A). Bibliography
Instructions:
1) Choose a topic of interest to you on an aspect of the material covered in this course (material that we’ve already covered over or will cover this semester). Make sure your topic is not so broad that it would ill suit a possible research paper, but not so narrow that you will not be able to find sufficient research material on it.
2) Identify 3-5 primary sources (e.g., contemporaneous newspaper articles, government documents, letters, memoirs, etc.) relevant to the topic.
3) Find 4-6 secondary sources (historical studies, including books and articles) that in whole or part address your topic.
4) Create an annotated bibliography that should be structured and format along the lines of the example. Annotations can be brief (1-3 sentences) but should provide a basic description of the contents. Please note: I am not asking you to read these sources for the purposes of the bibliography itself (though normally, of course, this would be expected), but only familiarize yourself with them at the most basic level (e.g., reading the table of contents or skimming the text). If you decide to use the bibliography as a basis for writing a short research paper, then of course you must read these sources thoroughly.
Primary Sources
“A. L. Erlanger Dies after Long Illness.” New York Times, 8 Mar. 1930, pp. 1, 10. [Lengthy obituary of the pioneering Jewish theater-chain owner that details his business career].
Ellington, Duke. Duke Ellington: Music is My Mistress. Doubleday, 1973. [Autobiography of the great jazz composer and band leader that details that stories behind some of his compositions and his relationships with other musicians].
Exhibitors Trade Review, Dec. 1923 Feb. 1924, public notice. [Advertisement listing the topics of a day-long conference on the use of live music in the presentation of silent films]
Wittels, David G. “Star-Spangled Octopus.” Saturday Evening Post, vol. 219, nos. 6–9, 10 Aug., 17 Aug, 24 Aug., 31 Aug. 1946. [A lengthy magazine expose of the rise of the most powerful music booking agency in America].
Secondary Sources
Bruck, Connie. When Hollywood Had a King: The Reign of Lew Wasserman, Who Leveraged Talent into Power and Influence. Random House, 2003. [Biography of the music booking agent who became the most powerful figure in the Hollywood film world for decades].
Melnick, Ross. American Showman: Samuel ‘Roxy’ Rothafel and the Birth of the Entertainment Industry. Columbia Univ., 2012. [Biography of the impresario and movie theater designer who transformed the experience of attending movie theaters during the early decades of the twentieth century].
Pessen, Edward. “The Great Songwriters of Tin Pan Alley’s Golden Age: A Social, Occupational, and Aesthetic Inquiry.” A Celebration of American Music: Words and Music in Honor of H. Wiley Hitchcock, edited by Richard Crawford, R. Allen Lott, and Carol Oja, Univ. of Michigan, 1990, pp. 180-197. [A qualitative and quantitative analysis of the Jewish contribution to Tin Pan Alley songwriting].
Rosenbaum, Fred. Cosmopolitans: A Social and Cultural History of the Jews of the San Francisco Bay Area. Univ. of California, 2009. [A history of the Jews of San Francisco detailing their economic and cultural contribution to the life of the city].
B) Paper Assignment
You have three options for the writing assignment (which will be due two weeks before the final class).
1) A short (10 page) research paper based on or adapted from your annotated bibliography.
2) A 10-page thematic comparison and analysis of the two novels assigned in the class: Amy Tan’s The Joy-Luck Club and Anzia Yezierska’s Bread Givers.
3) Two 5-pages papers separately analyzing Goldstein’s The Price of Whiteness and Jennifer Lee’s Civility in the City.
