Courses: Spring 2021
AMERICAN STUDIES SPRING 2021 COURSE DESCRIPTIONS
AMST 30108 History of American Capitalism
Korey Garibaldi T/Th 2:20-3:35pm
This course offers a broad thematic overview of the history of capitalism from the early sixteenth century up to the late 1980s. As a discussion-based seminar, we will devote most of our conversations to discovering, analyzing and reflecting on the transformation of the U.S. from a newly-independent British colony, to the most influential economic power in the world. Topics and themes we will consider include: the rise of early modern transnational capitalism, European imperialism and trade, and indigenous dispossession after 1492; science and technological transformations; social and economic thought; slavery and servitude, broadly construed; and characteristics of prosperity, wealth, and economic flux. Our readings and viewings will be a mix of scholarly and primary sources, including an abundance of canonical literary and artistic material, such as novels, visual art, and film excerpts (e.g. Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House (1879), Aaron Douglas's Building More Stately Mansions (1944), and Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence (1920)). Over the course of the semester, students will draw upon this eclectic combination of sources to synthesize the dominant historical dimensions of capitalism in and beyond the U.S. via four short essays (4 - 5 pages, double-spaced-between 1,100 and 1,400 words), and a final paper (10 - 12 pages, double-spaced) based on cumulative texts.
AMST 30109 Sport and Big Data
Katherine Walden T/Th 11:10am-12:25pm
Sport is one of the most enduringly popular and significant cultural activities in the United States. Data has always been a central part of professional sport in the US, from Henry Chadwick's invention of the baseball box score in the 1850s to the National Football League's use of Wonderlic test scores to evaluate players. This course focuses on the intersecting structures of power and identity that shape how we make sense of the "datification" of professional sport. By focusing on the cultural significance of sport data, this course will put the datafication of sport in historical context and trace the ways the datafication of sport has impacted athletes, fans, media, and other stakeholders in the sport industry. The course will also delve into the technology systems used to collect and analyze sport data, from the TrackMan and PITCHf/x systems used in Major League Baseball to the National Football League's Next Gen Stats partnership to emerging computer vision and artificial intelligence research methods. Readings for this course will draw on texts like Christopher Phillips' Scouting and Scoring: How We Know What We Know About Baseball (2019), Ruha Benjamin's Captivating Technology: Race, Carceral Technoscience, and Liberatory Imagination in Everyday Life (2019), and Michael Lewis' Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game (2004). Class meetings will be split between discussions of conceptual readings and applied work with sport data and technology systems. Coursework may include response papers, hands-on work with data, and a final project. Familiarity with statistical analysis, data science, or computer science tools and methods is NOT a prerequisite for this course.
AMST 30112 Witnessing the Sixties
Peter Cajka M/W 11:10am-12:25pm
The purpose of this interdisciplinary course is twofold: to examine the social context and cultural change of the sixties and to explore the various journalistic and aesthetic representations of events, movements, and transformations. We will focus on the manner in which each writer or artist witnessed the sixties and explore fresh styles of writing and cultural expression, such as the new journalism popularized by Tom Wolfe and the music/lyrics performed by Bob Dylan. Major topics for consideration include the counterculture and the movement--a combination of civil rights and anti-war protest.
AMST 30114 Indigenous Self-Representation in Early American Literature: From Pocahontas to Simon Pokagon
Jay Miller T/Th 5:30pm-6:45pm
How does our understanding of early American literature change when we take account of the rich archive produced by the original inhabitants of North America? To answer this question, students will read a range of Indigenous narratives, beginning with a reinterpretation of Pocahontas and proceeding to explore self-representation in Native writing from the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. This will include non-alphabetic "texts" such woven baskets, sermons, autobiographies, poetry, and novels. The course concludes with the work of Simon Pokagon, a member of the Pokagon Potawatomi Indians whose traditional homeland encompasses the current location of the University of Notre Dame. Central topics to be discussed are the role of Indigenous peoples in the formation of early American literature, the complex relationship between Native writers and Christianity, and various Indigenous critiques of and alternatives to settler colonialism.
