AMS 2341 Reading Questions   

Questions for Tues. 14 Oct.

1.  What's the argument of the exhibit, Lewis and Clark:  The National Bicentennial Exhibition?  That is, what is it's goal or purpose?  What message does it hope visitors will walk away with?

2.  What's the argument of the exhibit, Rivers, Edens, Empires:  Lewis and Clark and the Revealing of America?   What goal or purpose motivated it?  How does it hope to influence viewers?

3.  What is Kimberly Lamm's (the reviewer's) argument ABOUT each of these exhibits?  What does she think they succeed/fail at and why?

4.  Are you convinced by Lamm's argument?  Why or why not?  Does the evidence she offers support her case? 

Questions for Thurs. 16 Oct.

1. Jacobson argues that the 1790 law making citizenship a possibility for all “free white persons” (men) was increasingly challenged in the mid-nineteenth-century by ideas about “white races” (plural).  What were some of the white races?  Do we still recognize any of them as distinct races?  Why or why not?
2. Why did many “Anglo-Saxon” Americans find the Irish unfit for citizenship?  What characteristics were invoked to justify discrimination against the Irish?
3. Why were Italians in New Orleans called “white niggers”?  Explain why “whiter” Americans classed Italians with black folks.
4. Leo Frank, a Jew, was lynched in Georgia in 1915.  What happened in the Frank case?  Why/how did he end up suffering a fate more common to black men in the South during that period?
5. The Johnson Act of 1924 restricted immigration.  According to what rules/guidelines was immigration restricted?  Why did so many legislators sign on to vote for this bill? 

 Questions for Tues. 21 Oct.

1. How is “Caucasian” different from “white”?  Why did those who were ambiguously white in the nineteenth century become unproblematically Caucasian by the middle of the twentieth?  What social and cultural changes explain this shift in ways of thinking about race?
2. What does it mean to suggest that “culture eclipsed biology as the prime determinant of the social behavior of races”? (98).  Explain this transition in your own words.
3. Official statements about race from UNESCO and others in the 1940s insisted there were how many races?  What were they?  How many races do we believe there are now?  What are they?  How do we know this?
4. What factors explain how racialist thinking in America after 1924 came to be focused on the black/white dyad in ways it was not in the nineteenth century?  What was the effect on black folks?  On white ethnics? 

Questions for Thurs. 23 Oct.

1.  Woman Warrior starts with the narrator telling us a story her mother told her not to tell.  What's the lesson she's supposed to get from the story (i.e why did her mom tell it to her)?  What is the lesson she actually takes from it?  Why tell it (in print) to so many other people?  What's the lesson readers ought to take from it?

2.  What genre is this book?  Novel?  Autobiography?  Short story collection?  Memoir?  fantasy/myth?  Why do you think so?  If it fits in several categories, what is the effect of writing that challenges our categories for thinking about literature?

3.  "White Tigers" is often anthologized on its own in women's literature or women's studies anthologies.  Why do you think so?  Why would this story be more popular than the others?  What kinds of themes/ideas does it illustrate? 

4.  What does Woman Warrior suggest about the narrator's Chinese history/tradition?  Does it make sense to her?  Does it give her strength, power, and community, or does it destroy her self-esteem and make her an outsider, or does it do some of both?  Explain your answer.

Questions for Tues. 28 Oct.

1.  Compare the mother in "Shaman" to the mother in the last 2 sections of the book.  How does her character and her life compare in China vs. in the U.S.?  Give specific examples.

2.  Think about all the references to ghosts, including the subtitle.  Who are the ghosts?  What does their presence suggest about history, memory, ancestry, and tradition?  What it is real and what isn't?

3.  There are lots of images/references to silence and voice in Woman Warrior, esp. in the final section , "A Song for the Barbarian Reedpipe."  What is Kingston trying to communicate about silence and voice for Chinese-American women, or for women more generally?  Why do you think so?  What do you make of the song for the barbarian reedpipe that ends the book?

4.  Why have male, Chinese critics been so angry about this book?  What do they think Kingston has done to them or to their community in writing it?  Are they right?  Why or why not? 

5.  List stereotypes about Chinese/Asian men and women that circulate(d) in the U.S.  What are the historical sources of these stereotypes?  How might they explain the positions Jeffrey Paul Chan and Frank Chin take about the work of Kingston and other Chinese-American writers (esp. women)? 

Questions for Thurs. 30 Oct.

1.  Roediger argues, "Chattel slavery provided white workers with a touchstone against which to weigh their fears and a yardstick to measure their reassurance" (66).  What does he mean by this?  What were their fears?  What kind of reassurance did they get? 

2.  Roediger repeatedly links the demands and aspirations of artisans, mechanics, and other white workers with Republicanism (or herrenvolk republicanism).  How were the identities of "worker" and "citizen" related?  What kind of working conditions did a man require, in order to meet his obligations to the state?  Why did he think these conditions were necessary?  Could democracy and wage labor coexist?  Why or why not?

3.  Glickman insists that the "American Standard of Living" was related to the health and welfare of the republic.  What WAS the "American Standard of Living," and how was it related to citizenship? 

4.  What was labor's "consumerist turn" (223, 225)?  How did the focus of labor leaders' change during this period (from what to what)?  Why did this transition happen at this particular time (1880-1925)?

5.  Women, black folks, and the Chinese were seen as threats to working-class solidarity and survival.  Why?  How did each place themselves or get placed by others outside the "American Standard of Living." 

6.  Does this debate over wages, living conditions, race and immigration sound familiar to you?  Can you think of contemporary examples that use similar kinds of rhetoric?  Give specific examples. 

Questions for Thurs. 6 Nov.

1.  What is "working ladyhood," and why did it matter (i.e. why did working-class, immigrant women work so hard and spend so much money trying to achieve it?  What did they hope to signify through achieving this status)?

2.  What is a dime novel, and why did so many working-class women buy them?  What role did these cheap stories fulfill in their lives?

3.  Why were fashionable, stylish clothes so important to working women?  What kinds of meanings were attached to dressing well by these women?  What did middle-class reformers think about this interest in fashion?  Why?

4.  Describe the plot of a typical dime-novel romance.  Why would these kinds of stories be interesting and compelling to working women?  Do these stories sound like any contemporary popular narratives?  If so, what narratives?  If not, why not (i.e. how are women's popular narratives different now and why)? 

5.  Why was the use of cosmetics problematic for many women in nineteenth-century America?  What were the criticisms made of cosmetic use? 

6.  What are the three markets for cosmetics?  Where did each emerge from, and how was their historical development different? 

Museum Review Paper

Literary Analysis Paper