American Studies (AMST)
Director: Professor Michael J. Kowalewski
Associate Director: Associate Professor Richard Keiser
Professor: Elizabeth McKinsey
Assistant Professor: Adriana Estill
Committee Members: Sharon Akimoto, Barbara Allen, Deborah Appleman, Peter Balaam, Laurel Bradley, Lawrence Burnett, Theo Cateforis, Nancy J. Cho, Clifford E. Clark, Jr., Carol Donelan, Anna Rachel Igra, Baird Jarman, Kirk Jeffrey, Mark Kanazawa, Richard A. Keiser, Stephen K. Kelly, Jerome M. Levi, Lance T. McCready, Michael McNally, Beverly Nagel, Annette Nierobisz, Kofi Owusu, Melinda Russell, Ronald W. Rodman, John Schott, Lauren Soth, William Terriquez, Robert E. Tisdale, Jenny Bourne Wahl, Ruth Weiner, Harry M. Williams, Serena 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 conducted 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. In the winter of their junior year, students will be asked to secure the signatures of two faculty, one from each of the supporting disciplines, who will agree to supervise their Integrative Exercise.
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: Senior Seminar in American Studies
AMST 400: Colloquium and Integrative Exercise in American Studies
Beginning with the Class of 2006, 115 will be 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.
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
POSC 271-272: Constitutional Law I and II
One-term survey courses:
ARTH 160: American Art to 1940 (not offered in 20032004)
ECON 232: American Economic History (not offered in 20032004)
ENGL 112: Introduction to American Literature
MEDA 135: History of American Film (not offered in 20032004)
POSC 122: Politics in America: Liberty and Equality
RELG 140: Religion and American Culture
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. In order that majors acquire the research skills necessary to complete the major, one of these courses must be a 300-level course.
American Studies Courses
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., RAD,ND, WinterA. 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 credits cr., RAD,ND, FallA. Estill
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 2003-2004.
AMST 287. Califonia Program: California Art and Architecture Cross-listed with ENTS 287. An in-depth study of how California painting, photography and architecture embody the state's evolving social, cultural, and environmental concerns. 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 spray-can 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. 6 credits cr., ND, Not offered in 2003-2004.
AMST 289. California Program: California Field Studies Students will participate in a number of fieldtrips 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. 4 credits cr., S/CR/NC, ND, Not offered in 2003-2004.
AMST 345. Theory and Practice of American Studies An introduction to some of the animating debates within American Studies from the 1930s to the present. This course 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. This course will normally be taken by majors in their junior year. 6 credits cr., ND, WinterM. Kowalewski
AMST 386. California Program: The Literature of California Cross-listed with ENGL 386,ENTS 386. 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, Gary Snyder, and Maxine Hong Kingston. Films will include Sunset Boulevard, Chinatown, The Grapes of Wrath, Zoot Suit, L.A. Confidential, and Blade Runner. 6 credits cr., AL, Not offered in 2003-2004.
AMST 396. The Sublime in America Through the lens of late 18th-century European aesthetic ideas (particularly "the Sublime"), we will examine American literature, art history, cultural and intellectual history and explore the development of American national identity and American exceptionalism in the early national period and the early 19th century. Writers may include Irving, Cooper, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, and Whitman, and painters Cole, Church, Bierstadt, Heade, and Lane will be included; major themes will be attitudes toward American landscape, American character, and concepts of American nationhood and its destiny in the pre-Civil War period. 6 credits cr., ND, FallE. McKinsey
AMST 396. Senior 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 for students preparing to work on the senior integrative exercise in the following term. This seminar will normally be taken by majors in their senior year. In 2003-2004 the topic of this seminar will be: Not offered in 2003-2004.