AMST 30117 American Conspiracies
Perin Gurel M/W 2:20-3:35pm
This course will explore modern conspiracy theories in and about the United States, discovering what they tell us about American culture and politics. The "truth" we will be seeking will not necessarily be whether secret forces have ever conspired or currently conspire to influence specific world events, but what conspiracy theorizing can tell us about modern American identities, communities, and social hierarchies including race, gender, class, religion, and national origin. In other words, we will take theories of conspiracy seriously as vernacular narratives that contribute to collective identity formation, produce powerful symbolic systems for ordering and inverting hierarchies, and help communities negotiate differences of identity and background. Beginning with the Cold War and moving on to the War on Terror, we will discuss why some theories gain preeminence in certain historical contexts and among different social groups. In addition, we will interrogate the role the label "conspiracy theory" plays within contemporary dynamics of knowledge/power. What types of knowledge are respected and acceptable and what types are stigmatized and mocked, and why? This is a writing-intensive course requiring over 20-pages of written work, including 3 small writing assignments, a series of graded and ungraded assignments leading to a major research paper, and an original research paper.
AMST 30119 The Asian American Experience
Jennifer Huynh M/W 9:35-10:50am
This class will survey the various historical and contemporary dimensions of Asian American experiences including immigration & integration, family & community dynamics, ethnic/gender/class identity, as well as transnational and diasporic experiences. We will explore contemporary and historical issues of racism, the model minority myth, inter-generational relationships, and the educational experiences of Asian Americans. To accomplish this, our class will pose such questions as: Who is Asian American? How did racism create Chinatown? Is there an Asian advantage? Coursework includes essays based on topics of your choice, presentations, and a creative narrative.
AMST 30125 Race and Technologies of Surveillance
Katherine Walden T/Th 2:20-3:35pm
The United States has a long history of using its most cutting-edge science and technology to discriminate, marginalize, oppress, and surveil. The poorhouse and scientific charity of an earlier era have been replaced by digital tracking and automated decision-making systems like facial recognition and risk prediction algorithms. This course focuses on how automated systems are tasked with making life-and-death choices: which neighborhoods get policed, which families get food, who has housing, and who remains homeless. This course will examine black box tools used in K-12 education, social services, and the criminal justice system to better understand how these technologies reinforce and worsen existing structural inequalities and systems of oppression. Class meetings will be split between discussions of conceptual readings and applied work with technology systems. Readings for this course will draw on texts that include Safiya Noble's Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism (2018), Virginia Eubanks' Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor (2018), Catherine D'Ignazio and Lauren Klein's Data Feminism (2020), and Meredith Broussard's Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World (2019). This course will also examine the advocacy and activism work undertaken by groups like Our Data Bodies, Data 4 Black Lives, Algorithmic Justice League, Auditing Algorithms, Big Brother Watch, and Chicago-based Citizens Police Data Project. Coursework may include response papers, hands-on work, and a final project. Familiarity with statistical analysis, data science, or computer science tools and methods is NOT a prerequisite for this course.
AMST 30128 Protest: American Cultures
Erika Doss T 3:55-6:45pm
What roles do protest and dissent play in the making of America? Focusing especially on cultures of dissent including activist art, civil disobedience, radical action, and various cultures of struggle, dissent, and refusal, this course examines the practices, politics, technologies, and theories guiding America's foundational history of protest. Class includes lectures, discussion, essay assignments, and field trips.
AMST 30129 Notre Dame and America
Kathleen Cummings M/W 2:30-3:20pm, Discussion F 2:30-3:20pm or 1:00-1:50pm
In this course, we will interpret Notre Dame-an institution often defined as America's only truly national University-from the perspective of American studies. Notre Dame--much like America--can be defined and understood in multiple ways: as a physical location, as social and institutional world, and as an imaginary. We will explore Notre Dame from its pre-history as the homeland of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi, to its founding as a missionary outpost of the European Catholic Church, through its evolution during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, through its present profile as a top-tier research university and the nation's premier Catholic educational institution. We will focus not only on obvious subjects such as Catholicism and football but also on as other key topics and themes in American studies that intersect with Notre Dame's story in the past and present. This course is designed to fulfill the History and CAD requirements.
