Course Descriptions

This introductory course in American Studies presents an interdisciplinary survey of American culture and society with a particular emphasis on understanding United States citizenship.

Primarily a lecture course, we will pay attention to the constructions of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class that occur in and around practices of citizenship both normative and legal. Throughout we will analyze historical moments and social institutions using a variety of primary—including but not limited to literature, film, art and music—and secondary sources. Given that notions of citizenship are continually contested and reshaped, our goal will be to understand how the intersection of various political and cultural discourses around citizenship has shifted from the colonial era to the present day.

Course Objectives:

1.  Grasp the broad history of the United States and key theoretical concepts of importance to the field of American Studies

2.  Understand the ways in which intersecting with political, legal, economic and cultural concerns constructs and contextualizes practices of American citizenship

3.  Examine the creation, reproduction, and contestation of American citizenship with particular emphasis on race, class, and gender.

4.  Think critically about the above topics and consider ways to analyze these interaction                 

Requirements

Attendance and participation                  15%

Midterm #1                 25%

Midterm #2                 25%

Final Exam                  35%

Students are expected to complete the assigned reading before class and come prepared to engage with the text

Possible Texts

Burgett and Hendler, eds., Keywords in American Cultural Studies

Course Reader

Partially fulfills legislative requirement in American History. 

Flag(s): Cultural Diversity

This class introduces students to the field of American Studies. The guiding objective of the class is to use interdisciplinary lenses – such as music, dance, material culture, and urban studies – to develop a more complex understanding of American culture. In this class, we will investigate select aspects of American culture using various methodological approaches. The course outline follows a semi-linear pattern in history, but is hardly comprehensive. We will look broadly at the tensions between individual identity formation and the many social constructions that operate in American culture. The class is loosely tied around the connection, or disconnection, of individuals with mass culture (music, in particular, but also cars, corporations, television, and even fashion).

This class is organized into three sections, starting with swing culture in the 1930s and 40s, shifting to the dynamics of popular music and culture from the 1950s to the 1980s (think girl groups, salsa, disco, and rap), and finally, looking at the politics of consumerism and globalization in our everyday lives. We will use these three modules to think critically about the relationship between the past and present, to examine the relationship between individual identity formation and the larger cultural zeitgeist, and to develop an understanding of how social inequalities, particularly guised through race, class, gender, and sexuality, infiltrate all areas of American life.

While mass culture often provides a context for making sense of the world, it also simplifies and negates a variety of more complex issues. Thus, if there is an overriding theme to the class, it is the concept of visibility versus invisibility. Who becomes the representative American? What is un-American? Who feels displaced, or invisible? How do ideologies of race, class, gender, and sexuality penetrate popular culture? And how have individuals responded? The goals of the course are to develop a more nuanced understanding of American culture and American Studies, to build critical thinking skills, and to generate new paradigms for looking at the world.                   

Requirements

Midterm Exam:                               25%

Final Exam:                                    30%

Reading Response Papers:               10%

Discography:                                  20%

Attendance and Participation:           15%

Possible Texts

Course Reader

Partially fulfills legislative requirement in American History.

Flag(s): Cultural Diversity

AMS 310 is designed to introduce you to some of the major themes and ideas in American history and culture, as well as to familiarize you with some of the methods and materials that are used in the interdisciplinary study of American society. As a way to focus our discussion, this section of AMS 310 examines the twin concepts of place and region as they impinge on the historical development of American culture and society. Utilizing both historical and contemporary perspectives, and drawing from a wide range of approaches, we will take as our central motif the escalating importance of regional and local identity in a world of globalization and modernization.  Specific themes will include: the historical development of American regional diversity; the role of place image and representation in the social construction of region; the relationship of regional culture to national culture; the way in which perceptions and conflicting communities influence the creation of regions; the importance of the regional concept in contemporary urban planning and landscape design; and the role of art, literature, and poetry in regional renewal.

Possible Texts

Luis Alberto Urrea, The Devil’s Highway: A True Story

Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake

Claude Brown, Manchild in the Promised Land

Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck, Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream

Tony Horwitz, Confederates in the Attic

“The Unforeseen”

“Smoke Signals”

Partially fulfills legislative requirement in American History.

Flag(s): Cultural Diversity

From the famous Puritan jeremiads through to Jersey Shore, America, like all societies, has been filled with a wide variety of performances.  This survey course will combine two interdisciplinary fields – American Studies and Performance Studies – in order to examine the history and impact of “performance” in American life since the days of Native American shamans.  We will thus be mixing together history, sociology, ethnography, anthropology, theatre/dance studies, film studies, cultural studies, and a variety of other disciplines in our quest to understand how various Americans have performed their identities over the past several centuries.  Essentially, we will be asking, “What does it mean to put performances, of various types, at the center of American history?” 

Requirements

Response Paper 1                          10%

Response Paper 2                          15%

Final Research Paper and/or Performance 40%

4 Performance Reports                    20%

Participation                                   15%

Possible Texts

Richard Schechner, Performance Studies: An Introduction

Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self In Everyday Life

Tony Kushner, Angels In America

Course reader (including exceprts from Henry Bial, ed., The Performance Studies Reader; William Leach, Land of Desire; and various others)

Flag(s): Writing

As the 19th century drew to a close, American cities began to give birth to a vibrant new mass culture.  Much of this culture manifested itself in new entertainment venues, including amusement parks, zoos, and cinemas.  As the century wore on, these entertainment spaces increased in number and complexity, becoming a familiar part of life in America – and in many other countries as well.  In this course we will explore the history of these spaces, using them as a lens through which to explore larger currents of cultural change. 

