ENN 195.5683: Violence in American
Art and Culture (LEC 74028)
M-W: 6-7.30 E-232
Justin Rogers-Cooper,
Ph.D jrogers@lagcc.cuny.edu
/ jrcqueens@yahoo.com
College Course Description
This course surveys the depiction of various
types of violence and the use of violence as a theme or metaphor in North
American literature, art, and popular culture. Emphasis is placed on New York
City as a laboratory and resource for researching considerations of violence in
poetry, drama, fiction, film and other visual art forms as well as popular
culture (e.g., lyrics, comic strips, advertising, horror and suspense stories).
Section Description: Urban Riot Cultures
This course will examine how art and literature represent the
complex causes and effects of some of the major riots in United States history.
We’ll begin with the rise of urban riots in the industrial era before the Civil
War and conclude in the social movements of the 1960s, from the 1837 New York Bread
Riot to the 1877 General Strike, and on to the ‘long’ Civil Rights Movement spanning
the World War I era to the 1965 Watts riot. We’ll assess how different kinds of
media give us different kinds of insights into riot cultures, and look at how
journalism, periodicals, fiction, photographs, films, and other primary
documents can help decipher the context, triggers, and aftermath of major urban
riots. One major section of our course
will focus on the Harlem riots of 1935, 1943, and 1964, which will require a
visit to LaGuardia’s mayoral archives in the E-building. There, we’ll conduct
original primary research on why previous generations of New Yorkers took to
the streets with looting in protest over racial discrimination, police violent,
and the high cost of living. We will approach these events through
multi-disciplinary inquiries into concepts of moral economy, collective
behavior, economic crisis and depression, ethnic and racial identity, and civil
rights.
In the wake of the 2014 Ferguson riots, our class insights may
help us better understand the contemporary moment of American culture. By the
end of class, you’ll know more about how riot culture has always played a role
in public struggles over competing notions of race, emotion, and justice.
Course Goals
At the end of this course, students should be able to:
* understand the
historical context of violent civil disorders
* define the
relation between riot culture and the economic inequality
* identify the role of
individual and social emotions in violent behavior
* identify a
few major episodes of urban violence in American history
* analyze how
different media and narratives represent violence
* improve
strategies for writing college essays
* improve
strategies for research and critical thinking
Required Texts
Texts are available at the LaGuardia bookstore. It is extremely
important that you purchase these texts and bring them to every class
session for which they are assigned.
1.
Course Packet, NEKO Copy Center ($25) [This contains texts on
1837, 1877, and the novel The Destruction
of New York)
2. Little
Scarlet, Walter Mosley. ISBN: 0316073032.
Amazon New: $6.49; Used: $0.01
3. The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin. ISBN:
067974472X. Amazon New: $9.55; Used; $0.01
Total Cost: All
Costs with New Texts: $43. Costs with Used Texts: from $25.02.
If you plan to order from Amazon,
order all texts now. It is the responsibility of the student to have the text
for class when we read them.
Course Blog: TBA
Course Requirements
Students will write two 4 page essays that respond to various
course assignments, texts, and discussions.
Students will read the required texts and participate in class
discussions and workshops.
Students will create an individual student Twitter account and Tweet responses to assignments, as well
as follow other students in class. Students will reply to fellow students’ tweets
after tweeting.
Students will complete a final in-class essay.
Assignments
Twitter: Students will tweet every
week. The tweets will reflect ideas, themes, scenes, characters,
situations, and/or events from the readings or visual materials. Students
should tweet at least four times each week, or twice per class. Some weeks will
have different tweeting assignments than others. All tweets are due Friday by 5
pm.
Essays: Students will write two 4-page essays for this course. The essays may create and support an original argument about riots
and violence; for example, an assignment may ask students to examine how
violence is represented in two different kinds of media (fiction, film, etc).
The essays will compare and contrast how fiction and film represent violence,
how they explain its origin, and how they articulate solutions. We will spend
time in-class discussing the drafts through peer review.
