ENGL 151-06, First Year Writing Seminar: American Surburbia, Fall 2012

Abstract

This writing seminar focuses on the culture of American suburbia, paying particular attention to suburban life after 1945, when the suburbanization of America really took flight. Today roughly half of the nation lives in the suburbs, a phenomenon that has resulted in city abandonment, social segregation, environmental havoc, and the reorganization of political power. Are the suburbs, as critics have argued, a place of robotic conformity and racial division? Or are they heterogeneous and human, with a complex cultural fabric of their own? Who lives in suburbia and who doesn‟t? How has the mythology of suburbia changed over time? Why are these havens, which epitomize the American dream, often a place of nightmares? What does the geography of suburbia say about those who live there? Is suburbia, as some scholars suggest, declining as people move back to the city? To explore these and other questions, we‟ll consider the divide between cities and suburbs; the politics of race, class, and gender in suburbia; suburbia‟s impact on national identity; religion‟s role in suburban life; suburbia as a teenage wasteland; and several other issues. Prompts for critical thinking and writing will include essays, advertisements, artwork, newspaper articles, music, television, photography, literature, and film.