American Studies
Professors: Michael Newbury (program director), William Nash, Timothy Spears; Associate Professor: Jason Mittell; Assistant Professors: Holly Allen, Karl Lindholm, Deborah Evans, Rachael Joo; Dissertation Fellow: Folashadé Alao; Program Coordinator: Renée Brown
American studies is an interdisciplinary field that is united by both an object of study—American culture—and a mode of inquiry that moves beyond the scope of any single disciplinary approach. Marked by an interplay between cultural history and the examination of diverse creative forms, social analysis, and critical theory, American studies explores primary sources and asks how they might be understood in the broader contexts of aesthetic traditions, political power, and cultural beliefs. While American studies substitutes for no single field or way of looking at American culture, students in the major may find themselves drawn toward the visual arts and the literary, toward mass media and popular culture, or toward the study of intellectual and religious traditions. They may engage in sociological, literary, geographical, and historical interpretations of America as they come to conclusions about the meanings, politics, and diversity of American culture.
Mr. Newbury is the current director of the American studies program. Students seeking information or advice about the program should contact him or any member of the American studies faculty listed above.
Requirements: A minimum of twelve courses including introductory courses, electives, upper-level seminars, and a four-course concentration designed in consultation with a faculty adviser. Students must also complete a one-semester independent senior essay or a two-semester honors thesis.
Introductory Courses: (at least two should be taken before the junior year; all are required for completion of the major):
1) AMST 0209 American Literature and Culture, Origins-
1830
2) AMST 0210 Formation of Modern American Culture I,
1830-1919
3) AMST 0211 Formation of Modern American Culture II,
1920-2001
Electives: Three AMST electives,two of which must be numbered 0200 or higher. These courses may be cross-listed with other departments. Courses may not count toward both the elective and concentration requirements.
Seminars: 1) AMST 0400 Junior Seminar in American Studies—Theories, Methods, and Practice; and 2) AMST 0704 Senior Seminar—American Culture in a Comparative Context
Independent Senior Research: Seniors must complete a one-credit research project and essay of approximately 30 pages, or, if otherwise qualified, a two-credit honors thesis of approximately 70 pages. Equivalent work in other media is also possible. To qualify for the writing of the two-credit honors thesis, a student must have a 3.5 or better GPA in courses taken toward completion of the major. All essay and thesis topics require approval of the faculty in the program.
Concentrations: Concentrations must bring together coherent clusters of four courses that address particular themes, periods, movements, or modes of thought and expression. In consultation with an adviser and with approval of the program, students will develop an interdisciplinary concentration in one of these areas:
Popular Culture: Students will study popular cultural forms, their reception, and the history of their production in the United States. Courses will especially focus on the conflicts between popular culture as a site of creativity and democratic empowerment on the one hand, and as a product of dominant commercialized cultural industries on the other.
Race and Ethnicity: Students will examine specific groups in depth and in comparison, exploring racial and ethnic history, political struggles, creative and cultural practices, and individual and collective modes of identity formation. By studying how and why racial and ethnic identities have evolved in the United States, students will understand their central place in the formation of the American nation.
Artistic and Intellectual Traditions: Students will focus on literary, religious, philosophical, and social thought and its expression in the United States. They will be encouraged to examine particular currents of thought (e. g. evangelicalism, liberalism, romanticism, modernism, progressivism) or modes of expression (e.g. literature, visual art, or film) that have been important to American culture.
Space and Place: Students will explore the importance of landscape and place in American culture. Course work may include the study of American regional geography, the historical and aesthetic dimensions of the built environment, the impacts of urban growth, suburbanization, or the imagining of utopian spaces.
Cultural Politics: Students will explore the relationship between culture, ideology, and the political system. People create meaning about their personal and public lives through cultural practices, but those practices take place within institutional and ideological structures. Relevant courses might explore ethics and religion; political parties and social movements; feminism and gender studies; and representation and visual culture.
Self-Designed Concentration: Self-designed concentrations must be built in close consultation with a faculty advisor and should focus on a cultural theme or interdisciplinary area of inquiry. Potential topics might include: Gender & American Culture; American Environmentalism; Visual Culture; Industrialization of America; and Immigration and Cultural Exchanges.
