THE CANON AND POPULAR CULTURE (2013) The degree of American Studies was born in between 1920 and

the 1930s as an interdisciplinary study and it arrives to Germany after World War II. Right from its beginning it was understood that literature should not be the king discipline of the degree. While before the fields of study of culture, history or politics were not considered to be as important, this time it was clear that it would make no sense to study literature in isolation since literature is inspired by art, influenced by economy, etc. To give an example of this, the reason why the chapters of a novel in the 19th century had the same length was because novels back then were sold in periodicals, that is, because there was a financial reason behind. When we talk about Canon Formation we refer to the process by which scholars decide which literary works should be stand out over others. Since it is impossible to study all the literature of a language or a society, it is obvious that a selection has to be presented. This selection has usually been made around literary periods, and these have often been influenced by political and cultural events. The finding and definition of some criteria to do this selection is not easy. Which criteria should we pay attention to? Who do we teach about each period? In the case of American literature, where do we mark its beginning? Should the native American oral tradition be considered? We just need to consider how different the five best American novels are according to literary critics and opinion polls to see the complexity of this issue. Womances are the most sold novels in the United States, and most of them are the same. If we were to pick one, which one should it be? Like I mentioned before, money also interferes. If a novel is studied or not in American high schools it is a big deal. We should note that the Civil Rights Movement was very important in the construction of the canon. Some minorities complained that they were not well represented inside the canon or, in other words, that the canon did not reflect the plurality of the American society. For example, not a single African American in 19th century appeared on the works that were part of the canon. So by the late 1960s critiques forced to revise the canon and to include these minorities. This process, however, experienced the same difficulties as the other mentioned before. This also links in a way to the so-called unstoried conditions, that is, events and periods that nobody knows about because nobody has written about it. After the review of the canon, todays vision of the U.S. through literature is different. There have been many ways to define culture. For example, one of them says that culture, as opposed to nature, which is row, is cooked, it is what human beings do. Another theory says symbolic communication equals culture, since culture is about communication, and for communication you need signs and words. Others define it as the passing on of a pack of knowledge, or a sum of learn and behavior, or the human capacity to code and decode Even though in Germany German culture still associates with high culture, as if something more authentic, and American culture is usually thought only as

popular culture (McDonalds, Coca Cola, rock & roll, Madonna), today culture is no longer defined as high culture. High culture was important back in time because it used to define national identity. How Ikea is probably the first association to Sweden for many people is a clear example of it. However, it appears that in Germany there is a desperate feeling that high culture is needed. High culture is funded by the government (Leipzig is, in fact, the most funded city in Germany), whereas no money is assigned for popular culture. A great conflict takes place every time a theater or an opera closes. In the United States, a theater that only produces 10% would be closed, not in Germany. In the past this wasnt the case. What are the origins of this? Adornos theory of popular culture. T.W. Adorno Critical theorist Together with M. Horkheimer coined expression culture industry (Kulturindustrie) in the chapter The Culture Industry. Enlightment as Mass Deception of the book Dialectic of Enlightment in 1944. Wonders who has control over meaning culture industry Some conclusions: o Culture industry refers to Popular culture producing trash product standardized, mass-produced & consumed. o use goods to manipulate society into passivity o Its consumption is made available by mass media & renders people into content (no matter their economic circumstances) o biggest dangers is cult.ind. shapes the taste of people & cultivates false (psychological) needs that can only be satisfied by the products of capitalism. (the false consciousness in Marxist terms) Example: Cell phones o Pseudo-individualism is promoted (names, people&pets) for the interest of consumerism and capitalism o Problem: so effective, cant distinguish between false needs and authentic needs e.g. Food, clothing, shelter, freedom, creativity Criticizes jazz & radio (as being mass-produced, standardized) o controversial among his followers too o He doesnt see jazz is made by blacks to fight for his rights o would have criticized TV too Pop.cult danger to the more intellectually high arts. For Adorno, high-culture (from top to bottom) can change this tendency of homogenization. This theory of implying people are stupid is nowadays still very influential. Todays funding of culture in Germany is still marked by it.