This course will be divided into three sections.  The first will explore the early days of amusement spaces as they arose alongside mass culture in American cities.  In the second section of the course we will deal with the new age of amusements that began with the opening of Disneyland in 1955.  The final section of the course will deal with the modern era of amusement spaces, an era defined by the globalization of mass amusements. 

The locations we will be discussing in this class – amusement parks, malls, zoos, and so on – are fun places often understood as frivolous and bereft of meaning.  We will be working to peer beneath the surface of these entertaining spaces, uncovering the extremely rich cultural forces that define and drive them and coming to grips with the way they influence American culture.  We will touch on a wide range of topics, including race, class, and gender roles, shifting understandings of public and private and man and nature, the rise of globalization, and the emergence of a corporately-driven “convergence culture.”  Our ultimate goal is to come to a better understanding of the profound effect seemingly meaningless amusement spaces have on American culture.

Requirements

Attendance and Discussion  20%

Tests                  20%

Response Paper                  20%

Research Paper                   40%

Possible Texts

Susan G. Douglas’s Spectacular Nature: Corporate Culture and the Sea World Experience

John F. Kasson’s Amusing the Million: Coney Island at the Turn of the Century 

Joy S. Kasson’s Buffalo Bill’s Wild West: Celebrity, Memory, and Popular History

Kathy Peiss’s Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Turn-of-the-Century New York

Aviad E. Raz’s Riding the Black Ship: Japan and Tokyo Disneyland

Flag(s): Writing

Since Fall 2009, PBS has dedicated considerable prime air time to showing (and re-showing) the Ken Burns series The National Parks: America's Best Idea.  The series has been celebrated by many, ranging from pop musicians (who staged a concert in its honor in NYC's Central Park) to outdoor stores (which sponsored sales and events the weekend of the premiere) to the National Parks Conservation Service, an activist group.  While the series did address some of the controversies that have plagued the National Park Service throughout its establishment and history, the stunning footage of natural splendors and triumphal tone of its narrative provided substantial support for the assertion expressed by the title.    Not all Americans over the past two centuries have considered the parks to be a great idea, however, as establishing parks has often meant removing peoples from their homes and limiting or restricting access to long-used resources.

While acknowledging the beauty and significance of the places administered by the National Park Service (not only those named National Parks, but also National Monuments, Recreation Areas, Lakeshores, etc.), we will examine them as sites where land, history, values, and ideas have been contested. We will consider such questions as:

- How have national parks reflected and influenced perceptions and ideals of “nature” and  “wilderness”?

- How have tensions over preservation, conservation, resource use and public recreation shaped the development and histories of the parks?

- How have different groups (defined by such factors as race, ethnicity, gender, and class) borne the costs and received the benefits of the establishment of park areas?

-How have parks affected and been affected by the communities and lands they border?

Upon completing this course, students will not only be well-acquainted

with the interdisciplinary sources and methods of analysis of American studies, cultural geography, and environmental history, but will also be well- prepared

to generate their own critical interpretations of environments and experiences in national parks and other landscapes. They will also have gained experience in producing different types of written communication through structured writing processes.                                   

Requirements

Research paper (6-8 pgs) and in-class presentation on contemporary park issue  25%

Park interpretation Paper (4-5 pgs)  20%

Four short (1-2 pgs) reading and/or film response papers   20%

In-class exam   15%

Participation, attendance, and impromptu in-class quizzes and writing assignments 20%

Possible Texts

Abbey, Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness

Hollis, The Land of the Smokies: Great Mountain Memories

Louter, Windshield Wilderness: Cars, Roads, and Nature in Washington's National Parks

Muir, The Yosemite

Rothman, Blazing Heritage: A History of Wildland Fire in the National Parks

Spence, Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of the National Parks

Burns, The National Parks: America's Best Idea (documentary film series)

Flag(s): Writing

Since Fall 2009, PBS has dedicated considerable prime air time to showing (and re-showing) the Ken Burns series The National Parks: America's Best Idea.  The series has been celebrated by many, ranging from pop musicians (who staged a concert in its honor in NYC's Central Park) to outdoor stores (which sponsored sales and events the weekend of the premiere) to the National Parks Conservation Service, an activist group.  While the series did address some of the controversies that have plagued the National Park Service throughout its establishment and history, the stunning footage of natural splendors and triumphal tone of its narrative provided substantial support for the assertion expressed by the title.    Not all Americans over the past two centuries have considered the parks to be a great idea, however, as establishing parks has often meant removing peoples from their homes and limiting or restricting access to long-used resources.

While acknowledging the beauty and significance of the places administered by the National Park Service (not only those named National Parks, but also National Monuments, Recreation Areas, Lakeshores, etc.), we will examine them as sites where land, history, values, and ideas have been contested. We will consider such questions as:

- How have national parks reflected and influenced perceptions and ideals of “nature” and  “wilderness”?