Grades Twitter: 20% Essays: 50% Quizzes:
10% Participation: 10% Final: 10%
Classroom Expectations
Students must respect each other and the professor.
Students show that respect through active listening and
participation.
Students must silence all electronic devices and refrain from
texting during class.
Students will keep an open mind.
Students will not eat hot smelly food near the front of the class.
Other:
Attendance
Students that miss more than four hours of class may fail. Students
that miss more than four hours of class must confer with the professor. If you are late twice it will count as one absence. If you
do miss class, it is your responsibility to keep up with class work; email
another student to find out what was missed or check the course blog.
Plagiarism and academic integrity
All work you submit must be your own. You may not copy
or paraphrase someone else’s words or ideas without properly citing the source.
All instances of plagiarism or academic dishonesty will result in an “F” and
possible action by the college.
http://library.laguardia.edu/files/pdf/academicintegritypolicy.pdf
Course Schedule: Reading assignments are due on the
day that they appear.
All tweets are due Friday by 5 pm.
W
3.4: Introduction: Riot City
All
tweets are due Friday by 5 pm.
Essay
One Assignment
READ the SYLLABUS
Module One: City of Hunger
M 3.9: Prophecies of Urban Chaos
Essay One Assignment
All tweets are due
Friday by 5 pm.
W 3.11: A Bread Riot in New York
Reading: Headley –Bread Riot 1837 (14
pages)
Video: The Industrial Revolution
Video: The Civil War Draft Riots (PBS)
Module Two: The 1877 General Strike
M 3.16: Viral
Riots
Reading: Headley Great Riots, 1877 (337-348)
W 3.18: Viral
Riots
Reading: Headley Great
Riots, 1877 (349-368)
M 3.23 Viral
Riots
Reading:
Headley Great Riots, 1877 (369-382)
Module Three: Urban Collapse
W 3.25: The
Destruction of Gotham
Reading: The Destruction of Gotham (5-46)
M 3.30: The
Destruction of Gotham
Reading: The Destruction of Gotham (47-92)
All tweets are due
Friday by 5 pm.
W 4.1: The
Destruction of Gotham
Reading:
The Destruction of Gotham (93-152)
Peer Review: Bring Three Printed
Copies of Essay One Draft
M 4.13: The
Destruction of Gotham
Reading:
The Destruction of Gotham (finish the novel)
Module Four: Race Riots, Lynchings, and Red
Scares
W 4.15: Red Summer: Red Scare and Jim
Crow
Reading: TBA
Essay
ONE DUE
All tweets are due Friday by 5 pm.
Film:
“The Espionage Act of 1917 and Sedition Act of 1918”
Film:
“Unit 6: First Red Scare”
Film:
“Unit 7: Palmer Raids”
Film:
“Unit 8: Sacco and Vanzetti”
M 4.20: Tulsa,
1921
Reading: TBA
Essay Assignment Two
Film: Black Wall Street
All tweets are due
Friday by 5 pm.
Module Five: The Harlem Riots
W 4.22: The
1935 Harlem Riot
Reading: See Website
Updated
Course Schedule, ENN 195
M. 4.27: The 1943
Harlem Riot: Double Victory Campaign
Reading: See
Website
Video: from The
War: Segregation, Its Impact
Video: from The
War: African-American Troop Training
W 4.29: 1964 Harlem Riot
Reading: See Website
M 5.4: The Fire
Next Time
Reading: Baldwin (1-43)
W 5.6: The Fire Next Time
Reading: Baldwin (43-82)
M 5.11: The Fire Next Time
Reading: Baldwin (82-106)
Essay Assignment
Two Peer Review
Module Six: The Fires of Civil Rights
W 5.13: Little Scarlet
Reading: Mosley (1-49)
M 5.18: Mosley (50-148)
W 5.20: Little Scarlet
Mosley (148-205)
Essay Two DUE
M 5.25: No Class
W 5.27: Little Scarlet
Mosley (205-306)
M 6.1: Preparation for Final Exam:
Reading Mosley through Baldwin
W 6.3 Final Exam
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