Annotation
Course Description
An overview of U.S. culture from the perspective of its racial, ethnic, and gender "minori-ties." The course examines the notions of ethnicity, cultural diversity, and the "other" in the U.S. present and past in comparison with the Czech provenience. It focuses on the problem-atic struggle of various disempowered, marginalized "minorities" in American society to gain recognition as full and equal members of a society that claims to be a haven for all op-pressed from the rest of the world -- a society that prides itself on its openness, pluralism, and equality of opportunity. We shall see that, rather than attacking the hypocrisy of this society, minorities have now and again chosen to appeal to the fairness of the very people who exclude them. The minorities (Jewish, Roma, Vietnamese) and women in Czech lands - like those in the US - have also attacked - or appealed to? - the dominant culture. In this course, we shall explore the response and reactions of both “sides” of the dialogue.
Course Goals and Student Learning Objectives
Students will develop awareness about how race, ethnicity and gender have affected American and Czech society in the 19th, 20th and 21st century. Additionally, they shall learn to use and understand important philosopical, anthropological and political concepts. Students' critical thinking shall be encouraged as well as their research of important regional contexts. Their capacity of analysis, inquiry, ordering of information, including the creation of hierarchies of values in their own life shall be trained and used for new interpretations and solutions.
Discussions with Czech guests and experts will help immerse the students from abroad in Czech culture while giving Czech students a chance to learn about American notions of race, ethnicity and gender while discussing it with Americans in class.
Required Reading
Reading for each class are specified in the course outline.
All required texts will be available in the course READER available online.
Assignments and Grading Policy 20 % In-class activity which includes responding to questions given by the professor, discussion of philosophical and political terms, comparison of cultures, asking of questions, and team-work activities. 20 % Presentation: each student will be asked to perform a short presentation on the select-ed in-class topic. The student can select a topic of his/her choice from the class syllabus. 20 % Mid-term essay. Each student will write a paper of 3-4 pages on a topic chosen in consultation with the instructor. The paper should constitute a comparison and contrast of two or more of the authors assigned for reading as part of the course, based on writings by those authors that have been assigned for reading as part of the course. Course participants should consult with one of the course instructors regarding topic and bibliography, and receive approval from the instructor concerning those matters, before beginning work on the paper. 40 % Final Exam which shall include a multiple-choice test and a short in-class essay (on the second half of the course) on one of the three topics offered.
Presentation Policy: Missing the presentation will result in an F (when applicable). If the student wants to switch the date, he/she must find someone to do it and both students must confirm the change in e-mails to the professor at least 10 days in advance. If the student is sick and has a medical note, then the professor must agree with the student on how the work will be made up for.
Final Test or Paper Policy: Completing the final test or paper is required. Failure to submit the final test or paper according to the deadline will result in a letter grade F for the entire course.
Weekly Schedule
The course shall be taught, ideally, once a week, constituting of 3 hour-sessions. 1,5 hour shall be dedicated to lecturing and 1,5 hour to a seminar). There will be guest speakers and field trips included
Session 1
Introductory Presentation. field trip
Session 2
Ideological Foundations of American Society I.
Required reading:
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82), "Circles," from Essays: First Series (1841)
Texts, parts of which may be used in class as a commentary on the main topic:
Benjamin Franklin (1706-90), excerpts from Information to Those Who Would Remove to America [1784].
Session 3
Antebellum South, Rhetorics Employed to Justify and Oppose Slavery and Racism.
The Civil War and the Meanings of Freedom.
The Traditional, Southern Rendering of Reconstruction that Became the Nation's Interpreta-tion in the Early 20th Century.
Czechoslovak First Republic and the inclusion of minorities (German, Jewish, etc.)
Required reading:
Eric Foner, Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction with commentary by Joshua Brown (New York: Vintage Books, 2006)
Chapter 2: Forever Free
Hannah Arendt, excerpts from Origins of Totalitarianism ( about anti-semitism)
Helena Krejčová,, “Czechs and Jews”
Session 4
Ideological Foundations of American Society II. Jews in the Austrian Empire (18th and 19th ct); rise of modern anti-semitism
Required reading:
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82) "Politics," from Essays: Second Series (1844)
Franz Kafka (1883-1924), excerpt from Amerika
Field trip to the Jewish Quarter in Prague
Texts, parts of which may be used in class as a commentary on the main topic:
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859), excerpts from Democracy in America (1835, 1840).