- How have tensions over preservation, conservation, resource use and public recreation shaped the development and histories of the parks?

- How have different groups (defined by such factors as race, ethnicity, gender, and class) borne the costs and received the benefits of the establishment of park areas?

-How have parks affected and been affected by the communities and lands they border?

Upon completing this course, students will not only be well-acquainted

with the interdisciplinary sources and methods of analysis of American studies, cultural geography, and environmental history, but will also be well- prepared

to generate their own critical interpretations of environments and experiences in national parks and other landscapes. They will also have gained experience in producing different types of written communication through structured writing processes.                                   

Requirements

Research paper (6-8 pgs) and in-class presentation on contemporary park issue  25%

Park interpretation Paper (4-5 pgs)  20%

Four short (1-2 pgs) reading and/or film response papers   20%

In-class exam   15%

Participation, attendance, and impromptu in-class quizzes and writing assignments 20%

Possible Texts

Abbey, Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness

Hollis, The Land of the Smokies: Great Mountain Memories

Louter, Windshield Wilderness: Cars, Roads, and Nature in Washington's National Parks

Muir, The Yosemite

Rothman, Blazing Heritage: A History of Wildland Fire in the National Parks

Spence, Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of the National Parks

Burns, The National Parks: America's Best Idea (documentary film series)

Flag(s): Writing

Barbies. Skateboards. T-ball sets. Twilight fansites. Nerf machine guns. Sea Monkeys. Dora the Explorer. “Up,” “Wall-E,” and “Finding Nemo.” The Boy Scout Handbook. We’ll put all of these objects under critical scrutiny in this course, which will look at the development of popular culture associated with children and adolescents in the United States in the twentieth century. Using cultural objects made for and by children and youth, we will ask larger questions about the relationships between children and adults, media, consumption and citizenship, and education carried out in formal and informal contexts. Issues of class, race, and gender will be considered throughout. We will approach these themes through a number of diverse primary and secondary sources, including literature, advertising, websites, video games, museum exhibits, films, television shows, and toys. Because childhood is often perceived as “timeless”, this class will focus on situating these cultural objects chronologically, continually asking how culture for children and youth relates to and is derived from larger social questions and movements.

Requirements

Five short (300-word) blog posts: 8% each,

Four reading and attendance quizzes: 5% each;

Paper proposal: 10%;

Participation in paper intro workshop: 5%;

Final paper: 25%.

Possible Texts

Selections from :

Gary Cross, The Cute and the Cool: Wondrous Innocence and Modern American Children’s Culture

Neil Postman, The Disappearance of Childhood

Susan Douglas, Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media

Kara Jesella and Marissa Meltzer, How Sassy Changed My Life: A Love Letter to the Greatest Teen Magazine of All Time

Jay Mechling, On My Honor: Boy Scouts and the Making of American Youth

Ann Ferguson, Bad Boys: Public Schools in the Making of Black Masculinity

Elizabeth Chin, Purchasing Power: Black Kids and American Consumer Culture

Additionally, we will look at essays from:

Henry Jenkins, ed., The Children’s Culture Reader

Joe Austin and Michael Nevin Willard, eds., Generations of Youth: Youth Cultures and History in Twentieth-Century America

Marsha Kinder, ed,, Kids’ Media Culture

Roger Horowitz, ed., Boys and Their Toys?: Masculinity, Technology, and Class in America

Sarah Holloway and Gill Valentines, eds., Children’s Geographies: Playing, Living, and Learning

Flag(s): Writing

coming soon

coming soon

The relationship between Africa and the United States is often imagined simply as a westward movement in which Africans are forcibly transported across the Atlantic as commodities and then violently folded into the fabric of the American experience. While it is true that chattel slavery and African American cultural practices have exerted tremendous influence over the history of the United States, not all movement has been westward. Americans—black and white—have also traveled east, from the United States to Africa, and in the process have developed and reinforced affective bonds that stretch across time and space. This class explores these affective bonds through the lens of first-person narratives read alongside political, economic, cultural, and historic scholarship. We will move forward in time from the Atlantic slave trade to the U.S. Overseas Contingency Operations, but will also trouble the notion that there is a single narrative of the relationship between Africa and the United States, or a singular Africa for Americans to write about. Since this is a writing flag course, students will analyze the historical context in which representations of Africa and Africans circulate through a series of course readings, group discussions, and writing exercises that culminate in a final paper and presentation worth 40% of students’ final grades.

Requirements

4 Reaction Papers:                            10% each

Final Paper:                                     35%

Final Paper Peer Review:                   10%

Final Presentation:                            5%

Participation:                                   10%

Possible Texts

John H. Ghazvinian, Untapped: The Scramble for Africa's Oil

Saidiya Hartman, Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route

Theodore Roosevelt, African Game Trails

Frank B. Wilderson III, Incognegro: A Memoir of Exile and Apartheid

Additional course readings will appear on the schedule and be available through Electronic Reserves.

