Theory, Literature, Culture:
The Politics of Nostalgia
Professor Ronald
Schmidt 126
Bedford St.
Summer 2003 780-4581
rschmidt@usm.maine.edu
Nostalgia, a word that combines the Greek words for “pain” and “returning home” originated as a medical diagnosis for the peculiarly intense homesickness of Swiss mercenaries. Thus from the outset, nostalgia has been defined in reference to a national definition of home. Nevertheless, the concept’s political nature has often been obscured and nostalgia is shrugged off as apolitical sentimentality. This simplifies the role nostalgia plays in nationalist movements, however, and ignores the political and temporal disruptions it can create. Nostalgia and its disruptive power play a central role in our politics, but undermines the foundations of legitimacy it is meant to serve. In this class, we will study the use of nostalgia by different nationalist movements in the United States from the nation’s founding to the present day. During class time, we will discuss the relationship between nostalgia and nationalism in the readings and in excerpts from film, the news and television shows that we will watch in class.
Students will be required to write two short (no more than 3 pages) papers on course readings of their choice, and one 20 page paper on the relationship between nostalgia and nationalist identity, which will be due August 15. The specific topics and methodology for the paper will be chosen by the students, but must have the approval of the professor.
Grades will be distributed as follows:
Short papers: 30%
Long paper: 50%
Class participation: 20%
The assigned reading is below, and will be available at the bookstore:
Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson
The Education of Henry Adams, Henry Adams
Last of the Mohicans, James Fenimore Cooper
The Use and Disadvantage of History for Life, Friedrich Nietzsche
Blackface/White Noise, Michael Rogin
Democracy and the Foreigner, Bonnie Honig
Course Packet
Assignments
Course Introduction
Foundings, Nostalgia
and Nationalism
May 12
Mourning and Melancholia, Sigmund Freud: Packet
The Discourses, Niccoló Machiavelli: excerpts, Course Packet
Notes on Virginia, Thomas Jefferson: excerpts, Packet
(Recommended Reading: The Future of Nostalgia, Svetlana Boym; Democracy in America, Alexis DeTocqueville; Benito Cereno, Herman Melville; The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin)
Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson; Chapters 1-5
Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson; Chapters 6-9
Media assignment: print or electronic membership
Address to the Young Men’s Lyceum, Abraham Lincoln; Packet
The Education of Henry Adams, Henry Adams; Preface, Chs. 1-4, 7, 15-17
(Recommended reading: “House Divided Speech,” Abraham Lincoln;
Address at Gettysburg, PA, Lincoln; The Mystic Chords of Memory, Michael Kammen)
The Education of Henry Adams; Chs. 19-25, 35
(Recommended reading: Mont St. Michel and Chartres, Henry
Adams; Democracy: A Novel, Henry Adams; “The King’s Two Bodies,” Michael Rogin)
“The Jolly Corner,” Henry James; Packet
The Melancholy of Race, Anne Anlin Cheng; excerpts, Packet
(Recommended reading: The American Scene, Henry James; The Uncanny, Sigmund Freud; Turn of the Screw, Henry James; Hamlet: Prince of Denmark, William Shakespeare; Specters of Marx, Jacques Derrida)
Myth and the “West”
May 27
Last of the Mohicans, James Fenimore Cooper
(Recommended reading: The Pioneers, James Fenimore Cooper; The Fatal Environment, Richard Slotkin; Fathers and Children: Andrew Jackson and the Subjugation of the American Indian, Michael Rogin; The Return of the Native: American Indian Political Resurgence, Stephen Cornell)
On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life, Nietzsche
My Darling Clementine (1946; dir. John Ford); scenes, in class
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962; dir. John Ford); scenes, in class
Shane (1953; dir. George Stevens); scenes, in class
Gone with the Wind (1939; Dir. Victor Fleming)
Blackface, White Noise, Michael Rogin; Chs. 1-4
(Recommended reading: “ ‘The Sword Became a Flashing Vision’: D.W.
Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation,” Michael Rogin; Love and Theft:
Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class, Eric Lott;
Birth of a Nation (1915; Dir. D.W. Griffith); The Jazz Singer (1927;
Dir. Alan Crosland); Whoopee! (1930; Dir. Thornton Freeland); The
Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era, Thomas
Schatz; Bodies That Matter, Judith Butler)
Blackface, White Noise, Michael Rogin; Chs. 6, 7
Democracy and the Foreigner, Bonnie Honig; Chs. 1, 2
(Recommended reading: Blackface, White Noise, Michael Rogin, Chs.
5, 8)
Democracy and the Foreigner, Bonnie Honig; Chs. 3-5
Should you need services or accommodations due to a disability to fully participate in the class, please speak with me or contact the office of Academic Support for Students with Disabilities, LB 242.