FREDERIC JAMESON does not share Adornos theory of pop.culture in his works Postmodernism and Consumer Society and Reification and Utopia in Mass Culture o High culture also serves capitalism Everything which is new becomes eventually standardized & mass consumed. o While popular culture is successful for Adorno because people is stupid and follow false needs, for Jameson because it RECUPERATES THE INTERESTS. *Ex: Jaws, movie that takes the contemporary concerns of capitalist society & articulates them (no false consciousness) o Believes that in postmodernism lines between high and popular culture begin to fade.

GRAMSCI - Italian Marxist creator of concept cultural hegemony. o Refers to success of the dominant classes in presenting their definition of reality in such a way that it is accepted by other classes as 'common sense' - While Adorno believes people up indoctrinate people down, Gramsci believes there is a negotiation of rule and oppression o People can depart from the producers intention o There is a preferred meaning of a work, but also a negotiated meaning. o The producer encodes it in a particular way and we must decoded (we need to know the rules the producer uses to make sense of it. E.g. of a sonnet) The beginnings of mass production and the consumer society date back to the 1920s in the U.S. It was the first moment when all the elements needed to massproduce met. Among these: the availability of machinery, the existence of cheap workers, a good amount of resources, or standardization. Before the appearance of the consumer society, shared values were the thing that built communities. With consumerism this changes, and it is consuming communities that are tighter together. An example of this is the way in which the United States achieved to integrate the great increase in population (a new third) of the last decade of the 19th century. The integration did not happen through shared values. Instead, it was consumerism that motivated. Catalogues helped immigrants to understand how to be Americans (how to dress, do their hair).

A special attention has to be drawn to the immense difference that entailed consumerism in rural areas. The way of life was radically different before and after consumerism. In the 1900s 60% of the population in the U.S. lived in isolation, either in the countryside or in small towns. Back then there was no telephone, radio or TV, no books or bookstores, no cinemas, no electricity, no music unless you played an instrument or went to a concert to the closest city, furniture, clothes and food had to be home-made, to get a mail you had to go to the closest town The creation of department stores and mail order catalogues ( incredibly important for the establishment of a consumer society) changed radically this situation; it revolutionized the American society by helping to modernize rural areas and homogenizing life in the U.S. Many times it was not profitable to open a business in a rural area (e.g. supermarkets), and someone who had a good business sense came up with the idea to set up a mail order company. The first company to be founded with a mail order catalogue was Montgomery Ward in 1872, but the first successful one was Sears, Roebuck and Co., founded in Chicago in 1893. A few of the characteristics of mail order catalogues were: They were created for the increasing and more influential middle class. They were race blind (blacks were not discriminated). The prices of the products are fixed. Before shop owners decided according to the customer. The payment of products and/or services received is done at the time of actual delivery by the postman (cash on delivery) Many ordering instructions were translated to more than 20 languages. Customers were treated equal by salespeople. Products were on displays Streets were made attractive for shopping They were wider spread than the bible Also, to avoid that rural areas were cut off from consumerism a reliable railroad and postal system were needed. In this sense, important reforms were taken, including the rural free delivery and the parcel post act. In 1935, Roosevelt also announced that creating electricity in all rural areas was a priority. Only after World War II, this tendency arrives to Europe. Some examples of mass-production and standardization because of the appearance of mail order catalogues were the delivery of phone lines, a wider and cheaper range of clothes, or the industrialization of farms. In the case of clothing, standardization did not happen easily. Because there were no standardize sizes (no reliable measurements), Sears had to ask its costumers, especially women, to send in their measurements so that a database could be made (it took two decades). Males clothes were earlier standardized because of the Civil War. At the beginning, thus, more sewing machines were sold than clothes. The standardization in clothing served as a way to democratize (class status couldnt be told anymore) and as a way to integrate, for example, in the case of immigrants. It favored, however, a cultural homogenization.