AMST 400. Colloquium and Integrative Exercise The colloquium will meet as a research seminar, providing a structured environment for seniors working on their integrative exercise 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, WinterM. Kowalewski
Topical Courses:
Group I
AFAM 233: A Study of the Harlem Renaissance through Literature, Music and Dance (not offered in 20032004)
AMST 287: California Program: California Art and Architecture (not offered in 20032004)
AMST 386: California Program: The Literature of California (not offered in 20032004)
ARTH 160: American Art to 1940 (not offered in 20032004)
ARTH 222: History of Photography
ARTH 240: Art Since 1945
ARTH 245: Modern Architecture (not offered in 20032004)
ARTH 247: Architecture Since 1950
DANC 114: Black Dance: An Historical Survey
ENGL 112: Introduction to American Literature
ENGL 117: African American Literature
ENGL 119: Introduction to U.S. Latino/a Literature
ENGL 230: African American Autobiography
ENGL 231: From Memory to Memoir
ENGL 234: Southern Literature
ENGL 235: Asian American Literature
ENGL 236: American Nature Writing (not offered in 20032004)
ENGL 237: American Indian Literature (not offered in 20032004)
ENGL 242: 20th-Century American Drama (not offered in 20032004)
ENGL 330: Literature of the American West (not offered in 20032004)
ENGL 332: Studies in American Literature: Faulkner, Hemingway and Fitzgerald
ENGL 334: Studies in American Literature: The Postmodern American Novel
ENGL 339: Contemporary American Playwrights of Color
ENGL 340: Major Modernist Poets (not offered in 20032004)
ENGL 341: Contemporary Poetry
ENGL 342: Contemporary Latino/a Poetry
ENGL 395: Literature, Authority and Social Change
ENGL 395: Moby-Dick and Its Contexts
ENGL 395: Toni Morrison: Nobel Laureate
MEDA 135: History of American Film (not offered in 20032004)
MEDA 227: Open the Box: Studies in Television
MEDA 228: Rethinking the Fifties Through Film, Television and Photography
MEDA 229: Outsiders Cinema: Fiction Film (not offered in 20032004)
MEDA 234: Film Noir: The Dark Side of the American Dream
MEDA 252: Understanding New Media
MEDA 280: The Cinema of Stanley Kubrick (not offered in 20032004)
MEDA 281: The Cinema of Martin Scorsese (not offered in 20032004)
MEDA 282: Hitchcock: The Classic Films (not offered in 20032004)
MEDA 283: Capra and Wilder: Sweet and Sour (not offered in 20032004)
MUSC 115: Music and the Media (not offered in 20032004)
MUSC 130: History of Jazz
MUSC 131: From the Delta to Memphis
MUSC 132: Music of the 1960s
MUSC 133: Bluegrass and Country-Western Music (not offered in 20032004)
MUSC 136: History of Rock
MUSC 137: Spiritual Hymns and Gospel Music: Aspects of the African-American Musical Traditions
MUSC 244: Native American Music (not offered in 20032004)
SPAN 245: Hybrid Cultures: Introduction to U.S. Latino Literature (not offered in 20032004)
Group II
AMST 127: Introduction to U.S. Latino/a Studies
AMST 239: Introduction to Asian American Studies (not offered in 20032004)
HIST 119: Frontiers in Early America (not offered in 20032004)
HIST 120: Rethinking the American Experience: American Social History 1607-1865
HIST 121: Rethinking the American Experience: American Social History 1865-1945
HIST 190: Technology in American History (not offered in 20032004)
HIST 195: American Environmental History
HIST 200: The Zen of Asian and Western Woodworking (not offered in 20032004)
HIST 212: The American Revolution
HIST 213: The Early American Republic
HIST 214: Civil War Era (not offered in 20032004)
HIST 218: History, Memory, and the Vietnam War
HIST 220: African American History I
HIST 221: African American History II
HIST 222: U.S. Women's History to 1877 (not offered in 20032004)
HIST 223: U.S. Women's History Since 1877 (not offered in 20032004)
HIST 227: History of the American West (not offered in 20032004)
HIST 229: Gender and Work in U.S. History
HIST 279: American Intellectual History (not offered in 20032004)
HIST 301: Contact and Frontiers in Early America (not offered in 20032004)
