A. Preliminary Readings and Early Origins

• 1. Drawing upon E.T. Kirby's essay on "The Shamanistic Origins of Popular Entertainments,” explain the meaning of "Shamanism” and how it relates to more modern forms of popular entertainment. Which entertainments are most closely related to shamanism?
  
  
• 2. Discuss briefly three or more of the seven broad categories of popular scenography as outlined by Brooks McNamara in his essay on this topic and respond to them based on your own personal experience of seeing similar spaces in use.
  
  
• 3. According to Muriel Broadman Lobl, Punch and Judy today has been largely relegated to the area of children's entertainment--and even then older children are bored by it. Why has this change occurred after so many years of acceptance by young and old alike?

B. Environmental Entertainments: Carnival, Side Show, Amusement Park

• 1. Discuss, in general terms, the social structure and stratification system of the average carnival according to Patrick C. Easto and Marcello Truzzi in their essay, "Towards an Ethnography of the Carnival Social System.”
  
  
• 2. In a few sentences, distinguish what seems to be Bogdan's thesis in Freak Show as contrasted to the point of view of Leslie Fiedler in his essay "The Fascination of Freaks.”
  
  
• 3. Drawing on Richard W. Flint's "Meet Me in Dreamland” and Kasson's Amusing the Million, briefly outline the greater, social significance of the amusement park phenomenon at the turn of the century.
  
  
• What is your response to Hiassen's negative "read" of Disney World? Have you a counter reaction?
  

C. Dime Museum, Medicine Show, Circus, Wild West 1. Drawing on A.H. Saxon's article on Barnum's American Museum, discuss the various kinds of "entertainment” offered in the Lecture Room. 2. According to McNamara (in Step Right Up), describe the predecessors of American medicine showmen. 3. With Truzzi or other circus sources as authorities, select one important aspect of American circus's development and write a well-developed, one-paragraph essay. 4. Some experts see Cody's extravaganza as a many-layered vehicle for conveying history, romantic fantasies, and political ideologies. Drawing on your readings on the Wild West, expand on this thesis in an essay of a paragraph or two.

D. Variety Entertainment: Minstrel Show and Music Hall

• 1. Joseph Boskin in Sambo (not read) discusses the larger meanings ofthe minstrel show (i.e., the reflection of white attitudes), and cites two differing perspectives, e.g., Robert Toll and William Stowe and David Grimsted. From your reading of the essays on minstrelsy explain in a nutshell various approaches to the minstrel show.
  
  
• 2. In his introduction to the British music hall, Peter Bailey suggests that the form is "culture for the people not of the people.” What does this mean and how does it challenge the older established version of music hall?
  
  
• 3. Discuss at least two of the major music hall performers and their specialties as analyzed by Laurence Senelick in "A Brief Life and Times of the Victorian Music-Hall.”

These are only suggestions; find your own approach to these and other readings assigned (or bring in other materials you find or encounter from other sources).