Flag(s): Writing, Global Cultures

Nostalgic images of the nuclear family in the United States present us with the picture of a father, mother, and biologically conceived son and daughter all living in a single family home. As a social institution, the family has experienced many changes in contemporary U.S. society. This course is designed as an introduction to alternative family systems in the United States contextualized in a Post-WWII framework. Asian Americans will serve as our central focus to survey the development of alternative families. The course addresses the historic, more traditional forms of Asian immigration and quickly moves into the ways globalization, transnationalism, imperialism/occupation, mixed race, modern reproductive technologies, and transracial adoptions complicate our understanding of the contemporary family. Examples include transnational Filipino families and caregivers, surrogate motherhood, and South Korean adoption beginning in the Cold War stretching to more contemporary practices in China. This course will incorporate interdisciplinary texts, media sources, and documentary films. A major topic of this course will be to analyze how issues of race and ethnicity inform identity. Additionally, we will explore the ways family formation is situated in history, politics, military engagements, and imperialism. Throughout the course we will also investigate how gender, kinship, and transnationalism intersect and shape our understanding of transracial and transnational families. Many people have different experiences with family formation and this course will examine them through an analytical and critical lens.Throughout the semester this course raises many questions. Examples include but are not limited to: What does it mean to be an immigrant? How are family structures complicated by larger global issues? How does transracial adoption change our understanding of what it means to be “American” or “Asian America?” This class provides a space to examine questions, interpret materials, exchange ideas, and gain an increased understanding of contemporary alternative family formation.

The purpose of this course is to examine the various experiences, perspectives, and expressions of Chicanas in the United States. This involves examining the meaning and history of the term, "Chicana" as it was applied to and incorporated by Mexican American women during the Chicano Movement in areas of the Southwest U.S., such as Texas and California. We will also explore what it means to be Chicana in the United States today. The course will begin with a historical overview of Mexican American women's experiences in the U.S., including the emergence of Chicana feminism. We will discuss central concepts of Chicana feminism and attempt to understand how those concepts link to everyday lived experiences. Specifically, the relationship between gender, race/ethnicity, and class will be key as we discuss issues that have been significant in the experiences and self-identification of Chicanas, such as: family, gender, sexuality, religion/spirituality, education, language, labor, and political engagement. We will be engaging in interdisciplinary analysis not only concerning cultural traditions, values, belief systems, and symbols but also in relation to the expressive culture of Chicanas, including folk and religious practices, literature and poetry, the visual arts, and music. Finally, we will examine media representations of Chicanas through critical analyses of film and television portrayals.

With the emergence of food studies as an academic discipline, it has become clear that food is not just an essential ingredient of human survival, it is fundamental to culture, human imagination and creative-aesthetic expression. Food is not just a private concern or a matter of personal taste, it has always been and continues to be a site of social power. This is especially true for Asian Americans. On the one hand, food has been used to racialize and stereotype Asian-Americans. On the other hand, food has become one of the most important cultural threads of Asian American literature, films and other popular cultural forms, and has gained increasing visibility in the mainstream publishing market and media in recent years. Most students have come across Asian food cultures within the cultural and culinary cultures of the United States. This class will enable them to understand that process and how that contributes to a diverse national food culture by examining cultural texts that deal explicitly with food and its relationship to cultural identities and social formations. All the readings for this class are devoted to the interactions between Asian-Americans with the dominant society through food and how such interactions contribute to complex social identities.

Why are race and ethnicity such important aspects of our everyday lives? This course critically examines how these forms of identity matter so intensely, both in this country and around the world. We will work at comprehending the fundamental dynamics that shape the development and maintenance of racial identity by drawing on key concepts from anthropology. After a general overview of how racial relations are socially structured in the United States, we will examine some of the symbolic materials and mediums through which people express a sense of ethnic identity and belonging—music, dress, dance, and stories. This portion of the course will also focus on the performance of racial and ethnic identities in various forms of popular culture. Subsequently, we will concentrate on a variety of urban settings where ethnicity is the basis for political and social mobilization. Students will have an opportunity to develop a detailed awareness of a particular ethnic group through a research paper.

Instructor:  Eils, C.            Areas:  -- / A

Unique #:  34755            Flags:  Cultural Diversity, Writing

Semester:  Fall 2012            Restrictions:  n/a

Cross-lists:  AMS 315F            Computer Instruction:  No

Prerequisites: E 603A, RHE 306, 306Q, or T C 603A.

Description: Cherokee author Thomas King writes, “The truth about stories is that that’s all we are.” In this course, we will read a selection of stories – nonfiction, short stories, poems, and novels – written by contemporary Native American authors. As a class, we will consider the questions these texts ask about stories and their real world consequences. For instance, how can stories nourish individuals and communities? How can they act as prisons? How can a story be dangerous? Most important, how can stories produce social, economic, and political changes in today’s world? We will approach our course texts from political, cultural, historical, and formal perspectives while also paying particular attention to their specific tribal contexts.

This discussion-driven course has been designed with both English majors and non-English majors in mind. The critical writing and analytical reading skills we will develop will help students succeed in upper-division courses in many majors across campus, including English.

Tentative texts include Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony; Thomas King, The Truth About Stories and Green Grass, Running Water; David Treuer, The Translation of Dr. Apelles; Sherman Alexie, Flight; and selected short stories, poems, and critical texts available in a course reader including work by LeAnne Howe, Joy Harjo, Gloria Bird, Paula Gunn Allen, and Simon Ortiz, among others.

