An Introduction to American Culture for Foreign Graduate Students

saint Louis Arch and Museum Welcome. If you are new to this country you may wish to become better acquainted with its history and culture. This is especially important if you are considering settling here. To aid you in this, listed below are various books, documents, speeches and even movies that are representative of the American experience. Right now your specialized studies are your paramount concern. But you may wish to save this document and pursue the listed items, as time permits, over the next few years.

Political Documents & Speeches
  1. The Declaration of Independence
  2. The U.S. Constitution
  3. Lincoln's Gettysburg Address
  4. First Inaugural Address of Franklin Roosevelt
  5. Eisenhower's Farewell Address
  6. Ronald Reagan, A time for Choosing
  7. Newton N. Minow, Television and the Public Interest
  8. Martin Luther King, I Have a Dream
  9. Michael Bloomberg's speech on religious tolerance
Philosophy & Ideas
  1. Experience and Education by John Dewey
  2. The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America by Louis Menand
  3. Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville
  4. The Souls of Black Folk byW. E. B. Du Bois
  5. The Conservative Mind by Russell Kirk
  6. A People's History Of The United States by Howard Zinn
  7. The Closing of the American Mind by Alan Bloom
  8. The Conscience of a Liberal by Paul Krugman
  9. Keynes Hayek: The Clash That Defined Modern Economics by Nicholas Wapshott
Literature
  1. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
  2. The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
  3. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
  4. Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
  5. Narrative by Fredrick Douglass
  6. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
  7. The Bostonians by Henry James
  8. The Awakening by Kate Chopin
  9. Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
  10. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  11. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
  12. Native Son by Richard Wright
  13. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
  14. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
  15. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
  16. Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow
  17. Even Cowgirls get the Blues by Tom Robbins
  18. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
  19. The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
  20. You Must Remember This by Joyce Carol Oates
  21. Beloved by Toni Morrison
  22. The Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
  23. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
  24. The Oxford Book of American Poetry, David Lehmen, editor
  25. Ten plays you should try to see
Movies (See also AFI list and a critique.)
  1. Duck Soup (1933)
  2. Gone with the Wind (1939)
  3. Citizen Kane (1941)
  4. It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
  5. Sands of Iwo Jima (1949)
  6. Salt of the Earth (1954)
  7. The Seven Year Itch (1955)
  8. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
  9. Dr. Strangelove (1964)
  10. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
  11. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)
  12. The Graduate (1967)
  13. Patton (1970)
  14. M*A*S*H (1970)
  15. Super Fly (1972)
  16. Hair (1979)
  17. Apocalypse Now (1979)
  18. Hairspray (1988)
  19. Roger and Me (1989)
  20. My Own Private Idaho (1991)
  21. Fargo (1996)
  22. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
  23. Chicago (2002)
  24. Milk (2008)
  25. The Help (2011)
Popular History & Culture

  1. LIBERTY! - The American Revolution is a PBS mini-series. DVD
  2. The Civil War is a PBS mini-series by Ken Burns. DVD (Burns has made numerous documentaries on American history covering everything from baseball to jazz to prohibition, numerous biographies and a series on our national parks.)
  3. Roots is a TV mini-series based on the novel of the same title by Alex Haley that was loosely based on his own genealogy as a descendant of African slaves.
  4. The Greatest Generation is a TV mini-series by Tom Brokaw that tells the stories of men and women who came of age during the Great Depression and WWII. There is an companion book.
  5. American Visions: Epic History of Art in America is a PBS mini-series by Robert Hughes. It is only available in VHS but there is a companion book. Also see this blog on various American painters and the survey book Native North American Art.
  6. American Masters is an on going PBS series on a wide variety of cultural artists.
  7. Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West by Stephen Ambrose; Ambrose has written several popular books on American history.
  8. If you like historical fiction look into the series of historical novels by Gore Vidal.
  9. American Roots Music is a PBS mini-series on American folk music.
  10. God in America is a PBS mini-series on religion in American life. DVD
  11. Dowd's Guide to American Museums
  12. Explore our National Parks.
This is a DRAFT prepared by Mike Sullivan for discussion. It is not endorsed by SIUC. Let me know if there are broken links. Copyright 2013, Michael C Sullivan; may be used freely for noncommercial educational purposes; all other rights reserved.