Studies in American Culture (310-0-1)

Topic

The Chicago Way: Urban Spaces and American Values

Instructors

William J Savage
847/491-8916
1908 Sheridan Road, OUSA
Office Hours: By appointment

Meeting Info

Locy Hall 214: Tues, Thurs 2:00PM - 3:20PM

Overview of class

Urbanologist Yi Fu Tuan writes, "What begins as undifferentiated space becomes place when we get to know it better and endow it with values." In The Untouchables, Sean Connery tells Kevin Costner, "You want to get Capone? Here's how you get Capone. He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He puts one of yours in the hospital, you put one of his in the morgue. That's the Chicago way." In this class, we will examine "the Chicago way" from many different angles in order to interrogate the values with which various artists have endowed Chicago. We will read in a broad range of media: journalism, poetry, song, fiction, film, and sequential art to see how a sense of Chicago as a place works over time. We will pay close attention to depictions of the construction of American identity, and to the role of the artist and intellectual in the city.

Registration Requirements

Attendance at first class is required

Teaching Method

optional urban tour

Class Materials (Required)

Nelson Algren's Chicago: City on the Make and The Neon Wilderness; Richard Wright's Native Son; Stuart Dybek's The Coast of Chicago; journalism by Ben Hecht, Mike Royko and others; short fiction by Sandra Cisneros, James T. Farrell and others; poetry by Carl Sandburg, Gwendolyn Brooks, Tony Fitzpatrick and others; the films The Untouchables, The Blues Brothers, Call Northside 777, and Barbershop; the graphic novel 100 Bullets: First Shot, Last Call.

Note: Texts will be available at Comix Revolution, 606 Davis Street.

Class Notes

Attending the first class is mandatory

Class Attributes

Advanced Expression
Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline