What's Going on Here?

Hello and welcome to the ongoing class blog for the course "California in the American Imagination" at the Universität Potsdam. The goal of this blog is to present the work of my students, who will spend Winter Semester 2012 studying California literature and culture with me. In order to enrich and expand our class discussions, I have assigned my students to look to popular culture for representations of California and California-ness and to present them here. I have asked them to "curate" these artifacts of popular culture: alongside the item itself -- be it song, film, advertisement, etc. -- they are to explain the ideas about California that they see reflected in the artifact and then to discuss how these ideas relate to the larger themes of our course.

I look forward to what is to come in the ensuing weeks and months. One of the great pleasures of teaching for me has always been how much I can also learn from my students, and I have high hopes that this project will offer me new glimpses into the the notions of California and its culture that circulate around the world.

Enjoy!