Requirements & Grading: short critical responses (20%); in-class reading responses and participation (10%); two 3-4-page critical essays (20% each); final 5-7-page essay (30%). Students will have the opportunity to revise major writing assignments based on instructor feedback.

This course examines 20th century approaches to Marxism through the black liberation tradition. It focuses on the works of key theorists and writers from Africa and the diaspora, with an emphasis on expanding existing theories to incorporate analyses of gender/sexuality. The course explores political economies and libidinal economies from nineteenth century enslavement to twenty-first century mass incarceration. 

Possible Texts:

Aime Cesaire, Discourse on Colonialism

Amilcal Cabral, Revolutionary Leadership and People’s War

C.L.R. James, American Civilization

Robin Kelley, Hamer and Hoe

Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery

Saidiya Hartman, Scenes of Subjection

Cedric Robinson, Black Marxism

W.E.B. Du Bois, The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States (excerpts); Black Reconstruction (excerpts) (Project Guttenberg)

Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto (Project Guttenberg)

Angela Y. Davis, “Women and Capitalism: Dialectics of Oppression and Liberation”

Walter Rodney, How Capitalism Underdeveloped Africa

Carole Boyce Davies, Left of Karl Marx: Claudia Jones

Frank Wilderson, “Prison Slave as Hegemony’s Silent Scandal”

Description

In recent years, we Americans have increasingly defined ourselves in terms of our actions and reactions in particular moments of crisis.  Events such as the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and Hurricane Katrina have provoked debates about the substance of our national identity and character and have revealed deep fault lines in the bedrock of our society.  This interdisciplinary course examines a range of cultural and social transformations in what we now call the United States of America from the colonial period until the end of the Civil War.  Each week we will take as our starting point a particular moment of crisis, paying attention to the political, social and cultural forces that gave rise to the crisis as well as the dispersal, transformation and/or entrenchment of these forces in its aftermath.  The critical moments we will focus on will include the Salem Witch Trials; the Election of 1800; the “American Renaissance”; and John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry among others.  Our semester will culminate, of course, in the crisis of the Civil War.

We will examine the British, (and to a lesser extent the Spanish and French) colonial legacies in the United States and social formations among the diverse groups of Europeans, Africans, and Native Americans both within and on the borders of these colonies.  We will watch these colonies declare independence, fighting and writing the United States into being.  We will explore the attempts of both ordinary and extraordinary Americans as they continued to debate and articulate the meanings of, exceptions to, and shortcomings in the American creed. 

In this course, we will consider many dimensions of American national identity: What is the proper relationship among the nation, the states, and individuals?  How have Americans negotiated the tension between republicanism and democracy or between religious and secular world views?  What would it mean to recognize slavery as one of the founding institutions of the United States?  We will study the formation of American identity around differences of race, class, gender, religion, and region.  We will study these developing identities through literature, political documents, painting, music, newspapers and other media.

Requirements

2 in-class exams:                  30% each

In-class final:                        40%

Possible Texts

Mary Rowlandson, Sovereignty and Goodness of God

Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer 

James Fennimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans

Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of

Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

And a course packet of shorter readings

Upper-division standing required. Partially fulfills legislative requirement in American History.

Flag(s): Cultural Diversity

Stretching chronologically from the Civil War to the contemporary anxieties of postmodern America, this course will touch upon a wide variety of questions: What is the American dream? What keeps us from achieving it? What is the nature of dissent? What are our responsibilities to one another? Underneath all of these concerns is a basic question: What should America be? We will delve into this by exploring the ways in which writers, artists, politicians, and intellectuals have provided both confident visions and devastating critiques of American society, in the form of artful essays, bold manifestos, innovative fiction, and powerful cinema. By focusing on social thought broadly defined, I hope to share with you the challenge and excitement of thinking critically about what American democracy has been as well as what it could be. As we move from the utopian novels of the late 19th century to the contemporary “war on terror,” I hope you will gain a sense not only of the historic struggle over the soul of America, but also a sense of how that struggle continues today, indelibly marked by the rhetoric and reality of the past.                  

Requirements

Students are expected to attend class regularly, participate in classroom discussion in a civil and constructive manner, and complete assigned readings in a timely fashion. In addition to unannounced quizzes on the readings to ensure that we are all keeping up with the readings, there will be three major exams.

Possible Texts

David A. Hollinger and Charles Capper, The American Intellectual Tradition: Vol. II, 5th edition

Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward

James Weldon Johnson, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

Joan Didion, Slouching Toward Bethlehem

Miranda July, No One Belongs Here More Than You

Upper-division standing required. Partially fulfills legislative requirement in American History.

Flag(s): Cultural Diversity

Description

In this course we will examine radical traditions of  black political thought. Enagaging thinkers who jettison the project of political reform in favor of social and political transformation, we shall explore a variety of writters and texts for what they have to teach us about ongoing legacies of slavery, empire, and patriarchy within the US. We will look at exemplary writtings of black marxism, black feminism, Afrocentricity, and Afro-Pessimism among other traditions.           

Requirements

Final Paper                        30%

2 Response Papers             30%

In Class Presentation         20%

Class Participation             20%

Possible Texts

W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction

Cedric Robinson, The Black Radical Tradition

Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth

Barbara Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement

Upper-division standing required. Students may not enroll in more than two AMS 370 courses in one semester.

