ENG W170  PROJECTS IN READING & WRITING
TOPIC:		Baseball as a National and Nationalizing Force
INSTRUCTORS: 	Carter Neal & Robert Arbour

13980	MWF	1:25pm -2:15pm	     BH 321		CARTER
14724	MWF	3:35pm – 4:25pm	     BH 319		CARTER
29888	MWF	3:35pm -  4:25pm     BH 247		ARBOUR
29889	MWF	4:40pm – 5:30pm	     BH 240		ARBOUR

“Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?  A nation turns its lonely eyes
to you,” crooned Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel in 1968.  In 1889, the
poet Walt Whitman wrote that baseball “has the snap, go, fling, of
the American atmosphere,” and even today, Americans fondly refer to
baseball as the “national pastime.” In 1968, the idea that a
baseball star could captivate a nation was nothing new, but in the
post-Civil War nation the game hardly even had regularized rules.
This course seeks to investigate the connection between the nation
and the “national pastime,” asking what it means that baseball is,
as Whitman says, “America’s game.” What can we learn about crucial
changes in American history, such as the Civil War and the Civil
Rights movement, from the changes in the game of baseball?  How can
examining modern developments like women’s softball, the
Hispanicization of modern baseball, or recent problems like steroids
help us to understand contemporary issues like immigration,
bioethics, and gender? Can baseball help us learn something about
America’s future? With a focus on learning the principles of
critical reading and analytical writing, this course will draw on
contemporary scholarly and popular texts as well as a variety of
primary sources, including newspapers, magazines, photographs and
film to investigate what it means that baseball has functioned as
both a reflection of the nation and a force in the construction of
the nation.