HIST 305: Topics in American Environmental History
HIST 322: The Civil Rights Movement in America, 1942-1965
HIST 324: The Concord Intellectuals (not offered in 20032004)
HIST 345: Atlantic Revolutions, France and America (not offered in 20032004)
HIST 381: History, Memory and Black Atlantic: Ghana and the United States
HIST 382: History, Memory and Black Atlantic: On-site in Ghana and Revisited
HIST 395: United States in Depression and War 1929-1945
HIST 395: Topics in African American History (not offered in 20032004)
HIST 395: The Progressive Era (not offered in 20032004)
RELG 130: Native American Religions
RELG 135: Introduction to African American Religion
RELG 140: Religion and American Culture
RELG 239: Religion and the American Landscape
RELG 243: Native American Religious Freedom
RELG 246: Healing and Religion in America (not offered in 20032004)
RELG 248: Religions in the Borderlands
RELG 322: Christian Feminist Theologies (not offered in 20032004)
RELG 344: Lived Religion in America
Group III
ECON 232: American Economic History (not offered in 20032004)
ECON 262: The Economics of Sports (not offered in 20032004)
ECON 271: Economics of Natural Resources and the Environment (not offered in 20032004)
ECON 273: Water and Western Economic Development
ECON 275: Law and Economics
ECON 395: Economics of Land, Water and Environment
EDUC 260: Gender, Sexuality and Schooling
EDUC 264: Middle School and the Young Adolescent
EDUC 270: Brown Vs. Board of Education: Decision and Legacy
EDUC 336: History of African American Education (not offered in 20032004)
EDUC 338: Multicultural Education
EDUC 344: Youth, Culture, and Schooling in American Society
EDUC 353: Schooling and Opportunity
ENTS 265: Environmental Justice
POSC 122: Politics in America: Liberty and Equality
POSC 201: National Policymaking (not offered in 20032004)
POSC 204: Media and American Politics: Special Election Edition (not offered in 20032004)
POSC 205: Congress and the Presidency (not offered in 20032004)
POSC 206: The American Courts (not offered in 20032004)
POSC 207: Urban Politics
POSC 215: Federalism, State and Local Politics (not offered in 20032004)
POSC 231: American Foreign Policy
POSC 252: American Political Thought (not offered in 20032004)
POSC 257: American Environmental Thought
POSC 262: Environmental Policy and Politics (not offered in 20032004)
POSC 269: U.S. and U.K. Philanthropy: Politics, Policy, and Practice (not offered in 20032004)
POSC 271: Constitutional Law I
POSC 272: Constitutional Law II
POSC 305: Issues in American Democracy (not offered in 20032004)
POSC 306: Urban Racial and Ethnic Politics (not offered in 20032004)
POSC 308: Poverty and Public Policy
POSC 309: The American Presidency
POSC 311: Topics in Constitutional Law (not offered in 20032004)
POSC 312: American Political Culture and Values: Special Election Edition(not offered in 20032004)
POSC 314: Money in Politics (not offered in 20032004)
POSC 318: The American Farm (not offered in 20032004)
POSC 329: Vietnam War and American Policy (not offered in 20032004)
POSC 349: Race Theory: Contemporary Approaches
POSC 351: Political Theory of Martin Luther King, Jr.
POSC 352: Political Theory of Alexis de Tocqueville (not offered in 20032004)
POSC 353: Feminist and American Separatist Movements (not offered in 20032004)
POSC 355: Contemporary Feminist Thought
POSC 359: Social Capital: Critical and Cross-Cultural Perspectives
POSC 367: Suburbanization in America
PSYC 384: Psychology of Prejudice (not offered in 20032004)
SOAN 220: Class, Power and Inequality in America
SOAN 221: Law and Society (not offered in 20032004)
SOAN 222: Work and Occupations in Contemporary Society (not offered in 20032004)
SOAN 259: Comparative Issues in Native North America (not offered in 20032004)
SOAN 281: Race and Ethnicity in the United States and China
SOAN 302: Anthropology and Indigenous Rights
SOAN 303: Criminology: Classical and Contemporary Perspectives (not offered in 20032004)
SOAN 320: Schooling and Opportunity in American Society