Industrialization on farms goes hand in hand with the industrial rising of animals (pigs, cows, chickens). Animals begin to be seen as profitable creatures, thanks to which farmers could make money and lessen their work, rather than to be seen as fellow companions. The Cream separator, to separate the cream from the milk, was the first example of farm-technology in the U.S. that was distributed thanks to a mail order catalogue. In Germany, the foundation in 1927 of the Quelle Mail-Order House provides this chance to German farmers too. Ten years after its foundation the enterprise will already have more than a million customers. Other examples of advances in housework are the heating system, laundry system, and long-term storage system. It is important to say that mail order revolutionized marketing strategies as well. While earlier catalogues included lots of text and a small picture or a sketch (e.g. explanation of how a refrigerator works), twenty years later visual representation dominated over text and advertisements were more colorful and emotional, and had the focus on pictures or images. An example that we studied in class was that of a washing machine advertisement. It appeared a well-dressed woman who was given the washing machine as a present by his husband (gender ideology). Besides, the machine was given a name. The long explanations at the beginning of the mail order era were however important since they pursued the trust of the farmers. Consumerism: - Has blurred the line between necessity and desire. - Would have been impossible without mass production and standardization. - A triumph, since it has expended to Europe (Americanization) - Described today: identity building and popular (vs. high), not thinking (vs. challenging), passive (vs. active), mainstream (vs. elite/avant-garde), feminine (vs. masculine), consumption (vs. production) Features of a Consumer Culture a) shift of emphasis from production to consumption b) standardization, mass production & mass consumption c) technological development & the expansion of leisure time d) the investment of products with symbolic meaning through advertisements e) the critique of consumerism as an inherent feature of consumer societies

Pros & Cons Consumerism Pros: cheaper goods, faster delivery, Democratization of goods through Standardization, integration through dresses (immigrants), modernization of rural areas Cons: loss of individualization, homogenization

Mail order catalogues in literature short story The Man Who Was Almost A Man by Richard Wright (about a little boy who bought a gun via catalogue) short story Umneys Last Case by Stephen King (Sears & Roebuck mentioned) Marketing/Technology - special names for certain products from the 1920s, e.g. washing machine The Nymph women began to be the purchasers in the household - transition from fact-orientated to emotional-orientated Marketing - in Mail Order Catalogues: one thing on one page, not everything cramped - development of the Bonanza farm which implied commercial farming new technology needed; farmers make money and turn into customers household technology changed the look of the US - shift in attitudes towards animals - Fordization = new form of work, assembly line work, life rhythm changed (New Marxism alienation...) - transition from traditional to industrial farming - transition from attention to the individual animal to generic breedings animals are no natural beings, but machines under modern conditions (attitudes changed profoundly with the help of technology in the 1900s) - technology is used to save strength and time farmers have more leisure time, but are cut off from urban entertainment Catalogues came up with slide machines - rural areas: 1910 2% of farms electricified, 1935 already 11% change after 1935: rural electrification (Roosevelt administration) Brands - increasingly brands played a role, consumers took notice - in consumerism people inquire literacy - people are willing to pay more to get a brand = phenomenon brands convey security and are used to build an identity - feeling of community/feeling special - film: American Psycho protagonists characterized by brand names, e.g. Walkman, Armani - today: Energizer Bunny, Bud Light Dog Shopping Malls - cult of true womanhood: women can go in public without male company (in malls & churches) - development through increasing middle class, suburbian spread - popular component of American daily life, setting of cult movie Dawn of the Dead (1978)

 in the US: more shopping centers than theaters, school districts, ... - biggest mall Mall of America: not only stores and retail, but restaurants, clinic, bars, clubs, college, amusement park