Joint Major Requirements: Students may major in AMST jointly with another discipline or program. Students must discuss their rationale for doing so with their adviser in AMST and joint majors must be approved by the faculty in AMST. Required courses for a joint major in AMST are: AMST 0209, AMST 0210, AMST 0211, AMST 0400, AMST 0704, and 2 AMST electives.
Minor Requirements: Students may complete a minor in American Studies by taking the following courses: AMST 0210, either AMST 0209 or AMST 0211, AMST 0400, three AMST electives.
Study Abroad for American Studies Majors: The faculty members of the Program in American Studies recognize the benefits of cross-cultural learning and encourage majors to take advantage of study abroad opportunities. Often students returning from study abroad undertake senior work (theses, senior essays) that responds to their cultural learning while abroad. We encourage students to take courses in their study abroad program that focus on the host culture and thereby allow the best opportunity for cultural comparison.
Majors in the American studies program have a required seminar in the fall of the junior year (AMST 0400) that precludes study abroad in that semester. Students should plan their study abroad programs carefully to ensure they are taking required courses in the major in an appropriate sequence. The American studies program enjoys being host to exchange students from the American studies programs at the Universities of East Anglia and Nottingham in Great Britain.
AMST/FMMC 0104 Television & American Culture (Fall)
See Department of Film and Media Culture for course description.
(Formerly AMCV/FMMC 0236 and AMST/FMMC 0236) SOC NOR (J. Mittell)
AMST/FMMC 0110 Masterworks in American Cinema (Not offered in 2008-09)
See Department of Film and Media Culture for course description. (Formerly AMCV/FMMC 0233 and AMST/FMMC 0233) ART NOR
AMST/RELI/HIST 0170 Religion in America (CW 8) (Fall)
See Department of Religion for course description.
(Formerly AMCV/RELI/HIST 0170) PHL HIS NOR (M. Cavazos)
AMST/HIST 0202 The American Mind (Fall)
See Department of History for course description. (Formerly AMST/HIST 0426) HIS NOR (J. McWilliams)
AMST/WRPR 0203 Media, Sports, and Identity (CW) (Fall)
See Program in College Writing for course description.
SOC NOR (H. Vila)
AMST 0205 Tobacco in American Culture (CW) (Spring)
In this course we will consider tobacco's complex symbolism in American culture from colonial times to the present. Since the uses and cultivation practices of this crop were learned from Native American peoples, tobacco has held an iconic place in American culture-from its role as a primary export crop for the developing nation, to the growth of "big tobacco," the rise of the cigarette and cigarette advertising, and the recognition of the health effects of tobacco use. The shift from tobacco-as-icon to a symbol of addiction, disease, and death brought with it a stigma that has spread from tobacco products and their users to encompass the producers of the raw materials: tobacco farmers. Through historical resources (from King James I's 1604 Counterblast to Tobacco to 20th century ad campaigns), literature (such as Robert Penn Warren's Night Rider), film (both documentary and popular, such as the 2005 Thank You for Smoking), scholarship, and a consideration of the situation for today's tobacco farmers, this course will examine the conflicting symbolisms of the crop, the products, the industry, and farmers. NOR (A. Ferrell)
AMST/ENAM 0206 Nineteenth-Century American Literature (Fall, Spring)
See Department of English and American Literatures for course description. LIT NOR (Fall: L. Sorensen, Spring: M. Newbury)
AMST/ENAM 0207 Twentieth-Century American Literature (Spring)
See Department of English and American Literatures for course description. LIT NOR (B. Millier)
AMST/ENAM 0209 American Literature and Culture: Origins-1830 (Fall)
A study of literary and other cultural forms in early America, including gravestones, architecture, furniture and visual art. We will consider how writing and these other forms gave life to ideas about religion, diversity, civic obligation and individual rights that dominated not only colonial life but that continue to influence notions of "Americanness" into the present day.(Formerly AMCV/AMLT 0201) 3 hrs. lect./dics. LIT NOR (M. Newbury)
AMST 0210 Formation of Modern American Culture I: 1830-1919 (Fall)