Walt Whitman (1819-1892), Selections (1855).
Session 5
The “Jim Crow” Era.
Required reading:
Booker T. Washington (1856-1915), Up From Slavery (1901), Chapter XIV: The Atlanta Exposition Address
W.E.B. DuBois (1868-1963), The Souls of Black Folk (1903),
Chapter VIII: Of the Quest of the Golden Fleece
Marcus Garvey (1887-1940) and the United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA): Mar-cus Garvey, Speeches/Selections (1916-1927),
Anne Spencer (1882-1975) , “Taboo,” “Wife-Woman”
Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960), “The Gilded Six-Bits” (1933).
Session 6
Early American Feminist Writing: “First-wave” Feminism, 1848-1960
Required reading:
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902), Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions, Women's Rights Convention, Seneca Falls, New York, July 19-20, 1848,
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902), "The Solitude of Self" (Address to Congressional Ju-diciary Committee, January 18, 1892),
Margaret Fuller (1810-1850), excerpts from Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845)
Czech national revivalists and activists (Plamínková, Horáková) - excerpts
Session 7
The Women’s Rights of the Second Half of the Twentieth Century.
Their Various Rhetorics and Manifestations.
Gender Bias – from the days of Margaret Fuller and Elizabeth Cady Stanton to those of the National Woman's Party (1916-present, founded and led for fifty years in seeking an Equal Rights Amendment for women by Alice Paul)
Second-wave Feminism, black feminism
Czech Romani writers and oral culture
Required reading:
Angela Y. Davis (b. 1944), Women, Race and Class (1981), Chapter 13: The Approaching Obsolescence of Housework: A Working-Class Perspective,
Betty Friedan (1921-2006), The Feminine Mystique (1963),
Chapter 1: The Problem That Has No Name
Ilona Ferková (1956 - ) Rolling Pin and other stories (Romani culture)
Field trip to a Romani exhibition or concert
Session 8
Third-wave Feminism, LGBTQ+ rights, Jewish (J. Butler) and Christian (E. Birch) writers on gender and sexuality, 1990-2012. COWI report on discrimination in the Czech Republic
Required readings:
Judith Butler (b. 1956), Gender Trouble (1990), Preface and Chapter 1: Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire bell hooks, “Postmodern Blackness”
Elizabeth Birch (b. 1956), "Appeal to Members of the Christian Coalition for Finding
'Common Ground' with Gays and Lesbians," Hilton Hotel, Washington, D.C., September 1995.
Excepts from COWI, The Social Situation Concerning Homophobia and Discrimination on Grounds of Sexual Orientation in Czech Republic
Gay and Lesbian Rights, Stonewall (1969) to 2000 (Elizabeth Birch) and LGBTQ+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer) Rights, 2000-present
Midterm essay is due
Session 9
The Permanent "Immigration Crisis" – 19th-21st Centuries.
Crevecoeur – ethnic intermarriage and consequent mixing, because of frontier scarcity of potential partners, was the norm in the future U.S. from the seventeenth century;
Centuries-long debate on, persecution and exploitation of, immigrants, refugees;
Know-Nothings (Native American Party, American Party) – keep power out of hands of im-migrants and Roman Catholics – cf. later anti-Semitism, anti-Black, anti-Asian, and anti-Islamic nativist movements;
The Vietnamese in the Czech Republic and
Required Reading:
Jennifer Hochschild, Facing Up to the American Dream and Ourselves (1996), Chapter One, pages 15-34
Optional: Stanislav Brouček, The Visible and Invisible Vietnamese in Czech Republic, Pra-gue: Institute of Ethnology, AVČR, 2017.
Session 10
Hispanic-American (Chicano, Latino) Civil Rights Movements, 1940-present, Vietnamese minority in Czech lands and integration of children
Required reading:
Gloria Anzaldua (1942-2004), Borderlands/La Frotera: The New Mestiza (1987; Second Edition, 1999), Chapter 5: How to Tame a Wild Tongue and Chapter 7: La conciencia de la mestiza: Towards a New Consciousness
Adéla Souralová, Delegation of childcare in immigrant families and its consequences
Field trip with a Vietnamese guide to SAPA in Prague
Session 11
The Harlem Renaissance to the Civil Rights Era.
Required reading
James Baldwin (1924-1987), excerpts from Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes of a Na-tive Son (1964)
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)
"Letter from a Birmingham Jail" (1963),