Vampire literature covers the literary work concerned with the subject of vampires. The literary vampire first appeared in 18th century poetry, before becoming one of the stock figures of gothic fiction with the publication of Polidoris The Vampyre (1819) Lord Ruthven (vampire) and Aubrey (main protagonist) , one of the most influential horror stories according to critics. In its beginnings, vampire novels are even taken seriously by some authorities. Further examples of vampire literature includes Dracula by Bram Stoker (Jonathan, Lucy, Mina), Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice (Louis, Lestat), Louisiana 1850 by Jewelle Gomez. In the cinema, it is very known the vampires movie The Hunger (Susan Sarandon, Cathrine Deneuve, David Bowie). Fantasy deals very often with controversial topics of society (the unseen/unsaid of culture, as R. Jackson puts it). Since vampires are always used to talk about a controversial topic, the motif of vampire literature in the 19th century is different from todays motif. The 19th century was characterized by the belief in progress (science, infrastructures), the control over nature and weather. The Victorian values were, however, very strict. Victorian women were like angels, but their bodies were like swords. Women should only feel passion as mothers, and not have any sexual feelings. They were regarded as the conscious of society, and had to teach men how to behave and control their sexual impulses. Men are by no means good, and sex outside marriage was considered prostitution. In short, sexuality was bad, and most important, not related with women. In the 19th century, thus, female vampires are used to talk about sexuality and about science. They are sexually active and try to attract; they assume a males role. There is a fixation on the female vampires mouth, specially with their teeth, which have a symbolic connotation (Vagina Dentata). An example of this is the short story Berenice of Edgar Allan Poe. Contemporary female vampires do not talk about sexuality because sexuality is everywhere in society. In the 1970s they talk about sexual orientation and homosexuality since it is still not normalized. Also race is another issue that is taken by vampire novels. In todays vampire fiction we get numerous instances of intertextuality (shaping of a text meaning by another text) and parody too. Two popular settings of recent vampire literature are San Francisco and New Orleans. In the first case because its substantial gay community. In the second, for its voodoo culture (consequence of the great amount of African-American population) and for its French-speaking essence, which may remind the Old World (Europe) to the reader and the fact that it is a Catholic region, not Protestant.

Two further examples of vampire fiction: Interview with the Vampire and Louisiana 1850.

Stephen King is a Gothic writer from New England who uses this place as a setting very often too. The image of New England as a tourism destination is contrasted with a personal Gothic vision of New England. He created his own fictional topography of his own estate. New England was the center of the industrial revolution in the U.S. But in the late 19th/early 20th many people migrated into the cities or moved to the west, which led to a perceived physical and moral decay of the local population, specially in rural areas (e.g. abandoned farmhouses as settings, white-trashed characters, alcoholic and religious phanatics) King takes us into the realm of the everyday of the community. In the outskirts of these communities we find the American Wasteland, between the towns and the wilderness. The Wasteland shows marks of decay (e.g. stumbling upon Coca Cola cans or American-made cars). Taking the boys into the wasteland is a symbolic journey, the Wasteland is like a new wilderness. Night journeys: lost of innocence and nostalgia since children are inherently pure, and the realization that the world is basically uncaring. For King growing up brings the inner evil. King presents a very Gothic individual, unstable, often split in half. Abusive husbands, corrupted police officials, etc. For King sex is represented as a noble act, but it leads to destruction (specially male sexuality). The female body is often very problematic in King because he shows an inability to portray female characters. The female desire is often presented in King as obsession and evil, he portrays the body as repulsive. Also female desire represents a desperate woman. The house also plays ideology in King. Very often gothic pictures of a community. What once was very familiar and place of shelter, now is place of unease. Marriage does not lead to a happy life, but rather a prison in Cujo. The community acts as an enforcer of conformity, as a place of personal limited freedom. Small towns (us) vs. away (them) Small town stands for repression and lost of freedom, a control of everyone by everyone. Government does not work for the good of the people, but for their own gain.

Crime fiction is the literary genre that fictionalizes crimes, their detection, criminals and their motives. One of its sub-genres is detective fiction, in which an investigator or a detective (professional or amateur) investigates a crime, often murder. The interest in this sub-genre also lies in applying a solution to the crime. Detective fiction has a gothic/irrational element (committing the crime) and a more scientific/intellectual one (solving the crime). This genre emerges in the 19th century in the Anglo-American context thanks to Edgar Allan Poe, who is generally considered its inventor. The detective Dupin was created by him and

