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National Imagination: Week 1 |
Week One: Anthems. The first day of a new class is typically spent listening to the professor introduce him/herself and sitting in a lecture listening to all the things you will learn and be expected to do over the course of the semester. Not so here. Students begin the course by listening to national anthems from different countries.
"In the first class we always have the problem that students haven't done any reading yet and we want them to understand and be actively engaged about the subject matter without us droning on," explains Professor Marvin D'Lugo. So, D'Lugo and his two co-professors begin class by discussing Benedict's Anderson's Imagined Communities, about communities that identify themselves in ways that are not simply static nation states. "In the text, Anderson has a section on anthems where he talks about the sense that you may never know any other members of the community, but you have a feeling that when you're singing the national anthem you are singing along with other people like you," says D'Lugo. Then we ask students to talk as a group about the meaning of anthems. They explore questions about affiliation, engagement and involvement.
Among the anthems played are:
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Additional Resources
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Professor Marvin D'Lugo |
Professor Alice Valentine |
Visual Culture Project image |
Professor Michael Spingler |
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