An introduction to the study of American culture from 1830 through World War I with an emphasis on the changing shape of popular, mass, and elite cultural forms. We will explore a widely-accepted scholarly notion that a new, distinctively national and modern culture emerged during this period and that particular ideas of social formation (race, class, gender, sexuality, etc.) came with it. We will practice the interdisciplinary interpretation of American culture by exploring a wide range of subjects and media: economic change, social class, biography and autobiography, politics, photo-journalism, novels, architecture, painting, and photography. Required of all American studies majors. (Formerly AMCV 0210) 3 hrs. lect./disc. HIS NOR (H. Allen)
AMST 0211 Formation of Modern American Culture II: 1920-2001 (Spring)
A continuation of the themes addressed in AMST 0210, tracing the development of a distinctive national and international American culture between 1920 and 2001. The class will highlight the rise of modern mass culture, focusing on the emergence of new cultural forms and media, the increasingly public role played by women and racial minorities, the changing nature of the built environment, and the importance of American popular culture on the world stage. Less a survey of cultural history than an interdisciplinary examination of key issues and conflicts, the course will be organized around a variety of written, visual, and aural texts. Required of all American studies majors. (Formerly AMCV 0211) 3 hrs. lect./disc. HIS NOR (H. Allen)
AMST 0221 Segregation in America: Baseball's Negro Leagues (Not offered 2008-09)
Like many aspects of American life, organized baseball was segregated, black and white, from the end of the nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. In this course we will examine the absorbing chronicle of baseball's "Negro leagues." We will learn about the great players and teams, and consider how this sporting phenomenon reflects American values and represents this period in our history. We will address important questions about sports and their cultural significance. What do sports tell us about ourselves and our past? Can we understand our cultural heritage by looking through the lens of sports, black baseball in this case? We will also consider how art is created from these historical roots. (Student who have taken FYSE 1004 or AMCV 0220 Topics in Am. Civ.: Segregation in America: Baseball's Negro Leagues are not eligible to register for this course.) 3 hrs. lect./disc. CMP NOR
AMST 0222 The Orient in American Popular Culture (Not offered 2008-09)
Madame Butterfly, Doctor Fu Manchu, Arab Shieks, Islamic terrorists--over the last 150 years, American culture has energetically imagined the far and middle East. This course examines the uses to which these imagined "Orients" have been put in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We will pay attention to the ways that the "Orient" has entered into American consumer culture, helped to form coherent ideas about "Americanness," and offered dreams of escape from supposedly Western inhibitions. Course materials will be drawn from literature, painting, fiction, advertising, movies and other sources. They will likely include various writings by Mark Twain, paintings by Frederic Church, cigarette ads, movie-palace architecture, Vietnam-war fiction, and, at the end of the course, news coverage of terrorism and recent wars in Iraq.(Students who have taken AMCV 0220 Topics in Am. Civ.: The Orient in Am. Popular Culture are not eligible to register for this course.) 3 hrs. lect./disc. HIS NOR
AMST 0223 Baseball as Narrative: Baseball, Literature, and American Culture (Not offered 2008-09)
In this course, we learn about baseball, and its history and essence. While baseball is a vibrant and longstanding part of our culture, we try to keep in mind that it is not an artifact; it is a game played today too, and the source of some wonderful expression: it has a literature of imaginative depth and quality. The baseball hero in literature and in life, the sports hero generally, is a powerful symbol of youth and vitality; yet he lives in a world of limits and time. The athlete dies twice: once symbolically at the end of his career and then also a literal death. These “deadlines” give meaning to their quests for greatness, and ours too. 3 hrs. lect./disc. HIS NOR
AMST/SOAN 0224 Formations of Race and Ethnicity in the U.S. (Fall)
Historical memories, everyday experiences, and possible futures are powerfully shaped by racial and ethnic differences. Categories of race and ethnicity structure social relationships and cultural meanings in the United States and beyond. In this course we will track the theoretical and historical bases of ideas of race and ethnicity in modern America. We will investigate how race and ethnicity intersect at particular historical moments with other forms of difference including gender, sexuality, nation, and class. The course offers an approach informed by critical studies of race including texts in history, political theory, cultural studies, and anthropology. 3 hrs. lect. SOC NOR (R. Joo)
