Assignment: What you learned Part 1 and 2.

Write a minimum 12 sentences on something that was new for you in this week's content, making certain to use your own words. You will be able to write it directly on this page. You will not be able to move onto the next module until you have completed this. Also, please write your name after your contribution.

Part 1- The Calculus of Slavery

Introduction

Historians are interested in slavery, students in racism. Historians want to know how and when slavery originated and developed as an institution protected by law; students want to know why whites and blacks, who have so much in common, still seem to identify themselves as if they were different people with different cultures. This week covers the history and ideas from Chapter 3 in the textbook along with additional materials and perspectives about the slave trade, specifically the concept of "Slave Culture". Slavery is one of the most painful and difficult topics in American history, but you have a chance in this chapter to make the point that institutions usually reflect social demands, and that institutions designed to serve one purpose can be adapted to serve altogether different ends. American slavery clearly began as the profitable solution to an economic problem. By the time slavery was destroyed, it had become the unprofitable solution to a social problem.

Video

Watch this video about Slavery.

Atlantic Slave Trade- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnV_MTFEGIY

Part 2- Provincials

Overview

Modern American students usually need help to understand the provincialism of colonial culture. American culture today, especially American popular culture, the one most familiar to you, dominates the world. Pearl Jam is played as ardently in Naples as in Seattle. Michael Jordan is as much an icon in Tokyo as in Chicago. Madonna is as adored in Caracas as she is in Tampa. It is true that most popular culture is created in only a few places, like New York and Los Angeles, but one of the characteristics of modern pop culture is that it happens where it is consumed, not where it is produced. Wherever the television set or shopping mall is, there is the vital center of popular culture.

It was altogether different in eighteenth-century America. Nobody would have understood the concept of popular culture and what we call "folk art" was then considered inferior workmanship. In the eighteenth century, culture was "high" culture: art, architecture, literature, opera, or sacred music. The high culture of the American colonies in that era may be defined as provincial, but that word must be carefully defined. In this chapter we will delve into the developing colonial culture and how it will change over time; from being English to American.