AMST 30129 Notre Dame and America
Kathleen Cummings M/W 2:30-3:20pm
Friday Discussion 1:00-1:50pm
Friday Discussion 2:30-3:20pm
In this course, we will interpret Notre Dame-an institution often defined as America's only truly national University-from the perspective of American studies. Notre Dame--much like America--can be defined and understood in multiple ways: as a physical location, as social and institutional world, and as an imaginary. We will explore Notre Dame from its pre-history as the homeland of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi, to its founding as a missionary outpost of the European Catholic Church, through its evolution during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, through its present profile as a top-tier research university and the nation's premier Catholic educational institution. We will focus not only on obvious subjects such as Catholicism and football but also on as other key topics and themes in American studies that intersect with Notre Dame's story in the past and present. This course is designed to fulfill the History and CAD requirements.
AMST 30133 Buddhism in America
Thomas Tweed T/H 11:10am-12:25pm
This course traces the history of Buddhism in the United States since the nineteenth century. After considering the history of Asian immigrants who brought Buddhism with them and American-born converts who embraced it here, we take some steps toward a cultural history of Buddhism in the US since 1945, analyzing the tradition's influence on other faiths and on politics, activism, fiction, poetry, painting, video art, film, music, architecture, martial arts, how-to literature, psychology, and medicine.
AMST 30141 Native American Literature
Robert Walls T/Th 12:45-2:00pm
Native Americans have long been trapped in a betwixt and between state, caught by the forces of past and present, tradition and assimilation, romanticization and caricature. Yet through it all, Native voices have continued to speak of the Indian experience with great power and eloquence. This course will introduce Native American literature as a distinctive contribution to American and world literature. We will examine a wide range of expressive culture from the last century, including novels, poetry, graphic stories, children's literature, film, digital media, autobiographies, performances of oral literature, and music. Through the passion, creativity, and humor of Indian authors, we will learn something of the historical experience of Native men and women, and how they have reacted to massacres and mascots, racism and reservations, poverty and political oppression. Above all, we will try to understand how indigenous authors have used literature to engage crucial issues of race and culture in the United States that continue to influence their lives: identity, self-discovery, the centrality of place, cultural survival, and the healing power of language and spirituality. Class discussions will incorporate literary, historical, and ethnographic perspectives of Native expressive culture and the agency of authors as artists and activists vis-à-vis the wider American literary tradition. Authors include Louise Erdrich, Cherie Dimaline, Tommy Orange, D'Arcy McNickle, Leslie Marmon Silko, Simon Ortiz.
AMST 30143 Fashioning American Identities
Sophie White T/Th 12:45-2:00pm
Did Puritans really only wear black and white, or did they wear fashionable lace, silk ribbons and bright colors? Did early settlers wash their bodies to get clean? What role did fashion play in the making of the American Revolution? And how did slaves and Native Americans adorn their bodies? This course will address such questions by focusing on dress and material culture. We will consider the role of dress in the construction of colonial identities, and examine the ways that bodies operated as sites for negotiating class and ethnic encounters.
AMST 30152 Art in America
Erika Doss Th 3:55-6:45pm
This course examines American visual and material cultures from the pre-colonial era to the present day. Providing a broad, historical account and considering a variety of media from paintings and sculptures to quilts, photographs, world's fairs, and fashion styles, this survey explores American art within the context of cultural, social, economic, political, and philosophical developments. In particular, it considers the role that American art has played in the formation of national identity and understandings of class, race, gender, and ethnicity.
AMST 30180 Native American Studies
Brian Collier M/W 9:35-10:50am
America is Indian Country! Our identity is tied to both real American Indian people and romanticized ideas about them. Anglo Americans liked to play Indian but they also claimed a right to places, land, and water. All of this presented a variety of problems for Native Americans over time. This course examines Native Americans and their constant adaptation and survival from European contact through the 20th century, as well as Anglo America's cooption of Native resources, traditions, and images. It explores themes of Native American creation, treaties, education, sovereignty, culture, literature, humor, art, and activism. We will address national issues but also recognize there are over 500 distinct cultural and linguistic groups who are the indigenous people of the modern United States. Questions we will explore include why Native people are sovereign but also U.S. Citizens, why Indian mascots are such a hot issue, and how Native people have come to run so many Casinos. This course is the history and culture course that brings the first Americans together with the rest of America.