AMST/FMMC 0225 Gothic and Horror (Spring)
This course examines the forms and meanings of the Gothic and horror over the last 250 years in the West. How have effects of fright, terror, or awe been achieved over this span and why do audiences find such effects attractive? Our purpose will be to understand the generic structures of horror and their evolution in tandem with broader cultural changes. Course materials will inlcude fiction, film, readings in the theory of horror, architecture, visual arts, and electronic media. 3 hrs. lect./disc. (Students who have taken AMCV 0330 Topics in Am. Civ.: Gothic and Horror are not eligible to register for this course.) 3 hrs lect. HIS NOR (M. Newbury)
AMST 0227 Asian Americas (Not offered 2008-09)
In this course we will investigate cultural transformations, cultural politics, and the cultural productions of and about Asian Americans. The themes of immigration, nation, and citizenship are central to the construction of the U.S. racial category of Asian. Those addressed within the category are highly diverse and differentiated along class, gender, and generational lines, yet the racial category structures particular kinds of experiences and possibilities for subjects. Historical transformations and contemporary issues in a variety of Asian American contexts will be investigated through a variety of texts including historical accounts, cultural studies, anthropological studies, autobiography, and fiction. 3 hrs. lect. SOC NOR
AMST/WAGS 0230 Gender Images in American Popular Culture (Not offered 2008-09)
In this course, we will examine representations of gender in American popular culture. Course materials will include nineteenth-century popular music, literature, and theater, early twentieth-century advertising and film, 1950s television, and more recent electronic media. Considering a range of cultural forms over a broad historical period allows us to determine the impact that particular media have had on our conceptions of gender difference. Finally, by becoming critical readers of popular cultural forms that represent manhood and womanhood, we gain a greater appreciation for the complexity, variability, and open-endedness of gender constructions within American life. 3 hrs. lect. NOR
AMST/WAGS 0231 Space, Place, and Gender (CW) (Not offered in 2008-09)
In this course we will investigate the relationship of space to social relations of gender and sexuality. Feminist geography will inform our investigations of space. We will focus on representations of space in literature, visual media, architecture, consumer culture, and public policy. We will investigate gendered designations of public and private, work and domestic, political and consumer. We will also analyze metaphors of gender and sexuality used in defining national, colonial, and transnational spaces. The gendered experiences of travel, migration, and media will help us relate space to movement. We will draw from social geography, political theory, literary theory, anthropology, and cultural history. lect. SOC NOR 3 hr. lect
AMST/FMMC 0234 American Film Genres (Not offered 2008-09)
See Department of Film and Media Culture for course description. (Formerly AMCV/FMMC 0134 and AMST/FMMC 0134) ART NOR
AMST/FMMC 0238 Film Noir (Not offered 2008-09))
See Department of Film and Media Culture for course description. (Formerly AMCV/FMMC 0238) ART NOR
AMST/FMMC 0242 Film Comedy (Spring)
See Department of Film and Media Culture for course description. (Formerly AMCV/FMMC 0242) NOR (L. Grindon)
AMST 0244 Knickerbocker New York (Not offered 2008-09)
The course will begin with a survey of seventeenth-century Dutch art and history as reflected in the paintings of Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals, Ruisdael, and de Hooch. Through the writings of Washington Irving (whose pen name was Dietrich Knickerbocker) and the paintings of John Quidor, we will then explore the Dutch life and culture of seventeenth-century New York as well as its eventual demise and destruction in the nineteenth century. In our examination of Knickerbocker New York, we will also focus upon the historical and legendary figures of Peter Stuyvesant, Anthony Van Corlear, Wolfert Webber, Ichabod Crane, and Rip Van Winkle. (Formerly AMCV 0244) 3 hrs. lect./disc. LIT ART NOR
AMST 0245 American Landscape: 1825-1865 (Spring)
