and Business); 2)Nancy Bowman, “Questionable Beauty,” (in Beauty and Business)