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Courses

Fall 2009

  • 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; Arts and Literature; offered Fall 2009 -- A. Estill, E. McKinsey

  • AMST 226: Latinas in Hollywood

    Latinas have a long history in Hollywood, from silent films to J. Lo. We will examine how the presence of Latinas onscreen reflects the pressures and needs of different eras. We will think about the pressure to "pass" as white and compare that to the insistent stereotypes about Latinas circulated through film. Throughout the course we'll be attentive to the relationship between film and other media, between the U.S. and other countries. What are the linguistic, social, and economic conditions that enable a "cross-over" artist? And how do Latino/a literatures, documentaries, and performances respond to the film and television industries? Prerequisite: Spanish reading fluency a plus, but not required. 6; Arts and Literature, Recognition and Affirmation of Difference Requirement; offered Fall 2009 -- A. Estill

Winter 2010

  • 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; Arts and Literature; offered Winter 2010 -- E. McKinsey

  • 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. Prerequisite: American Studies 115. 6; Does not fulfill a distribution requirement; offered Winter 2010 -- 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 junior 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; S/NC; Does not fulfill a distribution requirement; offered Winter 2010 -- N. Cho

  • AMST 400: Integrative Exercise - Directed Reading

    Students read selected works and view films in the field of American Studies and in a narrow topic area designated by the program. For integrative exercise examination students only. 6; S/NC; Does not fulfill a distribution requirement; offered Winter 2010 -- Staff

Spring 2010

  • 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, psychology, 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; Humanities, Recognition and Affirmation of Difference Requirement; offered Spring 2010 -- C. Clark, N. Cho

  • 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. 6; Arts and Literature; offered Spring 2010 -- E. McKinsey

  • AMST 239: Introduction to Asian American Studies

    This 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; Recognition and Affirmation of Difference Requirement, Does not fulfill a distribution requirement; offered Spring 2010 -- N. Cho

  • AMST 396: Junior Research Seminar: American Empire

    This class will attempt to define the "American Empire" from its origins to the present. Treating the idea of empire both geographically and politically, we will examine how economic, social, political, and/or cultural sites of power come together to create an empire. This course will pay special attention to the roles that race, gender, and ethnicity play in the creation of an American empire. Using the methods of American studies and other disciplines, we will occasionally step back to ask how the field of American Studies itself contributes to our understanding of the American empire. Prerequisite: American Studies 345. 6; Does not fulfill a distribution requirement; offered Spring 2010 -- S. Zabin

Related Courses

Group I

AMST 226 Latinas in Hollywood

AMST 230 The American Sublime: Landscape, Character & National Destiny in Nineteenth Century America

AMST 238 Native American Literature (not offered in 2009-2010)

AMST 240 The Midwest and the American Imagination

AMST 261 Hip-Hop Media: Commercialization, Community and U.S. Culture (not offered in 2009-2010)

AMST 345 Theory and Practice of American Studies

ARTH 160 American Art to 1940 (not offered in 2009-2010)

ARTH 222 History of Photography (not offered in 2009-2010)

ARTH 240 Art Since 1945

ARTH 245 Modern Architecture

ARTH 247 Architecture Since 1950

ARTH 310 The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright (not offered in 2009-2010)

CAMS 215 American Film History (not offered in 2009-2010)

CAMS 229 Film Noir: The Dark Side of the American Dream

CAMS 241 History of American Broadcasting: From Wireless to the Web

ENGL 112 Introduction to American Literature

ENGL 117 African American Literature

ENGL 119 Introduction to U.S. Latino/a Literature (not offered in 2009-2010)

ENGL 227 Borderlands: Places and People (not offered in 2009-2010)

ENGL 234 Literature of the American South (not offered in 2009-2010)

ENGL 235 Asian American Literature (not offered in 2009-2010)

ENGL 236 American Nature Writing

ENGL 239 American Best-Sellers (not offered in 2009-2010)

ENGL 272 Truth vs. Power: A Journey in Journalism

ENGL 330 Literature of the American West (not offered in 2009-2010)

ENGL 331 American Transcendentalism (not offered in 2009-2010)

ENGL 332 Studies in American Literature: Faulkner, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald

ENGL 334 Studies in American Literature: The Postmodern American Novel (not offered in 2009-2010)

ENGL 336 Romance to Novel: Poe, Hawthorne, James (not offered in 2009-2010)

ENGL 339 Contemporary American Playwrights of Color (not offered in 2009-2010)

MUSC 115 Music and Film (not offered in 2009-2010)

MUSC 130 The History of Jazz

MUSC 131 The Blues From the Delta to Chicago (not offered in 2009-2010)

MUSC 137 Spiritual Hymns and Gospel Music: Aspects of African-American Music Traditions (not offered in 2009-2010)

MUSC 247 The U.S. Folk Music Revival (not offered in 2009-2010)

MUSC 330 Jazz History Seminar (not offered in 2009-2010)

THEA 242 Twentieth Century American Drama

THEA 252 African-American Theater (not offered in 2009-2010)

THEA 352 African-American Theater (not offered in 2009-2010)


Group II

AMST 127 Introduction to U.S. Latino/a Studies (not offered in 2009-2010)

