American Studies Commons^™

The American Dream As A Cultural Movement, Thomas W. Raskay

English Department: Traveling American Modernism (ENG 366, Fall 2018)

This piece investigates the relationship between the American Dream and automobility through a generational lens, assessing cultural change in each renewal of the American Dream. Comparing generations of Americans exploring and reforming cultural space reveals evidence of the American Dream as a tendency for generations to expand to new frontiers balanced by a duty to reform current social space. Automobility multiplies Americans’ options for exploration and explodes the rate at which modern generations engage with different spaces. Now that automobility is routine, Millenials have expanded to the new social space frontier in cyberspace, but a limitless frontier may disrupt the …

A Genealogy Of Self-Development In Modern America, Kelsey M. Binder

English Department: Traveling American Modernism (ENG 366, Fall 2018)

This article offers a hypothetical conversation between various authors and creators who have embarked on progressive self-development journeys under the influence of a shared society that intermittently embraces and rejects the structures of the American Dream. While examining the instinctive human motives that cause the radical decision to actualize one’s life, this paper attempts to bridge the psychology of the desire for personal growth to our influential cultural landscape. It explores and analyzes the self-development journeys of individuals such as William Least Heat-Moon and Chris McCandless, as well as the recent message of self-development found in a cinematic pop culture …

Alienation, And Its Antidote: Geographical Estrangement In The Modern Moment, Anna Nissley

English Department: Traveling American Modernism (ENG 366, Fall 2018)

The modern American moment has been marked by geographic estrangement: the alienation of human populations from their surrounding physical environments. This paper explores the modern phenomenon of geographic alienation by situating it within a specific historical frame, beginning with American Manifest Destiny in the mid-1800s and ending in the second half of the twentieth century, drawing connections between sociopolitical movements and their aftereffects. Identifying examples of alienation between humans and their environments through analysis of texts Black Elk Speaks and Blue Highways, as well as other cultural artifacts, this work gestures toward ways of reconciling past wrongs and offers solutions …

Societal Rebirth: The Importance Of Spirituality, Lauren Rothstein

English Department: Traveling American Modernism (ENG 366, Fall 2018)

This article offers an exploration of what the social consequences are when modernity strips away religious-human relationships to the land. The two texts Black Elk Speaks and Grapes of Wrath both include moments of anonymous forces imposing systematic modernization on society. Particularly, I try to understand the controversial subject of societal rebirths, traditionally defined through employment and steady food source availability. This paper proposes an approach to societal rebirths that emphasizes the importance of spiritual connection to the land through a critical analysis of Bakhtin's theory of Chronotope and Leopold's theory of Land Ethic. On the issue of spiritual connection …

Automobility And The Future Of Transport, Lukas Koch

English Department: Traveling American Modernism (ENG 366, Fall 2018)

This article explores the history of automobility as ideology, its effect on individuals and its possible future. In the USA in the early 20th century the automobile served to solve the crisis of individualism, created by Taylorism and the rise of the scientific method. To the people of the time the car was associated with freedom and individuality. Freedom through the automobile however was and would never be universally accessible. Furthermore examining the real life consequences of increasing mobility reveals unforeseen effects, mainly pollution, traffic and fragmentation of society. This paper proposes adoption of programs favoring sustainable modes of transportation …

The New Hearth: The Creation Of A Mobile Space, James C. Mangum

English Department: Traveling American Modernism (ENG 366, Fall 2018)

The New Hearth: The creation of a Mobile Space

Mangum, James. Kutztown University, (4 December 2018).

This analysis offers an insightful look into an aspect of travel and modernity that has gone seemingly unnoticed in the culture of American Mobility. As a social product space is created to serve the function of something integral in society. Working individuals need offices for example, students need schools, and citizens need residences. These are created spaces of society that intersect the realities of life, and an automobile is how we get to and from these spaces. Modernity has allowed us to stretch the …