AMST 30189 Civil Rights in America
Peter Cajka M/W 2:20-3:35pm
This course explores the Black Freedom Struggle from the Civil Rights Movement to Black Power and into Black Lives Matter. How have African Americans mobilized to secure recognition of human dignity from the American Political system? How did the Freedom Struggle shape American culture? By studying the Civil Rights Movement in America, this class opens up conversation on the central issues of American history: race, racism, rights, and freedom.
AMST 30190 Religion in America
Thomas Tweed T/Th 2:20-3:35pm
This course introduces students to the history of religion in the lands that became the United States. it focuses on how diverse peoples imagined and transformed the landscape, interacted with one another at different sites, and moved within and across borders. It is divided into two main sections. We begin --and end--by asking: How should we tell the story of religion in America? To help students clarify their thinking and provide them with a wide variety of intriguing sources, the next two sections introduce different ways to tell that story--by chronology or theme. Section one provides an historical overview, telling the story of U.S. religion by tracing chronological shifts, and we turn in the next section to explore a series of theses drawing on varied sources from multiple groups and historical periods. The topics we discuss in that section include gender, sexuality, science, class, race, ethnicity, violence, politics, pluralism, and law. Along the way, students plan and write a research paper on a topic of their choice and present their findings to the class. At the end, we circle back to the questions we posted at the start-how do we tell the story of U.S. religion?-as we write our own narrative on the last day of class.
AMST 30192 Sports and American Culture
Annie Coleman T/Th 9:35-10:50am
Sports play a big role in American culture. From pick up soccer and the Baraka Bouts to fantasy football and the Olympics, sports articulate American identities, priorities, aspirations, and concerns. They reflect our dominant values but also highlight our divisions and serve as a means to question those values. Athletes, organizers, spectators, fans, and the media all have a stake. This course will examine sport's role in American society and culture thematically, covering the late 19th century to present and paying special attention to sport as a physical performance (including issues of danger, drugs, disability, spectatorship, and fandom), sport as an expression of identity (the construction of race, gender, class, community, and nation), sport as a form of labor (with issues of power and control, safety, and amateurism), and sport as a cultural narrative (how do writers, historians, and the media attach meaning to it?). We will examine history, journalism, documentary film, and television coverage; topics will range from Victorian bicyclists and early college football to Muhammad Ali. Requirements include reading and regular discussion, a variety of short analytical papers, and a culminating project in which students will choose one course theme to analyze through a topic of their own choice.
AMST 30194 Transnational America
Perin Gurel M/W 11:10am-12:25pm
What does American Studies have to do with the rest of the world? A lot. The movement of people, ideas, and products across our national borders have influenced both the United States and the world around us. (Think immigration, commerce, study abroad programs, cultural fads like belly dance and gangnam style, but also, imperialism, terrorism, and drones.) In this course, we will explore both the presence of the world in the United States and the presence of the United States in the world, with a focus on the politics of culture. How have Americans imagined the world and how have non-Americans imagined the United States? Is there such a thing as "cultural imperialism" or "Americanization" and how does it work? How has culture influenced U.S. foreign policy and how have U.S. foreign policy makers and non-governmental groups sought to influence culture, both within the United States and elsewhere? The course has a chronological emphasis, beginning with the Spanish-Cuban-American war (1898) and U.S. imperialism in the Pacific, going on to the post-WWI "Wilsonian Moment", WWII, "the American Century" and the Cold War, and the War on Terror. Even more important, however, is its thematic emphasis on the connections between culture and policy. Requirements include discussion, reading responses, and a final research-based paper.
AMST 43157 Race and Racism
Jennifer Huynh M/W 12:45pm-2:00pm
This course examines key issues and methodological approaches in Critical Race and Ethnic Studies. Students choose to write a 20-25 page paper or to develop a seminar project based on their interests.
