Brooklyn College |

English 2: “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles”

| MW5B | Instructor Beth Schwartzapfel

FINAL RESEARCH PAPER

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Papers must be

5-7 pages

, typed, double-spaced, 1” margins, Times New Roman font, with a properly-formatted MLA-style bibliography.

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You must use

at least four outside sources

One must be an assigned reading from the semester. (You can use more than one if you like, but youmust use at least one.)

Three must be articles or books that you find on your own. These can be literary, scientific, historical,sociological, cultural--as long as they’re relevant to your topic.

These articles must be from

a reputable source

, preferably a published book or a peer-reviewed journal.If any of your sources are not from a published book or peer-reviewed journal, your bibliography mustinclude a 1-2 sentence explanation of why the sources are trustworthy. I will allow a maximum of onewebsite.

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These papers are designed to take your research outside of the bounds of what we’ve done so far thissemester. Your research should tie in with our readings, of course, but instead of literary analysis, your paper should take up a scientific, historical, technological, or cultural question.

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Papers are due 12/17

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Your final paper is worth 20% of your grade for the semester.

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There are no re-writes.Suggested essay questions 1.Walt Whitman published “Song of the Open Road” in 1856, a time of great change in Whitman’s home,Brooklyn. According to Channel 13/WNET’s history of Brooklyn, “the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825 produced [a] burst of industrial and economic expansion,” and “the next 25 years saw the town grow into a citywith smoking factories along the river, gas lights illuminating the public streets, a public school system, and animpressive city hall” (“From Village to City”). This period also marked a huge wave of immigration, with aninflux of Irish, German, and English immigrants transforming Brooklyn into the country’s third-largest city.Research what Brooklyn was like during this time in order to answer the question of how, if at all, Whitman’sspecific place and time in history influenced the poem. Is there evidence of 1856 Brooklyn in “Song of theOpen Road”? How so? Or, if not, why not?2.Jeff Chang’s “Can’t Stop Won’t Stop” and Phillip Lopate’s “Waterfront” offer two very different pictures of theinfamous New York City planner Robert Moses. Research Moses and one of his projects (you may choose tofocus on the Cross Bronx Expressway, as Chang did, if you like, or you may choose from any number of other projects that he envisioned or oversaw, such as Riverside Park, Jones Beach, the Triborough Bridge, the United Nations building, the Fresh Kills landfill, to name just a few) and take sides: was this project good for NewYork? Did Moses, in the case of the project you choose, do more harm than good or vice versa? Why?

“Song of the Open Road,” On the Road, and Blue Highways all approach “the road” as if it was thequintessential symbol of America. But the meaning of “road” has changed drastically over the history of thiscountry. The car only began to gain prominence in the 1920s, when General Motors secretly began to purchasethe nation’s then-extensive system of streetcars and trolleys in order to pave over rail lines and make Americansmore dependent on cars. The interstate highway system, which, today, accounts for one-third of all long-distance travel, wasn’t funded until 1956, during the Eisenhower administration: after On the Road was alreadywritten. William Least Heat-Moon’s choice to only travel on the smaller, rural highways was in some ways arejection of Eisenhower’s orderly interstates, in which travelers don’t so much travel through a place as bypassit. To cite a more recent example, the American auto industry is in deep financial trouble; some say thatDetroit’s automakers have lost touch with what Americans want. Research a particular period in the history of American roadways--you may choose one of the periods mentioned here or a different one--in order to:

examine its influence (whether conscious or unconscious, acknowledged or unacknowledged) on one or more of the works we’ve read this semester. Would On the Road have been the same book if the interstates

had been built when Jack Kerouac went on his road trips? Would “Song of the Open Road” have been adifferent poem had the Brooklyn Bridge been completed in the early 1800s instead of 1883? b.answer the question: is “the road” the quintessential symbol of America? If so, how so? If not, why not?

“Lessons of the Golden Spike,” a chapter from Rebecca Solnit’s River of Shadows, includes a quote from the

San Francisco Bulletin

about the joining of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific rail lines. The completion of the railroad, the

Bulletin

said, was “a triumph bloodless, deathless, but no less glorious to the Nation and theState: a victory over space, the elements, and the stupendous mountain barriers separating San Francisco fromthe world” (58). Has any other, more recent, technological advance been so momentous that newspapers andcommentators might have considered it to be “glorious to the Nation” or “a victory over space, the elements”?The automobile? The atomic bomb? The internet? The moon landing, as Solnit suggests? And if so, were theyright?5.“The Annihilation of Time and Space,” another chapter from Solnit’s book, argues that as a result of therailroads, humans’ perceptions of time and space were actually altered. “If distance was measured in time, thenthe world had suddenly begun to shrink” (9), Solnit writes; “the railroad shrank space through the speed of itsmotion” (13). Has any other, more recent, technological advance actually changed humans’ perceptions of timeand space? Which one? How so? Did this technology alter time and space as radically as the railroad did? Or was it merely an extension and/or expansion of the changes that began with the railroad?6.There are literally hundreds of versions of the song “John Henry.” Each has its own take on the story of the manwho beat the steam drill.a.Research the history of the building of Big Bend tunnel, in Talcott, West Virginia, where the ‘real’ JohnHenry (if there was one) is said to have worked. You might look into the system of convict leasing or slaveleasing, the methods that the C&O Railroad used to blast the rock, or the working conditions of theworkers. You might look into theories about who the real John Henry was, and what his life was like. Thenchoose two or more versions of the song and craft a thesis statement about either their differences or commonalities, and how they relate to the history they’re portraying. Do the songs capture the realities of the lives of the railroad workers? Does one version capture this reality better than another? If so, how so? If not, why not? Feel free to take into account the music as well as the lyrics. One of your sources should becultural source about the version(s) of the song you choose or biographical source(s) about its singer. b.Research the phenomenon of the song and its many versions. How many different versions are there? Whendid the first version appear? What have music scholars and sociologists discovered about the differentversions of the song and how they’ve been handed down and altered over time? What does the fact thatthere are so many different versions of this song teach us about our country? What can the songs’ manyversions teach us about the place of the railroads in American mythology? About the country’s relationshipto slavery? To African-American culture? To technology? To humanity?

In her essay, “When I Was a Child,” Housekeeping author Marilynne Robinson describes several of the storiesfrom classics and history--“the intellectual culture of my childhood”--that she used to craft the character of Ruth: “Carthage sown with salt and the sowing of dragon’s teeth which sprouted into armed men...EmilyDickinson and the Bible...there are not many references in Housekeeping to sources other than these few,” shewrites (13). Research one of these intellectual influences in some depth in order to identify its place inHousekeeping. What does this story/poem/history/character teach you about Housekeeping, and what doesHousekeeping teach you about this source? What other works of literature have used these stories, and to whateffect? How does Robinson build upon these other works? [If you choose Emily Dickinson, choose one or two poems to focus on, and make sure that at least one of your outside sources is a text of literary criticism aboutDickinson and/or a source of biographical/historical information about Dickinson’s life and times. In the case of the Bible, chose one story (Ruth and Naomi, e.g., or Noah and the ark) and make sure that at least one of your outside sources is a text of scholarship about the Bible and its literary/historical context.]8.When Barry Lopez’s “Flight” was first published in 1995 (in Harper’s magazine, as “On the Wings of Commerce”), the Boeing 747 was “the one airplane every national airline strives to include in its fleet asconfirmation of its place in modern commerce.”