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American Culture
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What is American Culture?

American culture is one of the most expansive and contested subjects in academic study, examined across disciplines including sociology, history, media studies, literature, and political science. Its academic appeal lies in the tension between a shared national identity and the enormous diversity of regional, ethnic, and generational experiences that shape everyday American life. Because the United States has long functioned as both a cultural producer and a global influence, students are regularly asked to analyze how values, norms, and narratives are created, challenged, and exported across borders and generations.

The papers archived on this topic reflect a wide range of approaches. Some take a media-focused lens, examining how television, reality TV, and figures like Walt Disney have shaped moral standards and public behavior. Others use literary analysis, with works like To Kill a Mockingbird serving as entry points into deeper cultural arguments. Historical and ethnographic approaches appear as well, including explorations of Algonquin tribal influence and early French contact in Michigan. Several papers move into policy and sociological territory, addressing topics such as divorce, heteronormativity, emotional literacy, and the cross-border influence of American culture on Canadian politics.

A strong essay on American culture requires a focused, arguable thesis rather than a broad survey of everything "American." The most effective papers isolate a specific cultural product, event, or phenomenon and use it to make a larger claim about national values or social patterns. Primary sources, case studies, and concrete examples carry more analytical weight than generalizations. The most common pitfall to avoid is treating American culture as monolithic — strong essays acknowledge complexity and contradiction rather than presenting a single, unified narrative.

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Research Paper Undergraduate

Dialectical and transcendental phenomenology: approaches to experience

¶ … philosophers have spouted doctrinal differences and a wide variety of theories that tend to relate such differences in more concrete terms. Currently many of these theories are still studied, discussed in a vigorous…

Paper Doctorate

Is cultural relativism a convincing moral theory?

Abstract: Order # A 2060087: Morality and Culture The focus of this paper is to determine the relationship between morality and culture. In other words it deals with the question: Is morality relative to culture? Proponents of so called "cultural relativism", sometimes also called "moral relativism" or "ethical relativism" argue that different cultures obtain varying moral codes. If there is no transcendent moral or ethical standard, then often culture arguably seems to become the ethical norm for determining whether an action is right or wrong (see Anderson: 1). Culture and cultural dimensions are considered the collective horizon representing a specific social reality. American anthropologist and cultural relativist Ruth Benedict in Patterns of Culture (1934) said: "Morality differs in every society and is a convenient term for socially approved habits". The paper shows that "cultural relativism" - though it has some strong arguments - is a concept which is false because of its many shortcomings. It will show that the notion cannot be lived out consistently. The strongest discrepancy between the concept and reality is that there are universal moral standards that can exist even if some practices and beliefs vary from one culture to another.

Paper Undergraduate

The American dream and God's dream: are they compatible?

The American Dream and God's Dream: Are they Compatible?

Research Paper Undergraduate

Racism and injustice in John Grisham's "A Time to Kill"

The story is about human intolerance at different levels, seen through the prism of chaotic maladies that affect modern society, in a time when they are supposed to have been overcome.

Essay Doctorate

Twitter as a rising force in American culture

The capacity of a media artifact to truly transform American culture is far less likely than the capacity for that artifact to become a blip on the radar screen. However, there are a select few instances of media artifacts extending far beyond the generally-allotted fifteen minutes of fame and moving into the realm of game-changing cultural phenomena. Such an instance can be seen in the creation of the social networking site, Twitter, which has quickly become a staple in American society. From politicians to comedians, clergymen to school-teachers, this media application has been significantly embraced and has taken the world – and particularly the American population – by storm. Its rooting in the field of communication allows observers to understand the depth of which Twitter has changed American society and culture, and can be understood further in the the field of communication through many different theories, including that of symbolic convergence.

Research Paper Undergraduate

Social work practice with a Taiwanese family experiencing mental retardation

This work examines the case study of a Taiwanese Family in which one of the children, Po-Sheng, 23 years of age, has mild mental retardation. This family is experiencing frustration and angst because Po-Sheng feels that…

Paper Undergraduate

Sexual representation in American television and film by race

Television and film have been linked to the expression of sexual mores ever since their first incorporation into American culture in the first and middle parts of the 20th century, respectively.

Research Paper Undergraduate

Charles W. Chesnutt's critique of racial stereotypes in the Marrow of Tradition

The American experience is varied and includes both the good and bad aspects of American life, and both elements are reflected in American literature as well. The experience of black Americans is expressed most fully by…

Essay Doctorate

New York Times coverage of Obama's policy on young undocumented immigrants

Immigration is a fundamental element of American history. Centuries ago, immigration was not the issue that it is in the 21st century. There is a very small percentage of Americans that can trace their heritage back to the beginning of the country without at least one family member or even generation of family that are not immigrants. Around the turn of the 20th century, with the advent of industrialization and the mass exodus from numerous countries into the United States, immigration has been a white, hot point of contention in American culture and American media. The focus of this paper is a very recent article in The New York Times about President Obama's decision to allow a specific demographic of illegal immigrants to remain the country legally providing them opportunities to obtain legal documentation, attend institutions of higher education, and work without fear of sudden deportation.

Alcoholism as a contagious and curable disease

"The development and practice of alcoholism is an integral and presently unavoidable aspect of American culture (Wilcox, 1998)." This statement, made by an expert on Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), is a perfect description…

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