made his first appearance in The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841), an example of locked room mystery (a sub-genre of detective fiction in which a crime is committed under apparently impossible circumstances. The crime in question typically involves a crime scene that no intruder could have entered or left, e.g., a locked room. The reader is encouraged to solve the mystery before the solution is revealed in a dramatic climax). For a while, detective fiction was not considered good literature, but rather cheap fiction. Later on, crime fiction would spread to all sorts of media, including TV. Detective fiction has to be realistic, it is a realistic genre. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a Scottish writer who is most noted for his fictional stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, which are generally considered milestones in the field of crime fiction. Two other important novelists that belong to this genre are Agatha Christie and Raymond Chandler, whose fictional character Philip Marlowe was a well-known private detective. The Golden Age of detective fiction starts in the 19th century and arrives to the 1920s and 1930s. In this period there is a preference for an isolated mansion in the country or in a small town as a setting for the novels murders and uppermiddle class people as their characters. The emphasis was not so much on the victim, but on the detective and on solving the crime, which was seen as a violation of order. The detective of this period is more intelligent even than the police (the great cells of the detective, in Agatha Christie) and is detached from the scene. The emphasis is given on reason. A psychic whose function is to ask questions narrates the story, and only by the end of the story we will be told the solution of the crime. The victim is not introduced at all or hardly referred to; the emphasis is on solving the crime. In contrast, in contemporary novels of this kind, the setting is no longer in towns but in the cities (particularly of the west coast, e.g. Los Angeles as the favorite place), where it is easier to be anonymous. Also to make a contrast between the good weather and the bad corruption, and compared to other cities does not have a history or tradition, it does not have an established structure. Also, there has been an increasing interest in the suffering of the victim (e.g. giving very detailed information of their dying), and the restoration of normality after the crime will not be complete since it will remain a feeling of injustice, of a corrupted society. Police corrupted Hardboiled fiction or pulp fiction is a sub-genre within crime fiction. With its arrival, American literature regains importance in the detective fiction scene. It is characterized by the detective's cynical attitude towards the emotions in the crime scene. He is hardboiled and shabby. He is no longer detached from the crime; he is sometimes physically involved, and sometimes gets into fights and has a black eye. He tells the story while he smokes and drinks a lot. He often falls in love with the wrong woman (sometimes turns out to be the murder), and she either has to go to prison or die. He is the one who has to make her pay for the murder and she is deceived about it. He is daily faced with violence of organized crime and is aware that the legal system has become as corrupt as organized

crime itself. Thats the reason why there is no real restoration of order. In hardboiled fiction violence and explicit sex are sometimes elements of the story and the protagonist is always somehow related with the crime. It is a genre very critical of society. An example of author belonging to hardboiled detective fiction is Hammett. Pessimistic outlook Conservative structure: wants to keep something (social order) Beginning of crime fiction violation of order, and in the end there is a restoration of order. Hardboiled fiction criminal is punished, but there isnt a feeling of restoration of order, justice is not restored. There is a gap between what is legal and what is justice. Female detectives become popular in the 1970s. Two popular crime writers that featured female detectives are Patricia Cornwell and Sue Grafton. Kay Scarpetta is the fictional character and protagonist of Cornwells crime novels, and Kinsey Millhone Graftons female detective. These characters are usually portrayed as loners (they have no family or a cat), and it will take until the arrival of TV series female detectives to appear with families and to change this tendency. Writer Sara Paretsky is credited, however, with transforming the role and image of women in the crime novel. Another subgenre within crime fiction is that of ethnic detectives. Chester Himes is an author that relates how structural racism (e.g. segregation, etc.) still remains after the crime is solved (no restoration of order). Tony Hillerman, in turn, writes about Native American communities and Native American detectives, even though he is not one. The setting of the crime occurs on Native American reservations and the topic is usually related to native-American exploitation (sometime related to alcoholism problems). In ethnic detectives there is an intimate connection between crime fiction and realism. Modern/post-modern detective fiction takes the genre apart. A few of its characteristics are: the author appears as a character or even a suspect, the detective sometimes fails, justice is not always fulfilled, the most banal, everyday event can be seen as an evidence for the crime, the detective does not necessarily have heroic qualities (e.g. Christopher Boone), the genre may be juxtaposed with contrary genres such as sci-fi. The City of Glass by Paul Auster or The Whore of Mensa by Allen are two examples of works belonging to this period of detective fiction. Plausibility and coincidence The role and legitimacy of coincidence has frequently been the topic of heated arguments. For series involving amateur detectives, their frequent encounters with crime often test the limits of plausibility. It would be arguably more convincing if police, forensic experts or similar professionals were made the protagonist of a series of crime novels.

The television series Monk has often made fun of this implausible frequency. The main character, Adrian Monk, is frequently accused of being a "murder magnet". Likewise Kogoro Mori, though being a private investigator in Detective Conan, got that kind of unflattering reputation since he stumbles from one crime scene to another without the police intentionally consulting him.