American Studies (AMST)
Director: Professor Richard A. Keiser
Professor: Elizabeth McKinsey
Assistant Professor: Adriana Estill
Committee Members: Sharon Atsuko Akimoto, Barbara Allen, Deborah Appleman, Peter Balaam, Laurel Bradley, Lawrence E. Burnett, Nancy J. Cho, Clifford E. Clark, Jr., Carol Donelan, Jennifer Everett, Gregory G. Hewett, Anna Rachel Igra, Baird E. Jarman, Kirk Jeffrey, Mark T. Kanazawa, Stephen K. Kelly, Michael J. Kowalewski, Jerome M. Levi, Lance T. McCready, Michael McNally, Beverly Nagel, Annette Nierobisz, Kofi Owusu, Ronald W. Rodman, Melinda Russell, John F. Schott, Kimberly R. Smith, William Terriquez, Robert G. Tisdale, Jenny Bourne Wahl, Ruth Weiner, Harry M. Williams, Serena R. Zabin
This program is designed to encourage and support the interdisciplinary study of American culture. It draws upon the expertise of faculty in various disciplines and strives to understand the institutions, values, and beliefs that have shaped the experiences of U.S. residents. Recognizing the diverse and pluralistic nature of our society, the American Studies program enables the student to construct an interdisciplinary major around topics of the student's own choice such as urban studies, ethnicity, media, religion, gender roles, environmental thought or some other aspect of the American experience. The program supports interdisciplinary courses taught by Carleton faculty and it brings to campus nationally known visiting artists and scholars under the auspices of the Fred C. Andersen Foundation.
Requirements for a Major:
American Studies is an interdisciplinary major which a student constructs from offerings in two or more departments of instruction. To major in American Studies students must fill out an application form that can be obtained in the American Studies office in Goodsell Observatory. The form asks students to specify the general topic or focus of the major and the disciplines which seem most appropriate for study of that topic.
Majors must complete 66 credits (eleven courses) in the following general areas:
I. Core Courses: Each student must complete all four of these:
AMST 115 Introduction to American Studies
AMST 345 Theory and Practice of American Studies
AMST 396 Junior Research Seminar
AMST 400 Colloquium and Integrative Exercise in American Studies
American Studies 115 is a prerequisite for 345 and 396.
II. Survey Courses:
Students must take three survey courses. Two of these three survey courses should be part of a two-term sequence in one department. The third survey course should be a one-term course in a different department. Because the entire range of these survey courses is not offered every year, students should consult the online catalog and plan accordingly.
Two-term survey courses:
HIST 120-121 American Social History
HIST 220-221 African American History I and II
HIST 222-223 U.S. Women's History (not offered in 2005-2006)
POSC 271-272 Constitutional Law I and II
One-term survey courses:
ARTH 160 American Art to 1940 (not offered in 2005-2006)
CAMS 135 History of American Film
ECON 232 American Economic History (not offered in 2005-2006)
ENGL 112 Introduction to American Literature
POSC 122 Politics in America: Liberty and Equality
RELG 140 Religion and American Culture (not offered in 2005-2006)
III. Topical Courses: Each student must take four courses that deal with elements of the American experience that he or she has determined are central to a particular focus within the major. Courses that will fulfill this requirement are listed under three groups. No more than one of these courses may be a 100-level course. (Survey courses above and beyond those used to satisfy the required one-term and two-term sequences may count as a Topical Course.) No more than two Topical Courses may be from the same group. Students must take courses from at least two groups. In order that majors acquire the research skills necessary to complete the major, one of these four courses must be a 300-level course.
IV. Integrative Exercise: A senior may choose:
a. Essay or Project Option: a 35-40 page essay on an approved topic; or an approved project (e.g., a critical documentary, radio narrative, web design project, performance piece, or service learning project) accompanied by a 15-20 page essay. Open only to students who enroll in AMST 400 winter term.
b. Examination Option: A written examination given early in spring term.
American Studies Courses
AMST 115. Introduction to American Studies: The Immigrant Experience Is America truly a nation of immigrants? What role has immigration played in the construction of an American identity? This course is a team-taught, comparative study of the experience of migrants and immigrants to America and other countries. We will use texts from history, literature, film, sociology, and other disciplines to help us investigate the following topics: the causes of emigration; acculturation and assimilation; changes in family structure and gender roles; discrimination; and ongoing debates about immigration policy in relation to national ideals and principles. 6 credits cr., RAD,ND, Spring—C. Clark, B. Nagel
AMST 115. Introduction to American Studies: Placing Identities This course will examine the different spaces that inform the production of U.S. identities. We will think about the ways the construction of neighborhoods (urban or suburban) affects our sense of place, ethnicity, and community; we'll consider the impact that border geographies, whether physical or cultural, have on national imaginings; we shall look at contemporary cultural expressions of small town vs. big city life and consider what they feature as particular and unique about Americanness. 6 credits cr., ND, Fall—A. Estill, R. Keiser
AMST 127. Introduction to U.S. Latino/a Studies
This course will survey the field of Latino/a Studies, juxtaposing it to Chicano, Caribbean and Latin American Studies in order to trace the historical, methodological, and paradigmatic conflicts that led to its institutionalization. How does the lens of U.S. Latino/a Studies help us to examine heterogeneous and changing Latino communities? How are the "Latin Boom" of the entertainment industry and the recent demographic shift that places Latinos as the "majority minority" related? A selection of texts from a variety of disciplines (including history, the social sciences, literature, music, and the visual arts) will inform our discussions. 6 cr., RAD,ND, Winter—A. Estill
AMST 230. The American Sublime: Landscape, Character & National Destiny in Nineteenth Century America
Focusing on the early nineteenth century struggle to create an American nation and a national culture, we will look at the ways Americans adopted and adapted European ideas, particularly the aesthetic idea of the Sublime, in their attempt to come to terms with the conquest of the new land and its native inhabitants and with the nature of their national enterprise. Writers Irving, Cooper, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, Whitman, and Dickinson and painters Cole, Bierstadt, Church, Kensett, and Lane will be included. Major themes will include attitudes towards landscape and settlement, a distinctively American character, the nature and utility of art, and ideas of American empire. Not open to students who have taken American Studies 396, Sublime in America. 6 cr., AL, Spring—E. McKinsey
AMST 239. Introduction to Asian American Studies This team-taught course is designed as an interdisciplinary study of Asian American identities and cultures. We will address the diversity and fluidity of Asian American experiences through an examination of history, social sciences, literature, and film. Students of all majors and backgrounds are welcome to enroll. 6 credits cr., RAD,ND, Not offered in 2005-2006.
