American Studies 100: Cover Image Version 2.0

Since today is the last day of my second run-through of my class American Studies 100: A History of American Culture in 21 Examples, I thought I'd post the (slightly) revised cover image.  The syllabus (pdf) is pretty much what it was when I taught it in the fall -- the order switched a little bit (often for practical rather than pedagogical considerations), tweaked a few of the readings, but mostly it was the same.  (I didn't change any of my examples.)  But here's the cover image (without accompanying text):

And, just to correlate with the picture, here are the 21 examples which I used to outline the history of American culture:

1. Minstrel Shows
2. Central Park
3. A Sears & Roebuck Catalog, 1898
4. Hull House
5. Coney Island
6. The Five Foot Shelf (a.k.a. The Harvard Classics)
7. D. W. Griffith, The Birth of a Nation (1915)
8. Billy Sunday Sermons
9. Louis vs. Schmeling (New York City, June 22, 1938)
10. The Lone Ranger (radio and TV show)
11. Billie Holiday, "Strange Fruit" (words & music by Abel Meeropol)
12. Jackson Pollock, Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist) 
13. Drive-in Movie Theaters
14. Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival, 1965
15. Charles Schultz, Peanuts
16. The Moon Landing, 1969
17. Roman Polanski, Chinatown (1974)
18. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial (Maya Lin, 1982)
19. Fast Food 
20. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Joss Whedon, 1997 - 2003)
21. Steroids in Baseball

For more details on the ideas & reasoning behind the class, see this post, or the whole syllabus (pdf).

It was a fun class to teach.  Next year I'm teaching in the history department, rather than American studies, again; but I'd like to teach it again sometime, if I ever get the chance.