Folklore 199: Car Cultures
Tuesday and Thursday 10:00 – 11:20 in 204 Chapman CRN
26873
Professor Gordon Sayre gsayre@uoregon.edu
Office:
472 PLC Ph. 346-1313 Office
Hours: Tues. noon – 2 pm, Wed. 9 - 10 am
In this course we will learn about the history of the
automotive industry and U.S. public policy toward cars, examine some of the
many environmental issues surrounding cars, and study car design and
customizing as vernacular art traditions.
Car Cultures thus takes a multi-disciplinary
approach to one the most pressing social issues of our time: how can the
worldÕs people meet their transportation needs without depleting energy
supplies, polluting the air and water, or ending up hopelessly jammed in
traffic? These questions have no easy answers, not least because AmericansÕ
habits and desires, and the infrastructure of our society, have made us
resistant to change, and are spreading to other parts of the world. As with many
social issues in the U.S., automobiles arouse zealous critics and stubborn
defenders. Our course cannot promise breakthrough solutions, but it begins from
the premise that motoristsÕ creativity and love of their cars can be part of a
solution to the problems cars cause.
The major assignment for the course will be an interdisciplinary
term project involving folklore or ethnographic fieldwork. Each student, or
team of students, will select and research some aspect of car enthusiasm or
automotive behavior, whether monster trucks or tuners or rat rods, muscle cars
or microbuses, advertisements or repairmen, parking lots or critical masses of
cyclists. There is so much about our automotive behavior that is curious,
mysterious, or revealing.