AMST 240. The Midwest and the American Imagination The history of American culture has always been shaped by a dialectic between the local and the universal, the regional and the national. The particular geography and history of the Midwest (the prairie, the plains, the old Northwest, Native Americans and white adventurers, settlers and immigrants) have shaped its livelihoods, its identities, its meanings. Focusing on the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this course will explore literature, art history, and the social and cultural history of the Midwest. 6 credits cr., AL, Not offered in 2005-2006.
AMST 287. Califonia Program: California Art and Visual Culture An in-depth exploration of the dynamic relationship between the arts and popular conceptions of California: whether as bountiful utopia, suburban paradise, or multicultural frontier. The course will include discussions with California artists and art historians, and visits to museums and galleries. Art and artists studied will include: native rock art; paintings by Bierstadt, Nahl, the California Impressionists, the Society of Six, Diebenkorn and urban muralists; photography by Adams, Weston, Lange, and Misrach; the imagery of commercial culture (lithographs; advertisements; orange crate labels); and architecture by Maybeck, Morgan, and the Greene Brothers. To be offered summer 2006. 6 credits cr., ND, Not offered in 2005-2006.
AMST 289. California Program: California Field Studies Students will participate in a number of field trips dealing with California's history, literature, and environment. Sites visited will include Yosemite, Sutter's Fort, the Modoc Lava Beds, California Indian Museum, Teatro Campesino, Hearst Castle and Catalina Island. Students will also complete an oral culture project. To be offered summer 2006. 4 credits cr., S/CR/NC, ND, Not offered in 2005-2006.
AMST 290. California Program: Directed Reading Students will do some preparatory reading on California history, literature and art before the seminar begins and then again throughout the program, in connection with field trips and guest speakers. To be offered summer 2006. 2 credits cr., S/CR/NC, ND, Not offered in 2005-2006.
AMST 310. Driving America? The Impact of the Automobile on U.S. Society Students will investigate the impact of the automobile on American society. We will use a multidisciplinary approach that will include the impact of the auto on political economy, the built landscape, our environment, music, film, literature and social capital. Students will be responsible for an interdisciplinary research paper. Seminar format. Prerequisite: American Studies 115. 6 credits cr., ND, Not offered in 2005-2006.
AMST 345. Theory and Practice of American Studies Introduction to some of the animating debates within American Studies from the 1930s to the present. We will study select themes, theories, and methodologies in the writings of a number of scholars in the field and try to understand 1) the often highly contested nature of debates about how best to study American culture; and 2) how various theories and forms of analysis in American Studies have evolved and transformed themselves over the last seventy years. The course is not designed to be a fine-grained institutional history of American Studies, but a vigorous exploration of some of the central questions of interpretation in the field. Normally taken by majors in their junior year. 6 credits cr., ND, Winter—E. McKinsey
AMST 386. California Program: The Literature of California An intensive study of writing and film that explores California both as a place (or rather, a mosaic of places) and as a continuing metaphorwhether of promise or disintegrationfor the rest of the country. Authors read will include Jack London, John Muir, Raymond Chandler, Nathanael West, Robinson Jeffers, John Steinbeck, Jack Kerouac, Joan Didion, and Maxine Hong Kingston. Films will include Sunset Boulevard, Chinatown, The Grapes of Wrath, Zoot Suit, and Blade Runner. English Group IV. To be offered summer 2006. 6 credits cr., AL, Not offered in 2005-2006.
AMST 396. Junior Research Seminar in American Studies An interdisciplinary course taught by a single member of the American Studies faculty, designed to introduce students to theories and methods in American Studies as they relate to a particular topic of inquiry. The course will encourage students to explore the various, sometimes conflicting ways in which a cultural or political phenomenon has been interpreted by a number of different disciplines. The course will include both primary and secondary texts, and will involve significant research work by students. Normally taken by majors in spring of the junior year. In 2005-2006 the topic of this seminar will be: Not offered in 2005-2006.
AMST 396. Beauty Matters: Raced Beauty in the United States This course examines the production of beauty values and ideals for women of color in the United States during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Historical, literary, psychological, cultural, and sociological literatures help us understand the beauty politics unique to women of color. We will pay special attention to contemporary mass media's influence in the determination of community aesthetics and in the economy of beauty. Prerequisite: American Studies 345 or permission of the instructor. 6 credits cr., ND, Spring—A. Estill
AMST 400. Colloquium and Integrative Exercise The colloquium will meet as a research seminar, providing a structured environment for seniors working on approved essays or projects in American Studies. It will build upon the research experience of the senior seminar, and prepare students for the independent production of theses or performances to satisfy the college "comps" requirement. Students will be evaluated for this course upon completion of the senior integrative exercise. They will be required to give a public presentation on their research during the spring term. 6 credits cr., S/NC, ND, Winter—R. Keiser
Topical Courses: