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Reading Our Histories, Understanding Our Cultures: A Sequenced Approach to Thinking, Reading, and Writing, 2/E
Kathleen McCormick, Purchase College, State University of New York

ISBN-10: 0321123697
ISBN-13: 9780321123695

Publisher: Longman
Copyright: 2003
Format: Paper; 672 pp
Published: 09/27/2002
Status: Instock

Net price: $60.15 (What's this?)

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Reading Our Histories, Understanding Our Cultures is an innovative cultural studies reader based on the assumption that the life of every person is intimately connected to the life of the culture.

By translating the best of current work in cultural studies and process approaches to writing into practical sequenced assignments, it motivates students to develop essential critical thinking, reading, and writing skills.

Students are asked to engage in two complementary forms of inquiry consistently throughout the book: “historical analysis,” in which they analyze change and continuity over time; and “cultural analysis,” in which they explore how and why different perspectives can exist within the same time period.

This kind of inquiry is meant to engage students' personal interest and, in the process, to reconceptualize what is thought of as “the personal” within larger social contexts. It enables students to move from writing just “opinion” to writing analytically and persuasively about their own perspectives and those of others.

Reading Our Histories, Understanding Our Cultures teaches students to trace how a particular issue is woven into the larger cultural and social fabric, and to negotiate among different perspectives from the past and present to develop a position of their own. This kind of work is where genuine critical inquiry begins.

Juxtaposes older historical primary texts and contemporary texts to show students the historical and ideological antecedents of current debates and provide practice in close reading.

Chapter topics range from popular culture—fashion, Elvis, Beauty and the Beast—to broader social issues involving education, urban life, technology, the environment, and the family.

“Historical Questions” and “Cultural Questions” after the readings promote critical thinking by asking students to compare their beliefs with those of others, past and present.

Assignment sequences at the end of each chapter combine historical and cultural analysis to encourage reflection and effective revision.

“Fastwrites” in each chapter encourage writing as discovery, help students avoid writer's block, procrastination, and the common habit of in-progress line-editing.

Photographs and other visuals, including diagrams representing historical and cultural analysis, illustrate concepts and encourage analysis across different media.

Short quotations at the beginning of each chapter give a quick sense of the issue across time and in the present and serve as a springboard for speculation on larger issues.

“For Further Research” suggestions at the end of each chapter provide relevant source material, including many non-print media.

Sixteen new readings, both historical and contemporary, include selections by Thedore Sizer on education, Winifred Gallagher on the semiotics of public spaces, science writer Ron Bailey, and Alan Durning.

Twelve new visuals offer new opportunities for cultural analysis, historical analysis, and critical thinking.

A thoroughly revised Chapter 1, “Locating Ourselves in History and Culture,” now includes four new autobiographical readings by Phyllis Rose, Malcolm X, Chang-Rae Lee, and Mary Gordon.

“For Further Research” sections in each chapter have been updated to include internet references to help students access current research on a range of topics.

“A Glossary of Critical Terms” now concludes the text.

All chapters except Chapter 1 conclude with “Assignment Sequences” and “For Further Research.”

INTRODUCTION.

PART I. I AND IDEOLOGY.

1. Locating Ourselves in History and Culture.

Assignment Sequence.

Assignment 1: Personal Conflict Narrative.

Reading the Conflicts of Others.

Hating Goldie, Phyllis Rose.

Hair, Malcolm X.

Uncle Chul Gets Rich, Chang-Rae Lee.

Hot Dog, Mary Gordon.

Assignment 2: Analysis of Perspectives at the Time of the Conflict.

Assignment 3: Analysis of Change in Your Perspective over Time.

Assignment 4 (Optional): Analysis in Relation to Other Students.

Assignment 5: Final Paper.

Putting It all Together.

Conclusion.

2. Fashion: Selves and Surfaces.

Introduction: Retaining Your Personal Voice with More Public Subjects.

Reading the Signs Around Us: Why Begin with Fashion?

What Is Fashion?

Locating Fashion in Larger Historical and Cultural Contexts.

Active Reading Strategies.

The Great Masculine Renunciation, J. C. Flugel.

Amazing Reactions to Women in Bloomers, Ida Husted Harper.

Female Attire: An Exchange with the Seneca County Courier, Amelia Bloomer.

I'm Thin, Therefore I Am, Nicci Gerrard.

