AMST 601: Introduction to American Studies
This course focuses on interdisciplinary methods by comparing the ways different disciplines approach the study of American culture. It introduces students to the history of American Studies as a field, to the questions explored in greater depth in the other core courses, and to contemporary intellectual debates within the field. Readings are chosen to enable students to compare the questions asked and the methods and evidence used by scholars in the fields of social and cultural history, literary criticism, the new historicism, and cultural studies.
Prequisites: None listed, check with Registrar at registration.
AMST L602: Historical Sequence I: American Society and Political Culture: 1600-1865
The course follows the evolution of American society and political culture from the colonial period to the Civil War. The concept "political culture," as used here, embraces institutions, public behavior, and above all, attitudes-beliefs, values, expectations, fears-regarding the distribution and exercise of political power. Two momentous events, the wars for independence and union, are major course milestones at which the development of political culture is assessed from the perspective of different social groups, including leaders, artists, writers, women, workers, and slaves. A central theme is the interplay between regional divergences and national convergences. Thematic questions running through the course are: Did a common political culture emerge? Who was included, who excluded? Was American political culture distinctive?
Prequisites: None listed, check with Registrar at registration.
AMST 603: Historical Sequence II: Modern Political, Social, and Cultural History
This course focuses on the emergence of modern American society, culture, and politics from the post-Civil War era through the Great Depression, with emphasis on the following topics: the ideologies of modernism, progressivism, and socialism, and the political, economic, and social forces that constitute modernity; innovations in politics, the arts, and the social sciences, and their relationship to new technologies and the labor practices of industrial capitalism; the labor movement's struggle for industrial democracy; the emergence of feminism and civil rights.
Prequisites: None listed, check with Registrar at registration.
AMST 604: Gender and Sexuality in US History and Culture
This course explores the historical construction of gender and sexuality in US social and political culture of different eras, through current historical scholarship, primary documents, and such cultural representations as literature or film. How are conceptions of manhood and womanhood, of heterosexuality and "deviant" sexualities, shaped and reshaped in response to historical forces, and linked to concepts of race and class? How are dominant definitions contested?
Prequisites: None listed, check with Registrar at registration.
AMST 605: Ethnicity, Race, and Nationality
This course explores the construction and maintenance of ethnic, racial, and national identities in the United States in the 19th or 20th centuries. Students draw on interdisciplinary readings in anthropology, art, history, literature, popular culture, religion, sociology, and other fields. They learn to analyze various types of texts containing implicit and explicit expressions of ethnic, regional, and national identities. Case studies furnish material to examine the construction and maintenance of a national identity and to give students experience in the methods and approaches used in American studies.
Prequisites: None listed, check with Registrar at registration.
AMST 606: Studies in Popular Culture and Technology
This course focuses on changing definitions of culture and methods of cultural studies; the changing meanings of "folk culture," "mass culture," and "popular culture"; and the changing dynamics among technology, the media, and culture. Topics for readings and discussion may include: the relations between changing technologies and the activity of audiences in shaping commercial popular culture; the social and economic context of technological innovation; the cultural imperatives of technological change.
Prequisites: None listed, check with Registrar at registration
AMST 688: Final Project
A substantial research paper, drawing on systematic original research. The project may address a research topic in American studies or may construct a curriculum unit using primary sources and including a pedagogical and intellectual justification. The project will be determined in consultation with the student's advisor and must be approved by the advisor and at least one other faculty member involved in the program. A written proposal signed by student and advisor must be submitted to the director of the graduate program. Depending on faculty availability, students enrolled in AMST 698 during the spring semester can participate in a research and writing seminar to facilitate the completion of final projects.
Prequisites: None listed, check with Registrar at registration.