I N I T I A T I V E S
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| I N I T I A T I V E S |
The following feature story appeared in the campus publication MOSAIC in January, 1997. Although some of the courses, students, and faculty members referenced in the story may have changed in the meantime, it still provides a full and accurate picture of the Urban Curricular Initiative. For the most current course information and faculty listing, we encourage you to visit the program's homepage.
Urban Curricular Initiatives
Curricular connections to a capital city
"One of Satan's most fascinating snares," declared Anthony Comstock, writing in New York in 1883, gambling leads to all manner of depravity. The San Franciscan B. E. Lloyd, writing around the same time, saw it very differently: "The air of gentility that pervades any well-ordered gambling hall is wonderfully soothing to a disturbed conscience." These bi-coastal bipolarities were recently explored in a presentation by Cory Bragar '98 in the American Studies Junior Seminar "The West."What made Bragar's presentation exemplary of the American Studies Program at Trinity was her focus Ñ not on the representativeness of the views but rather on the cultural conditions that produced those views. Bragar sought to illuminate, in her words, "what materials went into the production of a text or event, how a society understood the text or event, how that understanding had an impact on that society, and how these elements interact."
"American Studies is a very complicated and at times very difficult intellectual pursuit," admits Jan K. Cohn, the G. Keith Funston Professor of American Literature and American Studies and acting director of the Program. Its intellectual rigor may account for American Studies' popularity. "Our students seem to thrive with the challenge of the Program's interdisciplinary approach," says Cohn. Bragar, Katherine L. Pilcher '98, and other students in the Program cite as perhaps its most valuable feature its bringing together the analytical methods of art history, history, literary studies, political science, economics, sociology, and other disciplines.
The study of all things American
Professor of English Fred Pfeil, who with Cohn co-taught the Junior Seminar in American Studies this past fall, often uses the late, lamented Ford Falcon to demonstrate the kind of questions students are encouraged to pursue. "In a sense," says Pfeil, "nothing is not a Ôtext' for American Studies." And to prove his point he asks students to consider "the pungency of the word Ôfalcon,'" the "meaning" of the shape of the car's taillights and fins, the "space race" of the 1950s and '60s, that era's economy, and how these and other mid-century desires and anxieties figured in the manufacturing, marketing, and reception of the car.
American Studies partakes of and yet differs from both history and literary study, says Pfeil. "We're really looking at the history of the cultural imagination in the country. We study the subjective side of social relations. And even though literary studies has turned increasingly toward cultural studies, we're far more likely to ask ÔWhere does this text come from and what kinds of cultural "work" does it do' instead of pursuing a purely aesthetic reading." Pfeil's demonstration points to the prerequisite historical knowledge and interpretive skills essential for majoring in the Program.
Curricular offerings
Because the major requires students to take nine courses dealing with American society from outside the Program, American Studies offers an exceptionally wide curricular range. The ultimate aim of the Program's curricular richness and complex intellectual approach is not to produce what William James would call "a commanding view" of American culture. Rather, according to Cohn and Pfeil, the Program's faculty seek to provide students with tools for perceiving and analyzing culture Ñ "a set of procedures," according to Cohn, that will equip them for continually enlarging their understanding of American culture.
What students will come to understand about America, asserts Pfeil, are "certain kinds of continuities of culture Ñ long waves of thematic or ideological concepts like 'individualism' that, though defined differently at different places and different times, still provide an abiding and informing idea definitive of American culture."
Class, race, gender
Helping to organize these multiple approaches is the Program's commitment, since 1989, to exploring the three focal points of class, race, and gender as well as their interconnections. Recognized by the national American Studies Association (ASA) for being one of the first to implement this powerful tripartite approach, the Program remains nearly unique in its dedication to all three categories and their interdependence.
Electronic learning
The Program also has been recognized by ASA for its advanced use of electronic technology. One of only six national test sites for the American Studies Crossroads Project (an international Internet and curriculum innovation project sponsored by ASA), Trinity serves as a model for the implementation of new technologies in teaching and learning American Studies and acts as an important regional hub for promoting instructional information.
Cohn and Pfeil's Junior Seminar exemplifies the Program's impressive use of technological innovations. First, an image bank of some 70 electronically digitized illustrations relevant to the West has been made available on-line for students to examine and incorporate in reports. Students, who at Trinity all have access to e-mail and the Internet, are also provided a number of electronic addresses, giving them a virtual library of bibliographic, textual, and visual resources.
Using the College's on-line conferencing system (Pacer Forum), students continue discussions outside class over their computers. Cohn considers this "a very important part of the course," and a glance at the nearly 700 exchanges between students last semester quickly demonstrates the power of this innovative feature to enrich learning. As Paul Lauter, the Allan K. Smith and Gwendolyn Miles Smith Professor of English, explains, "Research suggests that students learn primarily through their interactions with other students." Instructional interactions are also carried out through Trinity's Docex. With this on-line document exchange facility, students in the seminar electronically "post" weekly papers, which invite commentary from classmates and, of course, from the professors.
Finally, using "visuals" from the image bank and other electronically accessed textual materials, students can make sophisticated presentations of their research Ñ an invaluable opportunity for the many majors who go on to careers in law, education, and the corporate world.
Location, location, location
Hartford provides the Program with truly exceptional resources. Beginning with the College's own excellent American holdings in the Watkinson Library, Hartford's cultural and archival landscape abounds with the State Library, the Wadsworth Atheneum, the new Old State House, the Mark Twain Museum, the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, the Webb Deane Stevens Museum, the "morgues" of area newspapers past and present, and many other outstanding informational resources.
Functioning as a "kind of clearinghouse" for this abundance, according to Associate Professor of History Susan Pennybacker, is the Hartford Studies Project. Affiliated with American Studies and directed by Pennybacker and Associate Professor of Sociology Stephen Valocchi, the Project archives significant historical material for scholarly, civic, and cultural purposes. An outgrowth of this archival project, Trinity's "History of Hartford" course engages students in important original research.
Multi-disciplined faculty
Besides those already mentioned, the Program counts among its faculty Pulitzer-Prize winning Professor of History and Director of the Women's Studies Program Joan D. Hedrick; Professor of History and American Studies Eugene E. Leach (who instituted the Program at Trinity); Barbara Sicherman, the William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of American Institutions and Values; Edward W. Sloan III, the Charles H. Northam Professor of History; Associate Professor of History John H. Chatfield; Associate Professor of History Cheryl L. Greenberg; Associate Professor of American Studies Jerry G. Watts; Assistant Professor of English and American Studies Margo Perkins; and a large number of Trinity faculty whose courses in other departments and programs focus on American society.
This multidisciplinarity should assure that the Program remains at the national forefront for years to come. Lauter, former president of ASA, foresees the discipline nationally becoming more interdisciplinary and more ethnically inclusive. At Trinity, efforts are already underway to develop programs that broaden the scope to other academic areas and to pay increasing attention to the particular experiences of African-, Asian-, Latin-, and Native-Americans. In the words of Program director Cohn, "We want to study and learn about all kinds of American experiences."
-- Mark Warren McLaughlin