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HIST 399
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Brief DescriptionThis course is being offered in conjunction with a special conference planned for Friday, May 29, 2009 that will bring a number of innovative scholars from around the country to the UO campus. This course and the associated conference have been made possible with support from the Morse Center for Law and Politics, the College of Arts and Sciences Bray Fellowship, the History Department, and the University of Virginia Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture. May 29, 2009 conference website Students in the course should plan on attending the conference. No schedule is available yet, but it will last for a good part of the day. We will be able to read materials written by conference participants in advance and have the chance to talk to the authors while they are on campus.The course assumes a basic working knowledge of twentieth-century U.S. history. After World War II, Americans and policymakers embraced psychotherapeutic diagnoses of, and prescriptions for, personal and social problems. The widespread acceptance of psychological language and perspectives—a phenomenon often referred to by scholars as the “therapeutic ethos”—increased citizens’ and public officials’ expectations of one another in the postwar period. As political activity at all levels became infused with therapeutic potential, the ways in which public policy was framed and the very meaning of citizenship changed dramatically. Policymakers catered to the emotional health of citizens at the same time citizens mined their emotions for political inspiration and meaning. Why did psychological perspectives gain such authority and exactly how did policymakers and citizens alike wield that authority in the post-1945 United States? Rather than focusing on the therapeutic as a source of individual transformation that either enhanced personal freedom or fueled a culture of narcissism, the course will ask how therapeutic perspectives transformed government programs, the work of private and voluntary organizations, and the definition of citizenship and public life during the New Deal and Cold War eras. It will begin by locating the therapeutic ethos in time and considering a number of important theoretical perspectives on selfhood and individuality. The course will then track the impact of the therapeutic ethos on politics and citizenship from an array of intersecting institutional perspectives. It will ground the therapeutic ethos within dominant state institutions and central intellectual currents in order to demonstrate how it served as a key arbiter of national politics, policymaking, and citizenship in the post-1945 United States. Because children and families have been prototypical subjects of therapeutic interventions, and because female activists were so often at the forefront of therapeutic reforms, the course will pay particular attention to questions of gender and age. There will be a special 2-week unit devoted to the topics of "at risk" children, foster care, and adoption.
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Writing RequirementsThere will be one short essay, one short conference report, and a take-home final exam. The essay (5 pages, double-spaced) will consider Lauren Slater's Lying in light of one or more of the readings we will be doing during the first two weeks of the term. It will be due on Tuesday, April 28, 2009 before class. The conference report (2 pages, double-spaced) will summarize one of the presentations at the May 29 conference. It will be due on Tuesday, June 2, 2009 before class. In addition, there will be group presentations about conference materials in class on May 19 and 21. The final take-home exam will will be an essay-writing exercise designed to synthesize the readings and subjects covered throughout the term. It will be handed out on Thursday, June 4, 2009, the final day of class. It will be due on Monday, June 8, 2009 at noon in 321 McKenzie. |
Reading RequirementsThere are two required books: Many of the other readings for this course are article- or chapter-length selections. Some can be found online, linked to the syllabus. Materials with copyright protections can also be found linked to the syllabus. A password is required to access them. |
thinking Requirements |
RulesAcademic Honesty Lateness Policy Accommodations |
Gradesessay: 30% |
Calendar
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Week 1 |
Tuesday, March 31, 2009: INTRODUCTION TO THE COURSEThursday, April 2, 2009: THE TEMPORAL, PHILOSOPHICAL, AND CULTURAL LOCATION OF THE THERAPEUTIC ETHOST.J. Jackson Lears, "From Salvation to Self-Realization: Advertising and the Therapeutic Roots of Consumer Culture," in The Culture of Consumption: Critical Essays in American History, eds. Richard Wightman Fox and T.J. Jackson Lears (Pantheon Books, 1983). Ian Hacking, "Making up People," in Reconstructing Individualism: Autonomy, Individuality and the Self in Western Thought, eds. Thomas C. Heller, Morton Sosna, and David E. Wellbery (Stanford University Press, 1986). Robert N. Bellah, Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven M. Tipton, Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (Harper & Row, 1985), chapters 1-2. |
Week 2 |
Tuesday, April 7, 2009: THEORISTS OF THE THERAPEUTICSigmund Freud, "The Anatomy of the Mental Personality," in New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (Hogarth Press, 1933). Philip Rieff, "The Emergence of Psychological Man,"in Freud: The Mind of the Moralist (University of Chicago Press, 1959). Christopher Lasch, "The Awareness Movement and the Social Invasion of the Self" and "Paternalism Without Father" in The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations (New York: Warner Books, 1979). Thursday, April 9, 2009: SELFHOOD AS A SOCIAL, POLITICAL, HISTORICAL, AND SCIENTIFIC PROJECTAlexis deTocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop (University of Chicago Press, 2000), excerpts. Erving Goffman,The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Anchor Books, 1959), Introduction and chapter 6. Michel Foucault, "The Political Technology of Individuals,"in Technologies of the Self, eds. Luther H. Martin, Huck Gutman, and Patrick H. Hutton (University of Massachusetts Press, 1988). Steven Pinker, "My Genome, My Self," New York Times Magazine, January 7, 2009. |
Week 3 |
Tuesday, April 14, 1009: SELFHOOD IN QUESTIONbegin Lauren Slater, Lying. Thursday, April 16, 2009: SELFHOOD IN QUESTIONfinish Lauren Slater, Lying. |
Week 4 |
Tuesday, April 21, 2009: IDENTITY, CITIZENSHIP, AND GOVERNMENTErik Erikson, "Identity, Psychosocial,"in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, ed. David L. Sills (Macmillan Company and the Free Press, 1968). Lawrence K. Frank, "Society as the Patient." American Journal of Sociology 42 (November 1936). Thursday, April 23, 2009: DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN POLICYVolker Janssen, "From the Inside Out: Therapeutic Penology and Political Liberalism in Postwar California," Osiris 22 (2007). Perrin Selcer, "The View from Everywhere: Disciplining Diversity in post-WWII International Social Science," manuscript. Thanks very much to the author for allowing us to read and discuss this unpublished paper. |
Week 5 |
Tuesday, April 28, 2009: WHY ARE SO MANY CHILDREN AND FAMILIES "AT RISK"?Children's Defense Fund, The State of America's Children, 2008, "Youths at Risk" Marian Wright Edelman, excerpt from speech on impoverished children in the United States at Dominican University of California, October 27, 2008 American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Facts for Families. Select one fact sheet to read on a topic that interests you. Please come to class prepared to talk about it. The essay on Slater's Lying is due before class. Thursday, April 30, 2009: FOSTER CAREbegin reading Dorothy Roberts, Shattered Bonds |
Week 6 |
Tuesday, May 5, 2009: FOSTER CARE AND ADOPTIONThe work of the Lane County Citizen Review Board Thursday, May 7, 2009: FOSTER CARE AND ADOPTIONfinish reading Dorothy Roberts, Shattered Bonds |
Week 7 |
Tuesday, May 12, 2009: reports on conference materialsThursday, May 14, 2009: reports on conference materials |
Week 8 |
Tuesday, May 19, 2009: reports on conference materialsThursday, May 21, 2009: reports on conference materials |
Week 9 |
Tuesday, May 26, 2009: NO CLASSThursday, May 28, 2009: NO CLASSFriday, May 29, 2009: CONFERENCE |
Week 10 |
Tuesday, June 2, 2009: DEBRIEFThe conference report is due before class. Thursday, June 4, 2009: WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED?The final exam will be handed out in class. It is due on Monday, June 8, 2009 at noon in 321 McKenzie. |