Answer FIVE (5) of the following questions. Number your answers the same as the question you are answering. Be specific, explore the question, avoid short, superficial answers. Be sure you address the question.

Review for Midterm, American Culture

1. Individualism and civic or community involvement.

What does individualism mean in American culture, how it relates to concepts and values such as freedom, democracy, civic responsibility, community involvement. Be able to discuss how all this is related. Be able to discuss the concept of social capital and its decline. Understand and be able to explain the difference between utilitarian liberalism and moral liberalism. How do Americans connect their own fulfillment to that of other people, despite (or because of) individualism?

2. America as a land apart. This examines how Americans have always thought of America as somehow different, special, set apart from other people, cultures, or countries. It applies to questions like whether America is seen as a haven for the world’s oppressed, as a power in the world, etc. It refers to how many generations of immigrants have seen America and why they came here. It also refers to several opposing or conflicting attitudes and values, such as isolationism (America should not get involved with the rest of the world), nativism (foreign immigrants are the problem), extreme patriotism? What are the positive and negative sides to American exceptionalism?

3. Equality and inequality. This includes the tensions between our cultural ideals and values of equality and the reality of inequality in America—poverty, racism, the heritage of slavery and relations to Native Americans, etc. You should be able to explain how/why social categories such as race, social class, and even gender, as socially constructed, not biological or inherent--how racial and class categories are socially constructed and negotiated and “man-made,” rather than biologically inherent and “God-given.” Basically: our physical and genetic traits are inherent and given, but how we and others choose to perceive, emphasize, or ignore various physical and genetic traits, how we place people into arbitrary categories based on these traits, and how we set one category as “higher” or better than another are all socially constructed and learned. We can look at inequality as giving different groups of people different access to wealth, power, and prestige, and how the same social categories that define our identity (race, ethnicity, gender, etc.) also place us somewhere in a social hierarchy. We can always “negotiate” and try to change this. How can inequality be seen on the level of individuals and images (personal attitudes of prejudice, etc.), institutions discrimination, (policies and practices of institutions that perpetuate racism or inequality), and ideology (systems of attitudes, beliefs, ideas, and symbols that rationalize and support or challenge the “rightness” of a situation of inequality).We can change individuals on the level interpersonal relationships, but if we do not change institutional policies and practices and develop an alternative ideology, we won’t change inequality. Class discussion and powerpoints and the films, Ethnic Notions and Forgotten Fires, are all sources for discussion.

4. Culture. In addition to the above, we discussed the idea of culture in the first class session—culture as

· collection of traits, customs, beliefs,

· mental framework for seeing the world, categorizing things, etc.

· processes we are constantly engaged in as individuals and as a society—adaptation to environment, construction of meaning, construction of identity.

The following topic will not be on the Midterm Exam. It will be the topic for class next week.

5. Unity and Diversity. This includes discussion of America as an immigrant nation that also seems to have an ambivalent feeling about immigrants. You should be able to discuss topics such as nativism, assimilation, ethnicity and the construction of ethnic identity, the practice of “ethnic politics,” conflicts between ethnic groups and the reasons, reasons why immigrants come to the U.S., the way our society negotiates our individual and national cultural identity (from WASP to “the browning of America”), problems immigrants face, the difference between immigrants and refugees.

To summarize the material for the Midterm…

Readings: everything listed on Syllabus for Weeks 1-4:

PowerPoints on Moodle (or will be)

· Individualism

· Equality and Inequality

· Inequality

5. Films.

· Bum’s Paridise

· Forgotten Fires (if we view it in class).

· Ethnic Notions (if we get to it in class)

Format and Evaluation.

The midterm exam will be primarily an essay-type exam. Do not expect all questions to be given in exactly the same wording or form as above or as in the readings. Some questions may be given in the form of asking you to discuss or analyze a quote or news item using concepts, ideas, insights discussed in class or in readings. You should be able to address each question with a solid paragraph or two (or three) response that is well thought out ahead of time. This means coming to class already knowing how you would answer or discuss the sorts of questions and topics posed above. Answers are evaluated according to: (1) accuracy in depicting ideas from readings, (2) depth, breadth and originality of thought, (3) ability to synthesize or connect different ideas, topics, readings, etc. (4) clarity of expression (if I cannot understand what you are writing, I cannot grade it well, and I may suspect that your ideas are fuzzy). Please avoid sermonizing, ranting, or polemics in favor or against something. Stay with good, reasoned discussion and analysis. If you state a conclusion or opinion, it should become out of reasoned discussion based on fact, as much as possible, with evidence for your opinion.

Logistics.

Midterm will be 60 minutes. I’ll give it at start of class. After the midterm, we’ll have a regular class session. If you finish the exam early, you take a break until class starts. You will NOT be able to use books or notes. Paper will be supplied with the exam. Any major problems or questions, best thing is to e-mail me: [email protected] .

This Midterm Exam Review is (or will be) posted on Moodle

3. Urban-rural. We discussed this in class -- how the rural, small-farm, small-town life was once considered the ideal, and the city was seen as dirty, evil, dangerous, corrupt, etc.; and how these attitudes and values have almost reversed in recent decades. Now, rural areas are in economic and social decline, and are seen as backward, poor, boring, dead-end, while urban life is where the action is and the majority of Americans now live in cities. What are some of the implications if this? The decline of rural life is connected to a complex set of changes in American life (economic, social, etc.)