Flag(s): Writing

Course Description:

Have you ever wondered why German is spoken in places like New Braunfels and Fredericksburg, Texas? This course explores the relationship between immigrants in the U.S. and their languages and cultures, as pertains to the German speaking immigrants who came to Texas starting in the 1840s. Readings, discussions, and assignments will explore the following questions, among others:

•    What are the linguistic and cultural consequences of immigration?

•    How are immigrant languages changed by contact with the host country’s language – and vice versa?

•    What generalizations can be made about language choice and functions, language learning, and inter-lingual            communication in immigrant settings?

•    What effect do national policies have on immigrants and their languages?

•    What is the relationship between language and identity?

•    What are the advantages and disadvantages of bilingual education?

Discussing topics such as cultural identity, language contact, and language maintenance and shift, we will focus on immigration in the United States, with particular reference to German speakers in Texas. Linguistic insights are augmented by relevant work from historians, anthropologists, and geographers.

Although helpful, no knowledge of German is required since the course is taught in English. All texts are in English.

Description

This course examines how Latinas/os have been a major force in the production of  popular culture. In particular we will critically examine discourses of “Latinidad” (a seamless construction of Latinos as a monolithic group) in the corporate production of identities.  This lack of attention to national origin and historical specificity is one definition of Latinidad.  Latinidad also provides the contradictory grounds where consumer culture meets Latina/o performance. Some artists choose to reappropriate commercial spaces as sites of empowerment, while others are complicit in perpetuating stereotypical representations of Latinas/os.  With special attentiveness to the body,  we will explore the construction of Latina/o identities as they influence and produce particular racial, sexual and gendered identities. The body becomes an essential marker of “Latinidad,”  which is constantly connected to notions of sexuality. We will also examine the material effects of such cultural and commercial practices upon U.S. Latino populations, reminding us that there are real-world implications for these performances as they commodify Latina/o culture.  To account for the shifts in notions of performance and cultural practices, the focus of the course will center Latina/o/Chicana/o musical production, movies, television, advertising, magazines, literary texts, performance art, murals, installation art, music videos, and animation within a historical context.                 

Requirements

Class Participation (discussions and attendance)          25%

Oral Presentation                                                      5%

Quizzes                                                                    15%

Essay 1 and 2                                                           25%

Prospectus Final Essay                                               5%

Final Paper                                                                25%

Possible Texts

Habel-Palan and Romero, Latina/o Popular Culture

Leguizamo, Freak

Lipsitz, Footsteps in the Dark

Rivera, New York Ricans from the Hip Hop Zone

Films/ TV Shows

1951-1957-I Love Lucy

1997- Selena

1998- Freak

2001-Dora The Explorer

Upper-division standing required. Students may not enroll in more than two AMS 370 courses in one semester.

Flag(s): Writing, Cultural Diversity

Description

This interdisciplinary course explores the histories, cultures, and experiences of im/migration to the U.S. by examining cultural productions (literary and visual narratives and texts) alongside legal discourses (legislation, federal court cases, legal scholarship) and historical analyses.  Informed by critical race theory, ethnic studies, and cultural studies scholarship, we will pay particular attention to the tensions between the legal discourses and practices that seek to regulate and manage im/migrants and the cultural productions that expose and articulate the limits and contradictions of the law.  Some questions we will consider through the semester include: What are defining encounters that have shaped im/migrant lives and cultures?  How do cultural studies inform our understanding of what it means to be an im/migrant under U.S. law?  How have im/migrants challenged notions of U.S. nationhood and legal regimes? 

We will begin by considering what is at stake in looking at cultural and legal texts together within a comparative ethnic studies frame.  The course then examines the closing and opening of U.S. borders to regulate the entry of im/migrants, giving particular attention to the case of Chinese Exclusion—the first racially/ethnically based prohibition on immigration.  We will also pay close attention to the relations between capitalism/labor and nation.  The course concludes by considering questions of naturalization and the limits of citizenship, particularly in light of recent “crises” over immigration.

Requirements

Attendance and Participation in class and on Blackboard website: 10%

Collaborative Presentations: 10%

Accompanying paper on presentation material (4 pages): 10%

Paper 1 (5 pages):  25%

Peer Review and Major Revision of Paper 1: 10%

Paper 2 (7-8 pages): 35%

Possible Texts

Mae Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America

Maxine Hong Kingston, Chinamen

Fae Myenne Ng, Bone

Chang-Rae Lee, Native Speaker

Josefina Lopez, Real Women Have Curves

John Mraz and Jamie Vélez-Storey, Uprooted: Braceros in the Hermanos Mayo’s Lens

Films

Frieda Lee Mock, Maya Lin: A Strong, Clear Vision

Stephanie Black, H-2 Worker

Robert Kenner, Food, Inc.

Robert Rodriguez, Machete

Additional book chapters, articles, and legal primary source documents.

Upper-division standing required. Students may not enroll in more than two AMS 370 courses in one semester.

