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English 350
Science Technology and the literature of Cultural Change
MWF 12:00 12:50
Plumas 201
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Professor Matthew Brown

Office: TRNN 206
Phone: ext. 5165

Office Hours: TBA

Email: mdbrown@csuchico.edu
Required Texts: *
Howl and Other Poems Allen Ginsburg
On the Road Jack Kerouac (selections)
Invisible Man Ralph Ellison (selections)
Anthology of Women Poets in the 1950s
Cold War Poetry Edward Brunner **
Lei Roi Jones Blues People
*The texts are all available online. Moreover, I have assembled most of the required readings in a
free pdf that you can access through Blackboard. The only text I request that you buy is
Ginsburg Howl and Other Poems. The book itself (as in the physical object) is a part of our study
and it is important to have in class.
**Brunners book will also serve as a source book for further readings (i.e. we will read the full text
of the poems he analyzes as well as the scientific and sociological literature he uses to frame
them; they will be available through our class VISTA.).
General Education: This course is an Upper-Division Arts and Humanities course in the General
Education Science Technology and Values Pathway. It is a United States Diversity class. Culturally,
geographically, ethnically, economically, the U.S. is an incredibly diverse country: this course
seeks to explore some of that diversity and to provide skills for apprehending, interpreting and
appreciating some of that diversity. Though this section is not writing intensive, you will, none-theless, do a lot of writing. In fact, you will write every day. The daily writing assignments will provide
stepping stones toward the final paper which will also be broken down into measured steps that
will include feedback and revision. The lofty goal is for you to write the best paper you have yet
written so that you can use it as a model for future writing. It also is a class that emphasizes Active
Inquiry/Creativity: these are linked together in practice. Whenever we study anything, it will be
your job both to find out where to find more of it and to make intellectually ambitious leaps toward
new connections to the thing we are studying. So, for instance, when we read Kerouac waxing
poetic about listening to Jazz, you will track down some of the recordings to which he is referring
and we will form our own relationship to them. You will also be given the opportunity to represent
you findings in creative ways, most of which you will share on our class WIKI.

Course Description:
This course move through important texts like Allen Ginsburgs Howl, Jack Kerouacs On The Road,
and Ralph EllisonsInvisible Man. These works from the mid-1950s are seminal texts in post-WWII
American literature. They each claim to present an alternative to the emerging culture of
consumerism and conformity in the post-war United States that they claim is politically, morally,
spiritually, and intellectually bankrupt. We will explore critical questions about whether these
writers present an alternative to that culture or simply recapitulate it with a few modifications. In
particular, we will look at the way On the Road is patterned after other narratives of cultural
imperialism written by other Ivy League white elites from the 19th century with Kerouac
superimposing the cultural stereotypes those narratives place upon Native American upon Black
Americans, Latinos, and poor whites. The class will study the rise of post-war American culture and