AMERICAN STUDIES SPRING 2021 OUTSIDE COURSE DESCRIPTIONS
AMST 30249 American Modernisms
Cyraina Johnson-Roullier M/W 12:45pm-2:00pm
Discussions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century literary and cultural movement of Modernism often center on those qualities of the movement described in the work of early Modernist literary critics, such as Harry Levin or Edmund Wilson. Such examinations emphasize the Modern movement's experiments in form, structure, linguistic representation, characterization, etc., while paying much less attention to the role of the Modernist movement in the larger context of a given culture. In this course, we will explore the significance of the Modern movement from the perspective of American culture, as well as the manner and meaning of American literary participation in the movement. To that end, we will consider not only the work of authors generally accepted as Modernists, such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein; we will also consider the role of authors such as Sherwood Anderson and Waldo Frank, of the early Chicago Renaissance (1910 - 1925), and a number of authors from the Harlem Renaissance. We will examine the work of these authors not only in the context of Modernism, but also as it relates to many issues of the day, including progressivism, primitivism, race and ethnicity, immigration, cosmopolitanism vs. regionalism, and the importance of the vernacular, in addition to the question of "Americanness" and its importance to an understanding of American literature during this time. Considering these different vantage points in American literary Modernism, we will try to imagine the contours of "American Modernisms," and draw some conclusions about their significance within the larger Modernist context. In so doing, we'll seek to arrive at a more comprehensive, more nuanced perspective on the meaning of the Modern in American literature and culture.Course texts: Edith Wharton, Age of Innocence; Willa Cather, O Pioneers!; Sherwood Anderson, Dark Laughter; Waldo Frank, Holiday; Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie; Ernest Hemingway, Torrents of Spring; F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby; Gertrude Stein, Three Lives; Jessie Fauset, Plum Bun; Jean Toomer, Cane; William Faulkner, Absalom! Absalom!Course Requirements: Two 10-page essays, one mini-presentation, one larger presentation.
AMST 30272 American Literary Traditions II
Sara Marcus M/W 11:10am-12:25pm
This course is premised on the contested concepts of "American" and "literature." It posits and departs from the idea that a certain cultural stances were generated in the American colonial period and the earlier nineteenth century prior to the Civil War, subject always to transnational influence. Among these are Puritanism, the "Other," nature, commerce, and the category of literature itself. Such positions continued to extert a powerful - if always conflicted and contested - hold on subsequent major writers in the United States after the Civil War into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We will closely examine writers such as Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Henry James, Kate Chopin, T.S. Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Stephen Crane, Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, Ralph Ellison, and John Updike to see how they they practice their craft in response to and revision of this inherited American tradition.
AMST 30289 Literature and Environment
Jake McGinnis T/Th 5:30pm-6:45pm
For the last five centuries, American literatures have consistently drawn from and reacted to the continent's diverse, dynamic environments. Today, however, "nature" and all that we associate with it seem fundamentally different. This course examines the tradition of United States nonfiction nature writing in light of what Bill McKibben calls the "end of nature, - or the end of nature as we know it. We'll begin with an introduction to the interdisciplinary field of the environmental humanities, and then students will encounter some of the most significant literary voices associated with nineteenth- and twentieth-century environmentalism. After the midterm, we'll turn to more contemporary literary nonfiction and the wicked problems of the late twentieth- and twenty-first centuries. For example, what does "nature" look like today, especially from the lens of a university with a national and global reach? What does environmentalism look like in the face of widespread human migration, globalization, and climatic instability, and how do ideas of race, class, ethnicity, and gender become entangled in environmental thinking? What can nature writing offer us in the Anthropocene? Students will consider such questions throughout the term, both in class discussions and in written assignments.
AMST 30294 Religious Difference in American Literature
Sara Judy M/W 9:35am-10:50am
Many places of worship hang a sign of invitation: All Are Welcome! But what happens when an aspect of an individual's identity or beliefs comes into conflict with their religious community? Which differences are tolerated, and which are shunned? Who belongs, and who is cast out? From Nathaniel Hawthorne's short stories to Kendrick Lamar's hip hop albums, the American literary imagination has long been interested in examining the conflicts between identity - race, gender, sexuality, class, and disability - and religion. Together we will read a variety of American literature, including poetry, science-fiction, drama, and literary essays, paying attention to religious outcasts, misfits, and minoritized peoples as they search for belonging within established communities, or attempt to forge new spaces for themselves. Readings will include James Baldwin, N. Scott Momaday, Tony Kushner, Octavia Butler, more contemporary writing by Molly McCully Brown and R.O. Kwon, as well as music, film, and podcasts.
