Book: The Shape of Things to Come

Marcus, Greil. The Shape of Things to Come. 0-312-42642-9 (2006).
Agonizing in its Beat-esque attempt to connect the future of the nation to its history and its oblique art. Maybe I’m just stupid, but I didn’t find the exploration of David Lynch as a prophet to be all that revelatory. Is it possible and worthwhile to make dramatic assertions about America using popular culture? Does our history really have such a major impact on our TV and music cults? Undoubtedly, I missed too many of the thousands of references to make this overly useful. Although, it did bring up a few interesting approaches to US history.

Thoughts:
• Opening chapter does do a nice job of looking at America as a reflection three major speeches: Winthrop’s “City on the Hill”, Lincoln’s Second Inaugural, and MLK’s “I Have a Dream”. Perhaps a worthwhile way to look at American history for a class. Perhaps a cumulative essay on the dream and its despoilment—do we ever achieve the grandiloquent claims of the founding fathers?

• Reagan use of the “City on the Hill” “as a sign of American triumpahlism, of America as God’s country, of ‘You only have I known of all the families of the earth’. (p. 25)

• Mario Savio and the Free Speech Movement (for US II) (p.31)

• Bob LaFollette and WW I filibuster—an attempt to stop the mad rush to war. Compare to 2003?

• Paul Robeson and the Civil Rights Movement? (for US II)

• Read American Pastoral (and related Roth novels)

• Could I use Plot Against America and “Good Night and Good Luck” in US II?—Cold War/Communist irrationalism

• Look at how events in lead up to WW II/Holocaust were portrayed in NY Times (assignment for US II?).... 18 December 1934 and p.91... How different were we than Germany? FDR & Hitler...

• JFK’s Inaugural Address! (for US II) and Reagan’s Inaugural Address!

• “The American voice can only be heard in the collective stories of those who are for some time, no matter how brief, pushed outside of the definition of ‘American’...the American voice is how one responds when silenced because of who he or she is.” (Tanya Kalivas 2000, p. 204).