the various ways in which particular cultural products reinforce, oppose, underscore, or resist the
values of the dominant culturewe will also explore the gaps between the explicit and the implicit
in those cultural values. Our discussions of these texts will sustain an ongoing conversation about
the various ways science and technology drive and are driven by the movements in culture we
explore. These questions will be posed at both macro and micro levels: questions like, how is the
atomic bomb asserting its presence it Howl and how does the development and marketing of
magnetic tape recorders like the 1948 Ampex 200 change the way characters in On the
Road access and experience the jazz records they listen toas well as the way the performers
play itwill guide discussion throughout the class. We will also explore some of the various ways
the university system, science, and manufacturing are all retooling and responding to peacetime
cultural values and expectations after having been previously focused on wartime cultural values
and expectationsa central and explicit concern for Ginsberg in Howl and an ever-present implicit
concern for Kerouac; of course, we will also look closely at which cultural groups that benefit from
these changes and which cultural groups are left behind. As we read, we will research and present
on other areas of culture that are mentioned in the literary texts and we will bring examples of
those into the classroom so we can explore their values relative to the values of these two literary
texts. (Some examples of these other areas of culture are cultural products that we can bring into
class and experience as primary documents, like movies, music, other literary texts, visual, plastic,
performance arts, etc, and cultural movements [in sports, or sexuality, or race relations, for
example] that we can track through secondary sources). More specifically, Ginsburg maintains that
the greatest, richest, and most study-worthy body of American poetry is blues lyrics. We will use
Lei Roi Jones seminal Blues People as a lens for seeing ways to read these lyrics from a uniquely
African American perspective as well as a lens for seeing the ways Ginsburg and other white elites
claim outsider status in order to co-opt parts of this tradition. During the second half of the
class, we will be reading Edward Brunners book Cold War Poetrywhich will serve as both an
interesting secondary text and a source book for other writers who may have escaped our
attention without Brunners commentary. With Brunners help, we will be examining the often
coded and embedded references to the atomic bomb, to cultural change, and to science that he
unpacks from poems he examines. Of particular interest to the class is the close attention to the
African American and women writers Brunner examines in his book which will help us to explore
some of the ways responses to science and technology are both racialized and gendered in
1950s poetry; we will also study other texts (and we will arrive at a definition for that as a class,
but certainly music, visual texts, material objects, etc. will all be on the table as possibilities) that
students bring into class and function as experts in presenting. The goal of the second half of
the class is to work as much as possible with student generated content and student-centered
learning. It will be guided by the following student learning outcomes (SLOs), which speak to the
educational philosophy of the class.

Reading:
Throughout the class, we will be reading from the required texts. They will be sub-divided for each
class period and we will try and stay somewhat close to our reading schedule. I say somewhat,
because the ongoing research and the reading that we do outside of class in order to deepen our
readings of the primary texts will often push back our reading schedule. The required texts
function within the class as springboards for broader discussions about culture, so moving directly
through them is not the goal. It is, however, necessary to provide a foundation for understanding
the other movements in culture we are studying. So, even though we will regularly be behind
our reading schedule in class discussion, it is important for us to stay on it outside of class so that
our conversations about other areas of culture will be adequately contextualized.

* Participation and Attendance:

You are expected in class each time. If you have to miss class, try and notify me in advance. If you

miss class more than three times during the semester, for any reason, you are failing to meet my
expectations and something must be done. Either you have a serious and compelling reason for
missing and you need to withdraw from the class, or you do not have sufficient dedication to make
it through the class, and I will begin lowering your final grade by half a letter grade per absence. I
will not allow work to be submitted by those who are not in class on the day it is due. If you miss
class, you miss getting credit for the assignment due that day.

*Exams:
There will be a final in-class writing assignment that asks you to reflect on the work you have done
during the semester and what you have learned about the ways culture functions and develops.
*Writing Assignments:
Writing is integral to learning and, thus, there are writing assignments attached to virtually every
aspect of the class and some writing will be required for each class day. These will be posted to our
VISTA and there will be a default analytical writing assignment for each day that there is no
specific assignment due. The writing tasks fall under 3 main headings:
Short writing assignments, which include close reading assignments, in-class
writings, and research summaries (this is the daily work of the class and it will be
explained in detail)
Culminating Project: this is the final product of the ongoing research project you
will pursue throughout the class.
In-class final exam
.

*Library Requirements/Research Project/Presentation:

As we keep up on the reading, listening, watching etc. that we do as a class and for class,
individual students will continue to research areas of culture they wish to study in greater depth.
We will exhaustively research the topic, make a peer-evaluated presentation on some aspect of it,
and write a final research paper on it. We will discuss these projects at length as we move into the
semester.
*Academic Honesty:
By enrolling in this class, you accept the rules governing academic honesty available from Kendall
107, Provosts Office. Dont cheat and I wont have to catch you.

If you are a student will a documented disability, on file with CSU, Chico, please speak
to me at your earliest possible convenience and all reasonable accommodations will be
made.
Grade Breakdown:
Short Writing Assignments 500 points
Culminating Project 300 points
Exam:
100 points
Presentation:
100 points
TOTAL
1000 points