Flag(s): Writing, Cultural Diversity

The "War on Drugs" in the United States can be dated back to the US Opium Exclusion Act of 1909 and the Harrison Narcotic Act of 1914, which provided the model for drug prohibition legislation over the next hundred years both in the United States and around the world. President Richard M. Nixon officially declared an official "war on drugs" in 1971, two years after he identified drug abuse as "a serious national threat." This course examines the ongoing struggle between prohibitionist values and policies on one side and public demand for drugs on the other. At the same time, we must distinguish between two types of "drugs." The first category comprises the so-called "recreational drugs" that have been used by millions of people as mood-altering substances; this category includes alcohol, heroin, cocaine, marijuana, and Ecstasy among many others. The second category comprises drugs that are believed to enhance human performance in various ways. These drugs include amphetamines, the anti-narcoleptic Modafinil (Provigil), blood-boosting drugs such as Erythropoeitin, the anti-depressant Prozac, as well as testosterone and the other anabolic steroids. While all of these drugs have been used by elite athletes, much greater numbers of people have used them for other goal-oriented purposes either on the job or to pursue an ideal of self-enhancement. This course focuses primarily on these performance-enhancing drugs that are consumed in pursuit of allegedly therapeutic or utilitarian goals. Regulating these drugs is more problematic than in the case of first-category drugs, because they can be presented as serving useful or therapeutic purposes. The evolving social and medical status of these drugs will be one of the important scientific dramas of the twenty-first century.

Requirements

Two examinations                  40%

Four papers                           50%

Attendance                            10%

Possible Texts

John Hoberman, Mortal Engines: The Science of Performance and the Dehumanization of Sport

Peter D. Kramer, Listening to Prozac

John Hoberman, "Listening to Steroids," The Wilson Quarterly

Verner Møller, The Doping Devil

Richard Davenport-Hines, The Pursuit of Oblivion: A Global History of Narcotics

David T. Courtwright, Forces of Habit: Drugs and the Making of the Modern World

John Hoberman, Testosterone Dreams: Rejuvenation, Aphrodisia, Doping

Upper-division standing required. Students may not enroll in more than two AMS 370 courses in one semester.

Flag(s): Writing

This course considers postmodernity as a way of conceptualizing transformations in American culture since 1945.  In that year two previously inconceivable events, the Holocaust and the atom bomb, called into question a traditional American faith in progress and redefined the very ground of existence.  Since then, Americans have experienced a barrage of often unprecedented experiences, accelerating during the final decades of the twentieth century:  expansion of television and other visual representations of reality; development of a suburban way of life largely focused on mass consumption; disneyfication of everyday environments; formation of multiple subcultures with their own lifestyles; ecological disasters and consciousness of a profound sense of limits; development of multiculturalism and new gender identities with accompanying backlashes; AIDS and the continuing prospect of new pandemics; computerization and information implosion; globalization and balkanization; shifts from production to consumption and from spirituality to therapy; development of a postindustrial service economy; global terrorism and preemptive war.  Perceptions of and responses to these developments have reshaped the arts and stimulated new modes of popular culture, creating a cultural landscape cutting across art, architecture, literature, political thought, journalism, photography, film, philosophy, criticism, music, dance, performance art, etc.  We will examine this new cultural landscape using traditional historical analysis and new critical theories.  Assigned reading will yield both a historical overview of this period and a series of themes for discussion.  The instructor will serve as moderator and will encourage students to act as cultural observers and critics.  The goal is to promote active responses to contemporary culture, to navigate through the vortex without being unconsciously swept along.  We will also assess the usefulness of the concepts of postmodernity and postmodernism.

Requirements

Because a successful seminar depends on lively informed discussions, students are expected to attend regularly, to complete assigned readings, and to participate actively in class.  Written work includes four 2-page essays (10% of final grade each), a final project of at least 10 pages (30%), and a take-home final exam (15%).  One short paper must be rewritten, and the resulting grade will be substituted for the original grade.  Reading will be checked by regular quizzes.  Each student is responsible for a short oral presentation, a short oral artifact analysis, and frequent class participation (15%, including quizzes).  Evaluation is based on originality and clarity of thought and expression, both written and oral.

Texts

This course requires much reading.  If that worries you, then it is not for you.  Required reading includes books like the following and a packet of articles:

Nicholson Baker, THE MEZZANINE

John Barth, THE END OF THE ROAD

Calvin Tomkins, THE BRIDE AND THE BACHELORS

Thomas Pynchon, THE CRYING OF LOT 49

Ishmael Reed, MUMBO JUMBO

Roland Barthes, MYTHOLOGIES

Paul Auster, CITY OF GLASS

Michael Sorkin, ed., VARIATIONS ON A THEME PARK

Mike Davis, ECOLOGY OF FEAR

Victor Mosco, THE DIGITAL SUBLIME

Upper-division standing required. Students may not enroll in more than two AMS 370 courses in one semester.

Flag(s): Writing, Cultural Diversity

This course seeks to explore the intersections of race, class, and culture in contemporary and historical discourses of sartorial and bodily practices and performances of fashion and beauty.  Reading through a body of contemporary feminist scholarship and methodologies, we will investigate how class and gender shape definitions of beauty and why beauty is mapped on to the racialized body. By examining practices of beautification and style in popular and visual culture such as beauty pageants, fashion trends, makeovers, and body modification, we will ask, for example, how are beauty ideals defined?  What systems of power are they a part of and how are these modes of power sustained?  We will study the ways in which feminists have grappled with these debates that reflect broader ideological, cultural, and social processes.  We will also analyze the political and cultural implications of fashion and beauty as industries on the global market.  What impact do these practices have on gender relations and feminist discourse? How have feminized practices of consumption responded to transforming flexible economies under globalization?  We will work toward theorizing fashion and beauty culture in our contemporary world.