This course will explore American landscape painting through an interdisciplinary approach, employing art, literature, religion, and history. In studying the landscape paintings of Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, and Frederic Church, we will also consider the commercial growth of New York City; the myths and legends of the Catskill Mountains; the writings of James Fenimore Cooper, Washington Irving, and Henry David Thoreau; the opening of the Erie Canal; and the design and construction of Central Park. (Formerly AMCV 0245) 3 hrs. lect./disc. ART HIS NOR (C. Wilson)
AMST/HARC 0246 American Painting, Beginnings to the Armory Show (Not offered 2008-09)
See Department of History of Art and Architecture for course description. (Formerly AMCV/HARC 0246) ART HIS NOR
AMST/ENAM 0252 African American Literature (Spring)
See Department of English and American Literatures for course description. LIT NOR (W. Nash)
AMST/ENAM 0253 Science Fiction (Fall)
Time travel, aliens, androids, robots, corporate and political domination, reimaginings of race, gender, sexuality and the human body--these concerns have dominated science fiction over the last 150 years. But for all of its interest in the future, science fiction tends to focus on technologies and social problems relevant to the period in which it is written. In this course, we'll work to understand both the way that authors imagine technology's role in society and how those imaginings create meanings for science and its objects of study and transformation. Some likely reading and films include Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, H. G. Wells, The Island of Doctor Moreau, Ridley Scott, Blade Runner, and works by William Gibson, Ursula LeGuin, Octavia Butler and other contemporary writers. (Students who have taken FYSE 1162 are not eligible to register for this course). 3 hrs. lect./disc. LIT (M. Newbury)
AMST/ENAM 0255 Imagining the American West (Spring)
Wallace Stegner has suggested that the West, "the last, best place," offers the American imagination a "geography of hope." This course will examine both the construction of the West as a place of romance, opportunity and individual freedom and how that idea was alternately sustained or questioned. In doing so, we will explore a selection of the diverse writings on the trans-Mississippi western American experience—exploration literature, the cowboy Western, women's fiction, the "Hollywood" novel, contemporary Native American literature, etc. Readings will be supplemented by a study of relevant painting and sculpture, film, television, and music. Authors may include: Harte, Crane, Twain, Norris, Wiser, Cather, Austin, Steinbeck, West, Stegner, Silko, McCarthy; films by Ford, Peckinpah and Eastwood. (Students who have taken AMLT 0340 Regionalism: The American West are not eligible to register for this course.) 3 hrs. lect./disc. LIT NOR (D. Evans)
AMST/ENAM 0256 Contemporary Multicultural Literature of the U.S. (Not offered 2008-09)
See Department of English and American Literatures for course description. LIT NOR
AMST/RELI/HIST 0271 The Puritans and Their Cultured Despisers (Not offered 2008-09)
See Department of Religion for course description. (Formerly AMCV/RELI/HIST 0271) PHL HIS NOR
AMST/RELI 0274 The Simple Life in American Culture (Fall)
See Department of Religion for course description.(Formerly AMCV/RELI/ 0274) PHL NOR (R. Gould)
AMST/FMMC 0277 Urban America & Serial Television: Watching The Wire (Spring)
Frequently hailed as a masterpiece of American television, The Wire shines a light on urban decay in contemporary America, creating a dramatic portrait of Baltimore's police, drug trade, shipping docks, city hall, public schools, and newspapers over five serialized seasons. In this course, we will watch and discuss all of this remarkable-and remarkably entertaining-series, and place it within the dual contexts of contemporary American society and the aesthetics of television. This is a time-intensive course with a focus on close viewing and discussion, and opportunities for critical analysis and research about the show's social contexts and aesthetic practices. (FMMC 0104, FMMC 0236, or AMST 0211) 2 hr. sem/5 hr. screen SOC NOR (J. Mittell)
AMST/FMMC 0278 Stardom and Celebrity (Spring)
See Department of Film and Media Culture for course description. ART SOC NOR (E. Meyers)
AMST/ENAM 0280 Routes: Migrations and American Literatures (Spring)
