CONNECTIONS ACROSS THE CURRICULUM

Cristina made some great connections between discussions of the frontier vis-a-vis consumer culture in our composition course and discussions of the frontier vis-a-vis military culture in her history course. Here's part of her correspondence:

I am taking a history class now called "American Military Culture". I was just reading from the text when I came across something that kind of made me laugh because it had to do with our discussion of the American frontier used in advertisement as part of the American culture. Here it is:

"The roots of American strategic culture lie in a frontier tradition, an experience and expectation of success in national endeavors, experience with an abundance of resources for defense, a dominant political philosophy of liberal idealism, and a sense of separateness-moral and geostrategic-from the evil doings of the Old World." (Colin Gray)

So far since I started reading this book, I feel that it is a long persuasive essay on how war should be and is culturally acceptable and that soldiers act in accordance to and only for society. I just thought that it was hilarious that he used the American frontier to sort of push and justify his belief a little more.

Making these sorts of connections will help extend and deepen your analysis of consumer culture for your essays. And I hope all of you will begin to notice how such cultural motifs and myths (e.g., frontier, counterculture) underlie all parts of your life, including your life of reading and thinking for other courses.