History 482b spring 2006 Professor Chris Endy Popular Culture in Twentieth-Century America

17 May: Explaining the Global Reach of American Pop Culture

Walter LaFeber, Michael Jordan and the New Global Capitalism, whole book.

Response Paper 6 Due

Gülriz Büken, “Backlash: An Argument Against the Spread of American Popular Culture in Turkey,” in Reinhold Wagnleitner, “Here, There, and Everywhere:” The Foreign Politics of American Popular Culture (Hanover: University Press of New England, 2000), 242-50. [E- Reserve]

Charles Ambler, “Popular Films and Colonial Audiences: The Movies in Northern Rhodesia,” American Historical Review 106 (February 2001): 81-105. [E-Reserve, History Cooperative, & Academic Search Premier]

James Petterson, “No More Song and Dance: French Radio Broadcast Quotas, Chansons, and Cultural Exceptions,” in Heide Fehrenbach and Uta G. Poiger, eds., Transactions, Transgressions, Transformations: American Culture in Western Europe and Japan (New York: Berghahn Books, 2000): 109-23. [E-Reserve]

Ian Condry, The Social Production of Difference: Imitation and Authenticity in Japanese Rap Music, in Fehrenbach and Poiger, eds., Transactions, Transgressions, Transformations, 166-84. [E-Reserve]

Response Paper 7 Due

Kristin Hoganson, “Cosmopolitan Domesticity: Importing the American Dream, 1865-1920,” American Historical Review 107 (February 2002): 55-83. [E-Reserve, History Cooperative, & Academic Search Premier]

Amy Abugo Ongiri, “He wanted to be just like Bruce Lee”: African Americans, Kung Fu Theater and Cultural Exchange at the Margins,” Journal of Asian American Studies 5 (February 2002): 31-40. [E-Reserve & Project Muse]

Primary Source Readings [TBA, 15 to 25 pages on E-Reserve]

Response Paper 8 Due

••• GENERAL TIPS ON WRITING •••

(adapted from Michael Hunt)
Writing is a process, and no paper reaches perfection on the first try. Any kind of writing needs time for the ideas to take shape and for the exposition to gain polish. Here are some suggestions:

1. Take a few minutes to figure out the assignment. What are you being asked to do? To resolve any uncertainties, talk with the professor.

2. Prepare a rough draft. Don’t worry about perfection. Writing can be a way of trying ideas out. Strike out those that don’t work and concentrate on those that do. Identify relevant evidence to give depth to your argument. If at this stage you are having difficulty getting started, return to the assignment instructions or consult with the instructor. The most frequent cause for blockage at this point is the need for either a stronger grasp of what you are talking about or a willingness to take a stand (to have a personal reaction to an issue or topic, to ask hard questions about the materials, or to identify key concepts and seek relationships among them).

3. Set the draft aside. Twenty-four hours (or at least overnight) will give you the fresh critical perspective needed to edit. If you don't have much time, take whatever interval you can. Even a few hours is better than rushing through the assignment in one sitting.

4. Return to the draft for a careful editing. This can be the most pleasurable part of writing as you see an interpretation or argument emerge ever more sharply. Particularly difficult sections may require even more attention, perhaps even another visit after some time away. Consider having a friend not in the class look over the draft for clarity, style, and grammar. If that outside reader can understand your argument, chances are you have a compelling and clear essay.
Here are some questions to keep in mind as you revise:

• Do you have a clear, descriptive, engaging title? The title is your first chance to communicate your intentions to your reader. Use it well.

• Does your opening (or thesis) paragraph indicate clearly your paper’s direction? Make sure that all the sentences making up the paragraph point the reader in the same general direction. If they don’t, the reader will be confused from the outset. In early drafts the conclusion often offers the most precise version of your thesis. If so, move all or part of that draft conclusion to the front of the paper where it will serve you and your reader far better. Make sure that your opening paragraph is clear and short. Long introductions eat up the limited space available to develop and support your argument.

• Are the supporting paragraphs tied together so that they make a connected argument? Give the transitions between paragraphs attention so that your argument does not degenerate into a series of separate mini-arguments. Each supporting paragraph should also begin with a topic sentence. This topic sentence, at the start of each paragraph, should announce the purpose of the paragraph and indicate how the paragraph fits into the overall argument of your essay. Think of the topic sentence as a mini-thesis for each paragraph.

• Do the supporting paragraphs deploy evidence from class materials (e.g., names, events, statistics, points of view, or quotes) to support the argument? Evidence requires careful selection—only pick the best and most relevant examples. Evidence also requires balance in quantity—enough to convince the reader but not so much that the reader is overwhelmed, bored or even distracted from the general point that you want to make.

• Does the concluding paragraph (usually relatively short) offer more than a simple repetition of the general argument? An intelligent reader will have already gotten your argument if it is well made. Instead of merely repeating yourself (and wasting valuable lines), use the conclusion to extend your argument, explore its significance, or view it from a fresh angle. What have you learned? Why is the major point made in the paper important to you?

• Can you condense by making key points more concisely? Words, phrases, and sentences that don’t serve your purpose take up valuable space. Remove whatever seems tangential or repetitious and make each line count.

• Did you proofread to catch any remaining errors or glitches, especially in grammar and spelling. Also look for the most common enemies of engaging style: passive voice verbs (which kill the action and obscure the actor), long quotations (which use space while silencing your own voice), and run-on or incomplete sentences (which disrupt your flow and make it hard for a reader to understand your ideas). The more polished and error-free a paper is, the more the reader can concentrate on your argument. If you have trouble finding errors, ask for help in proofreading.

• Have you read your writing aloud? Imagine how it might sound to someone coming to the topic for the first time. Each little improvement will make your argument more accessible.
Tips to avoid common stylistic problems in history papers:
1. Avoid anonymous quotations. Always identify the speaker or author and the basic context of a quotation you select.

BAD: Idealism thrived in 1898 as with the statement, “Our purpose is noble.”

GOOD: Idealism thrived in 1898. As President McKinley told Congress, “Our purpose is noble.”
2. Use the past tense when writing about past events or statements.

BAD: In his 1898 letter to Congress, President McKinley writes that “our purpose is noble.”

GOOD: In his 1898 letter to Congress, President McKinley wrote that “our purpose is noble.”
3. Avoid passive voice sentences that obscure the real person or thing doing the action. History is about people or forces doing things, so you want your sentences to show who or what is making things happen.

BAD: The movement was accused of being Communist.

GOOD: The Los Angeles Times accused the movement of being Communist.

BAD: By 1942 the unemployment problem was solved.