What are the routes, physical, cultural, or social, individuals or groups take to "migrate" into American society? In this course we will examine how contemporary writers of diverse immigrant histories explore real and symbolic "migrations" into American society. Using novels, short stories, and poetry, we will seek to complicate definitions of American identity and immigration. In our exploration of mobility and migration, we will investigate how writers challenge or expand the definition of what it means to be or become American. While we will focus primarily on literary texts, we will draw upon a range of theoretical readings. Course readings will include works by: Paule Marshall, Edwidge Danticat, Sandra Cisneros, and Abraham Cahan. 3 hrs. lect. LIT NOR (Alao)
AMST/DANC 0283 From George Washington to John Travolta: Social Dance in Popular Culture (Fall)
In this course we will examine religion, gender, morality, etiquette, politics, and other cultural and societal issues in American history as they intersect in the public sphere through the activity of social dance. Coursework will involve the investigation of primary source materials including contemporary letters and diaries, dance manuals, newspaper and journal reports, and accounts of social dance in American literature. Students will read texts on dance and cultural history, view images of dance in American art and popular film, and listen to four centuries of American dance music. 3 hrs. lect./2 hrs. screening HIS ART NOR (A. Wentink)
AMST 0315 Fast Food/Slow Food (Fall)
In this class we will explore recent writing and films about food. Among the main topics to be considered will be the rise of industrial food and fast-food franchises; reactions to that phenomenon including the local food movement and the international network called Slow Food; and the notion of "terroir" as a way of tracing flavor and cuisine specifically to the certain landscapes and cultures. In addition to our readings and viewings, we will meet with local farmers and chefs and look for occasions to cook (and eat). In the latter part of the semester, our class will be augmented by a conference on terroir co-sponsored by Middlebury and the University of Vermont. 3 hrs. lect. (J. Elder)
AMST/HARC 0319 The American Face: Portraiture and Identity in American Culture (Spring)
See Department of History of Art and Architecture for course description. (Formerly AMCV/HARC 0319) ART HIS (R. Saunders)
AMST/ENAM 0342 Southern American Literature (Fall)
See Department of English and American Literatures for course description. (Students who have taken AMLT 0340 Regionalism: Southern Literature are not eligible to register for this course.) LIT NOR (D. Evans)
AMST/FMMC 0343 American Media Industries (Not offered 2008-09)
See Department of Film and Media Culture for course description. (Formerly AMCV/FMMC 0343) SOC NOR
AMST/FMMC 0355 Theories of Popular Culture (Spring)
This course introduces a range of theoretical approaches to study popular culture, exploring the intersection between everyday life, mass media, and broader political and historical contexts within the United States. We will consider key theoretical readings and approaches to studying culture, including ideology and hegemony theory, political economy, audience studies, subcultural analysis, the politics of taste, and cultural representations of identity. Using these theoretical tools, we will examine a range of popular media and sites of cultural expression, from television to toys, technology to music, to understand popular culture as a site of ongoing political and social struggle. (Formerly AMST/FMMC 0275) (FMMC 0102 or FMMC 0104 or FMMC 0236 or AMST 0211) 3 hrs. lect./disc./3 hrs. screen. SOC (J. Mittell)
AMST/ENAM 0356 The 19th-Century African American Literary Tradition (Not offered 2008-09)
See Department of English and American Literatures for course description. (Formerly AMLT 0356) LIT NOR CMP
AMST 0357 Images of Blackness and Whiteness in American Literature (Not offered 2008-09)
This course explores how twentieth-century American authors construct images of blackness and whiteness. Through a close examination of primary texts and a careful consideration of critical and theoretical works, we will consider how these culturally coded images both shape and are shaped by American attitudes about racial identity. Critical readings may include selections by Toni Morrison and bell hooks. Primary texts may include works by W. E. B. Du Bois, Gertrude Stein, James Weldon Johnson, Nella Larsen, William Faulkner, Richard Wright, Sinclair Lewis, Ralph Ellison, Saul Bellow, Toni Morrison, and Charles Johnson. 3 hrs. lect./disc.(Formerly AMLT 0357) LIT NOR CMP
AMST 0365 The Art and Language of the Civil War (Not offered 2008-09)