Requirements

Attendance, in-class writing, quizzes, and discussion participation                  15%

20 thought-provoking discussion questions reflecting readings collected for entire semester                  15%

Take-home midterm exam                                    20%

Creative Group Assignment w Description/purpose paper component (5-7 pages)                                    20%

Final Research Project  (8-10 page paper)                   30%

Texts

Susan Douglas, The Rise of Enlightened Sexism:  How Pop Culture Took Us from Girl Power to Girls Gone Wild 

Thuy Linh Tu, The Beautiful Generation:  Asian Americans and the Cultural Economy of Fashion 

Miliann Kang, The Managed Hand:  Race, Gender, and the Body in Beauty Service Work

Brenda Weber, Makeover TV:  Selfhood, Citizenship, and Celebrity

Selections from

Kathy Peiss, Hope in a Jar:  The Making of America’s Beauty Culture

Geoffrey Jones, Imagined Beauty:  A History of the Global Beauty Industry

Susan Bordo, Unbearable Weight:  Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body

Elizabeth Haiken, Venus Envy:  A History of Cosmetic Surgery

Peg Zeglin Brand, Beauty Matters

Bonnie Adrian, Framing the Bride:  Globalizing Beauty and Roman in Taiwan’s Bridal Industry

Upper-division standing required. Students may not enroll in more than two AMS 370 courses in one semester.

Flag(s): Writing, Cultural Diversity

Description

The spread and growth of consumer capitalism has coincided with the migration and integration of immigrants into American society.  As immigrant lives become transformed by commercial culture, they also actively sustain it.  This course will approach the study of consumer culture by examining its emergence as a force that defines modern American society and trace its developments and current manifestations throughout the world.  We will study the theories of consumption as well as investigate the roles immigrants play in the making and re-making of commercial culture, examining both processes of production and consumption.  We will attempt to answer questions such as:  How do ethnic and racialized Americans negotiate work and leisure?  How do immigrants engage with and partake in America’s capitalist consumer culture in light of race, class, and gender differences?  How do people of color construct identity around consumption and material accumulation?  What kinds of “markets” exist for consumerism to thrive?  How does race and ethnicity function in a consumer driven society?  Exploring various sites of consumer and popular culture such as the movies, amusement and theme parks, and more contemporary consumer activities such as food, fashion, shopping, and cyberspace, we will consider how consumer culture and the very act of consumption define American life.                      

Requirements

Attendance, in-class writing, quizzes, and discussion participation     15%

20 thought-provoking discussion questions     15%

Take-home midterm exam     20%

Short Research Paper (5-7 pages)     20%

Final Research Project  (8-10 page paper)     30%

Possible Texts

Janet Davis, The Circus Age

Elizabeth Chin, Purchasing Power

Lisa Sun-Hee Park, Consuming Citizenship

Bich Minh Nguyen, Stealing Buddha’s Dinner

Course Reader

Upper-division standing required. Students may not enroll in more than two AMS 370 courses in one semester.

Flag(s): Writing, Cultural Diversity

Description

In 1682, the first American bestseller was published. Audiences in the American colonies and in England devoured Mary Rowlandson’s breathless account of her harrowing experiences as a captive of the Narragansett and Nipmunk Indians during King Philip’s War in The Narrative of the Captivity and the Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson.  Taking a long, historical view, this course explores the evolution of American popular culture and its relationship to national consolidation (and at times, disunion) over the last 330 years. Starting with oral, religious, print, and live performance traditions during the colonial, early national, and antebellum periods, this course will consider the cultural impact of new technologies such as steam power, the railroad, photography, recorded sound, celluloid, the electronic transmission of moving images (i.e. television), and the internet.  Throughout the semester, we will stress the centrality of race, gender, and class in shaping the production and content of popular culture, modes of popular representation, the composition of popular audiences, and types of reception.

Requirements

Creative Think Piece:                                     10%

5 Short Papers (1-2 pages each):                   20%

First Draft of Final Paper (10-15 pgs):             5%

In-Class Presentation of Final Project:             10%

Final Paper (10-15 pages):                             35%

Discussion:                                                    20%

Possible Texts

Kathryn Zabelle Derounian-Stodola, ed., Women’s Indian Captivity Narratives 

P.T. Barnum, The Life of P.T. Barnum, Written by Himself

Ken Emerson, Doo-dah! Stephen Foster and the Rise of American Popular Culture

W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk

Paula Marantz Cohen, Silent Film and the Triumph of the American Myth

Tiny Kline, Circus Queen and Tinker Bell: The Life of Tiny Kline

Susan Douglas, Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination

Angela Davis, Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday

Aniko Bodroghkozy, Groove Tube: Sixties Television and the Youth Rebellion

Upper-division standing required. Partially fulfills legislative requirement in American History.  Students may not enroll in more than two AMS 370 courses in one semester.

Flag(s): Writing, Cultural Diversity