AMST 250 Getting to Know Buffalo Bill Cody (not offered in 2009-2010)

AMST 396 Junior Research Seminar: American Empire

CAMS 310 Moviegoing and Film Exhibition in America

HIST 120 Rethinking the American Experience: American Social History, 1607-1865

HIST 121 Rethinking the American Experience: American Social History, 1865-1945

HIST 195 American Environmental History

HIST 200 The Zen of Asian and Western Woodworking (not offered in 2009-2010)

HIST 212 The Era of the American Revolution (not offered in 2009-2010)

HIST 213 The Age of Jefferson

HIST 217 From Ragtime to Football: U.S. History in the 1890s

HIST 220 African American History I

HIST 221 African American History II (not offered in 2009-2010)

HIST 222 U.S. Women's History to 1877 (not offered in 2009-2010)

HIST 223 U.S. Women's History Since 1877 (not offered in 2009-2010)

HIST 226 U.S. Consumer Culture

HIST 227 The American West (not offered in 2009-2010)

HIST 228 American Indian History (not offered in 2009-2010)

HIST 229 Gender and Work in U.S. History (not offered in 2009-2010)

HIST 279 American Intellectual History

HIST 306 Topics in Environmental History: America’s National Parks (not offered in 2009-2010)

HIST 322 Civil Rights and Black Power

HIST 324 The Concord Intellectuals (not offered in 2009-2010)

RELG 124 Jews and the American Experience (not offered in 2009-2010)

RELG 130 Native American Religions (not offered in 2009-2010)

RELG 140 Religion and American Culture (not offered in 2009-2010)

RELG 243 Native American Religious Freedom

RELG 249 Religion and American Public Life

RELG 322 Gender and God-Talk: Christian Feminist Theologies (not offered in 2009-2010)

RELG 344 Lived Religion in America (not offered in 2009-2010)


Group III

AMST 267 Utopia, Dystopia, and Myopia: The Suburbs in American Fiction (not offered in 2009-2010)

ECON 232 American Economic History: A Cliometric Approach (not offered in 2009-2010)

ECON 262 The Economics of Sports (not offered in 2009-2010)

ECON 271 Economics of Natural Resources and the Environment

ECON 273 Water and Western Economic Development (not offered in 2009-2010)

ECON 275 Law and Economics (not offered in 2009-2010)

ECON 395 Economics of Land, Water and the Environment

EDUC 225 Issues in Urban Education (not offered in 2009-2010)

EDUC 238 Multicultural Education: Race, Gender and Education

EDUC 336 History of African American Education (not offered in 2009-2010)

EDUC 344 Teenage Wasteland: Adolescence and the American High School

EDUC 353 Schooling and Opportunity in American Society (not offered in 2009-2010)

POSC 122 Politics in America: Liberty and Equality

POSC 201 National Policymaking (not offered in 2009-2010)

POSC 204 Media and American Politics: Special Election Edition (not offered in 2009-2010)

POSC 205 Issues in American Democracy (not offered in 2009-2010)

POSC 206 The American Courts (not offered in 2009-2010)

POSC 207 Urban Politics in a Global Era

POSC 213 Labor Politics in a Global Age (not offered in 2009-2010)

POSC 216 The Initiative, Referendum and Public Policy

POSC 219 Protest, Power & Grassroots Organizing: American Social Movements

POSC 220 Politics and Political History in Film (not offered in 2009-2010)

POSC 224 Migration Politics: Asian American and Latino Experiences (not offered in 2009-2010)

POSC 231 American Foreign Policy (not offered in 2009-2010)

POSC 257 American Environmental Thought (not offered in 2009-2010)

POSC 271 Constitutional Law I

POSC 272 Constitutional Law II

POSC 273 Citizen and Immigration Politics (not offered in 2009-2010)

POSC 275 Identity Politics in America: Ethnicity, Gender, Religion (not offered in 2009-2010)

POSC 305 Issues in American Democracy* (not offered in 2009-2010)

POSC 306 How Race Matters in American Politics* (not offered in 2009-2010)

POSC 308 Poverty and Public Policy* (not offered in 2009-2010)

POSC 309 The American Presidency*

POSC 311 Topics in Constitutional Law*

POSC 313 Labor Politics in a Global Age* (not offered in 2009-2010)

POSC 316 The Initiative, Referendum and Public Policy*

POSC 329 Vietnam, Iraq, and American Policy* (not offered in 2009-2010)

POSC 346 Spies, Rogues and Statesmen: Intelligence and the Formation of Foreign Policy* (not offered in 2009-2010)

POSC 351 Political Theory of Martin Luther King, Jr.* (not offered in 2009-2010)

POSC 352 Political Theory of Alexis de Tocqueville* (not offered in 2009-2010)

POSC 355 Contemporary Feminist Thought: Identity, Culture and Rights* (not offered in 2009-2010)

POSC 367 Suburbanization in America* (not offered in 2009-2010)

PSYC 384 Psychology of Prejudice

SOAN 220 Class, Power, and Inequality in America (not offered in 2009-2010)

SOAN 221 Law and Society (not offered in 2009-2010)

SOAN 259 Comparative Issues in Native North America (not offered in 2009-2010)

SOAN 302 Anthropology and Indigenous Rights