The course will begin with a review of the major historical events of the Civil War. We will then study the conflict through the paintings of Winslow Homer and Frederic Church, the poetry and prose of Walt Whitman, the photographs of Matthew Brady, and the political writings of Abraham Lincoln. Particular emphasis will be placed upon the thoughts and attitudes of the common soldier as reflected in his diaries and journals. (Formerly AMCV 0365) 3 hrs. lect./disc. ART HIS NOR
AMST/RELI 0370 Seminar in American Religion: African American Women and 20th Century Christianity (Fall)
See Department of Religion for course description.(Formerly AMCV/RELI 0370) PHL HIS NOR (M. Cavazos)
AMST/HIST 0372 The Civil Rights Revolution (Not offered 2008-09)
See Department of History for course description. HIS NOR CMP
AMST/HIST/WAGS 0373 History of American Women: 1869-1999 (Fall)
See Department of History for course description. (Formerly AMCV/HIST/WAGS 0373) HIS NOR CMP (A. Morsman)
AMST/HIST 0374 History of the American West (Not offered 2008-09)
See Department of History for course description. HIS SOC NOR
AMST/HIST 0375 The History of Urban America (Spring)
See Department of History for course description. HIS NOR
(J. Ralph)
AMST/HIST 0391 Native Americans in the American Imagination (Spring)
See Department of History for course description. HIS NOR
(W. Hart)
AMST 0400 Theory and Method in American Studies (Junior Year) (Fall)
A reading of influential secondary texts that have defined the field of American Studies during the past fifty years. Particular attention will be paid to the methodologies adopted by American Studies scholars, and the relevance these approaches have for the writing of senior essays and theses. (Open to junior American studies majors only.) (Formerly AMCV 0400) 3 hrs. lect./disc. (R. Joo)
AMST 0408 American Art in Context: Art and Life of Winslow Homer (Spring)
Although generally regarded as a popular painter of American life, Winslow Homer often provides a penetrating and sometimes disturbing view of post-Civil War America. Among the topics to be considered: Homer's paintings of the Civil War; his illustrations of leisure and recreation; and his depictions of women and children in the Gilded Age. During the second half of the course, we will turn our attention to Homer's landscape paintings of the Adirondacks, the Caribbean and the Maine coast, as well as his seascapes of the Gulf Stream and the North Atlantic. (Formerly AMCV/HARC 0408) 3 hrs. lect./disc. ART HIS NOR (C. Wilson)
AMST/ENAM 0433 American Literary Migrations: Flight, Exile, and the Meaning of Home (Not offered 2008-09)
See Department of English and American Literatures for course description.
AMST/ENAM 0434 Hawthorne and Melville (Not offered 2008-09)
See Department of English and American Literatures for course description.
AMST/ENAM 0436 Hemingway in his Times (Not offered 2008-09)
See Department of English and American Literatures for course description.
AMST/SPAN 0438 The Latin American Transnational Experience (Not offered 2008-09)
See Department of Spanish for course description. LIT LNG AAL
AMST 0500 Independent Study (Fall, Winter, Spring)
Select project adviser prior to registration. (Formerly AMCV 0500)
AMST 0700 Senior Essay (Fall)
For students who have completed AMST 0400 and are not pursuing an honors thesis. Under the guidance of one or more faculty members, each student will complete research leading toward a one-term, one-credit interdisciplinary senior essay on some aspect of American culture. The essay is to be submitted no later than the last Thursday of the fall semester. (Select project adviser prior to registration) (Formerly AMCV 0700)
AMST 0704 Senior Seminar: American Soul Music (Spring)
This course considers the phenomenon of soul music, from its origins in the early 1960s to its decline in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Using a comparative model, we will examine factors that shaped both the product and its creation: regional difference (Southern/Northern soul), political context (early Civil Rights struggle/Black Power and Vietnam), means of production (the "hit factory"/artistic autonomy; regional/centralized recording centers), and audience (race music/"the Sound of Young America"). Open to senior American studies majors only. (Formerly AMCV 0704) NOR CMP (W. Nash)
AMST 0710 Honors Thesis (Fall/Winter or Fall/Spring)
For students who have completed AMST 0400, are eligible for honors and choose to write a two-term, two-credit interdisciplinary honors thesis on some aspect of American culture. The thesis may be completed on a fall/winter schedule or a fall/spring schedule. (Select a thesis adviser prior to registration) (Formerly AMCV 0710)