The course grade will consist of two papers, each six to eight pages in length, and a comprehensive final examination. All students must complete both papers and the final. The reading should be completed prior to the week for which it is assigned.
You will need to buy:
Walton Bean
and James Rawls, California: An Interpretive History, 1996 ed.
Greg Sarris, Mabel McKay: Weaving the Dream
Albert Hurtado, Indian Survival on the California Frontier
Lary May, Screening Out the Past
Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, Farewell to Manzanar
Marilynn Johnson, The Second Gold Rush
Chester Himes, If He Hollers Let Him Go
Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem
Mike Davis, City of Quartz
Course Reader (available at Metropolitan on Bancroft)
Week
1
Introduction
Calafia: History, Language, and Empire
Reading: Begin Sarris, Mabel McKay
Week
2
History and Native California
The Geopolitics of Imperialism
Reading:
finish Sarris.
Week
3
California Becomes Mexican
Raising the Bear Flag
Reading: Albert Hurtado, Indian Survival,
Chapters 1-5.
Week
4
Gold Rush
The Octopus and Asia
Reading:
finish Hurtado
Week
5
Building San Francisco
The Story of Water
Reading:
Donald Worster, "California's Hydraulic Society," and selections
from Judy Yung, Unbound Feet
Week
6
Progressivism and Nature
Mission Revival: History and Real Estate
Reading: selections from Lary May, Screening
Out the Past
Week
7
Hollywoodland
Ideology and Utopia
Reading:
Candida-Smith, "The Elusive Quest of the Moderns"
Week
8
Depression and Migration
California Modern
Reading:
Houston, Farewell to Manzanar
Week
9
War Money
The Color of Music
Reading:
begin Marilynn Johnson, The Second Gold Rush
Week
10
California Criticism
California Noir: Gender, Murder, and History
Reading: finish Johnson, The Second Gold
Rush
Week
11
California Cold: Postwar and Postindustrial
California Cool: The Beats and Others
Reading: Himes, If He Hollers, Let Him
Go
Week
12
California Radical: The Sixties
Ronald Reagan and the New Right
Reading: Joan Didion, Slouching Towards
Bethlehem, 1-128, 171-187.
Week
13
Azusa Mission to Charles Manson
The Burning of Los Angeles
Reading: selections, Davis, City of Quartz
Week
14
Chinatown
Reading:
Gottdiener and Kephart, "Multi-Nucleated Metropolitan Regions";
Langdon Winner, "Silicon Valley Mystery House"; Hossfeld, "Women
Workers in Silicon Valley"
Week
15
The Future is Now: Silicon Valley
A Backward Glance: Blade Runner History