For Final Project Option#3, you will watch The Jazz Singer.
You’ll write a 10-12 page paper about some aspect of The Jazz Singer.
The Jazz Singer was a monumental film. The first “talkie,” aka film with a synchronous soundtrack, it marked the industry’s shift out the silent era. But The Jazz Singer’s message was interesting in itself–it centered on the common theme of intergenerational conflict. Different approaches to American popular culture were the staging ground for this conflict.
How does The Jazz Singer depict the tensions over American popular culture and religious tradition? Does the main character resolve these tensions? [You can also talk about how the film frames the “Old World” and the “New World,” or various characters being “stuck” in the Old World]
The Complicated Legacy of “The Jazz Singer” – (Travalanche)
How can you accomplish writing a paper like this?
First Steps:
Look at the “raw data”
Examine the primary source materials and consider the following questions: What do you see? What do you not understand? Is there anything you find interesting? How does the raw data reflect its context–people, time, place, etc.?
Is there a specific subtopic of the raw data you find interesting?–gender norms, class, sexuality, etc. Consider writing about a subtopic idea.
Try designing a big question about the “raw data”
Some possible question look like:
“How did popular culture do X or Y for America Jews?”
“How did X or Y piece of popular culture reflect the norms of American popular culture?”
“How did X or Y piece of popular culture reflect a negotiation between Jewish and American values and norms?”
Consider this resource
And this one
Exploring how the raw data answers the question you posed: what does it show? what does it not show?
Explore how other scholars have addressed your same raw data, similar raw data, or the context surrounding it… I will address this more later in the semester.
PLEASE SEE ATTACHMENTS FOR THE SOURCES YOU MUST USE