Pushing Borderlines: Gender Crossover, Marjorie Garber.

A WASP in Jew's Clothing, Esther Newton.

Common Threads, Michiko Kakutani.

PART II. ABSORBING STORIES, CREATING IDENTITIES.

3. Family Portraits: Changing Roles.

Introduction: “Spying” A Family.

The Nineteenth Century Retreat: Family and Home, Tamara K. Hareven.

Conquering Themselves So Beautifully, Louisa May Alcott.

Families Enslaved, Frederick Douglass.

The Revolt of “Mother,” Mary E. Wilkes Freeman.

Restoring Basic Values, Dan Quayle.

Beyond the Cult of Fatherhood, David Osborne.

The Gay Family, Richard Goldstein.

The Future Is Now: Twenty-First Century Family Forms, David H. Demo.

4. Beauties and Beasts: The Tales Within Us.

Introduction: Why Study a Fairy Tale?

Cupid And Psyche, Lucius Apuleius.

The Lady and the Lion, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm.

Beauty and the Beast, Madame le Prince de Beaumont.

Resolution and Restoration in Beauty and the Beast, Bruno Bettelheim.

Beauty and the Beast: A Lesson in Submission, Jack Zipes.

Go! Be a Beast, Marina Warner.

From The Tiger's Bride, Angela Carter.

5. Questioning U.S. High Schools: What to Teach and How to Learn.

Introduction: Why Are High Schools the Way They Are?

What High School Can Be, Theodore R. Sizer.

In the Beginning. . . The 1893 Report of the Committee of Ten, Charles Eliot, et al.

Between Traditional and Progressive Education, John Dewey.

Creating the Comprehensive High School, James B. Conant.

From Savage Inequalities, Jonathan Kozol.

Missing in Interaction, Myra Sadker and David Sadker.

Pasadena: Revised Images of Excellence, Mike Rose.

6. Elvis Presley, Any Way You Want Me (That's How I Will Be).

Introduction: Man or Myth?

Baby Boom Che, John Trudell.

TV: New Phenomenon, Jack Gould.

Situation Report: Elvis in Memphis, 1967, Stanley Booth.

Fanfare, Greil Marcus.

A Lonely Life Ends on Elvis Presley Boulevard, Clark Porteous.

Elvis, or the Ironies of a Southern Identity, Linda Ray Pratt.

Among The Believers, Ron Rosenbaum.

PART III. CONTESTING PEOPLE, CONTESTED SPACES.

7. The American City: Dreams and Nightmares.

Introduction: City Visions.

The Crime of the Cities, Winifred Gallagher.

The Settlement House Concept and Individual Commitment, Jane Addams.

In Defense of the City, F. J. Kingsbury.

The National Government Takes a Stand on America's Cities, Urbanism Committee.

Gi’ Me a Penny, Maya Angelou.

The City Eclipsed: Urban America and the Metropolitan Age, Howard P. Chudacoff and Judith E. Smith.

Why We Need Cities, Jonathan Franzen.

Waiting, Cornell West.

8. From Galileo to Gates: Human Reactions to Science and Technology.

Introduction: Living with Our Tools.

The Trial of Galileo, Jerome J. Langford.

Galileo Reconsidered, James B. Reston, Jr.

On the Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection, Charles Darwin.

Origin of the Specious, Ronald Bailey.

The Cyber Future, Edward Cornish.

Nanotechnology: Reinventing Our Cells, Atom by Atom, Ray Kurzweil.

9. Progress or Destruction?: Developing the Environment.

Introduction: Analyzing Our Relationships to the Land.

Surveying the Virgin Land, Annette Kolodny.

Across the Continent—Westward The Course of Empire Takes Its Way, Nathaniel Currier and James Merritt Ives.

Westward the Monarch Capitol Makes Its Way, John Carbutt.

Pioneer Ideals and the State University, Frederick Jackson Turner.

From The Education of Henry Adams, Henry Adams.

Wilderness Reserves: Yellowstone Park, Theodore Roosevelt.

The Limits to Growth, Donella Meadows.

Access to Public Lands: A National Necessity, Cynthia Riggs.

The Conundrum of Consumption, Alan Thein Durning.

Environmentalism of the Spirit, Al Gore.

Business and the Environment, Denis Smith.

Assignment Sequences.

Glossary of Critical Terms.

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