AMST 30311 Energy in Modern America
Darren Dochuk T/Th 2:20pm-3:35pm
This course will offer students a rigorous and lively encounter with multiple energy sources and their manifold effects on American society, from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. Recent political developments in the US offer plenty of reasons for a course of this sort, one that can contextualize contemporary debates over energy-related matters such as global warming, national security, federal regulation, and sustainability in broad sweeps of change over time. Yet the primary goal of this course will be to provide a history of energy on its own terms. One cannot grasp the complexities and entanglements of modern life in its entirety without first coming to terms with the ways humans demand, consume, and interact with energy - and in turn, the ways it shapes and reshapes our social structures, realigns our lived and material infrastructures, and even dictates cultural values and trends. We will interrogate these values and structural outcomes with the help of path-breaking scholarship - books and articles about coal, petroleum, electricity, and nuclear energy that not only chart their development over time, but also reveal the ways in which, at key junctures in the nation's past, they forged new patterns of labor and race relations, corporate and community growth, state governance and land-use policy, gender and religion, regional growth and America's global reach. Moving from the Civil War to the present, from the oil patches of western Pennsylvania and West Texas to American petroleum sites in the Middle East - from the electrification of east-coast cities in the late nineteenth century to the damming of western rivers for hydropower in the early-twentieth, this course will give students the opportunity to ponder past and present energy systems within prisms of vast societal impact.
AMST 30324 History of the American West
Joshua Specht M/W 2:20pm-3:35pm
This course will offer students a rigorous and lively encounter with multiple energy sources and their manifold effects on American society, from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. Recent political developments in the US offer plenty of reasons for a course of this sort, one that can contextualize contemporary debates over energy-related matters such as global warming, national security, federal regulation, and sustainability in broad sweeps of change over time. Yet The primary goal of this course will be to provide a history of energy on its own terms. One Cannot grasp the complexities and entanglements of modern life in its entirety without first coming to terms with the ways humans demand, consume, and interact with energy - and in turn, the ways it shapes and reshapes our social structures, realigns our lived and material infrastructures, and even dictates cultural values and trends. We will interrogate these values and structural outcomes with the help of path-breaking scholarship - books and articles about coal, petroleum, electricity, and nuclear energy that not only chart their development over time, but also reveal the ways in which, at key junctures in the nation's past, they forged new patterns of labor and race relations, corporate and community growth, state governance and land-use policy, gender and religion, regional growth and America's global reach. Moving from the Civil War to the present, from the oil patches of western Pennsylvania and West Texas to American petroleum sites in the Middle East - from the electrification of east-coast cities in the late nineteenth century to the damming of western rivers for hydropower in the early-twentieth, this course will give students the opportunity to ponder past and present energy systems within prisms of vast societal impact.
AMST 30327 Interwar U.S.A.
Rebecca McKenna T/Th 11:10am-12:25pm
This course considers U.S. history from the "Jazz Age" through the depression decade. Drawing on secondary literature and primary sources including novels, films, and non-fiction writing, we will focus especially on the social and cultural dimensions of consumerism, the rise of industrial unionism, religious fundamentalism, the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan, prohibition, immigration restriction, and the Great Depression and New Deal. we will consider the U.S. role in the world through a period often characterized as one of American isolationism; understanding of capitalism between the roaring 20s and the descent into economic depression; and intellectual though and the participation of artists and intellectuals in public life.
AMST 30331 U.S. Civil War Era, 1848-1877
Linda Przybyszewski T/Th 9:35am-10:50am
Through intensive reading and writing students will explore the social and cultural history of America's most costly war. We will focus on various topics as they relate to the war: antebellum origins, religion, gender, Lincoln's reasons for waging war, dead bodies, freedmen's families, black soldiers, and the uses
of war memory. This will not be a guns-and-generals-smell-the-smoke course, though knowledge of military matters can be helpful. We will ask and try to answer who really "won" and "lost" the war.
AMST 30365 Religion and American Politics
David Campbell T/Th 2:20pm-3:35pm
This course will examine the many ways in which religion has been fused into American politics. In doing so, we will also explore the rising tide of secularism in the United States, which many argue has resulted from a backlash to the fusion of religion and conservative politics. Then it will turn to trying to solve the puzzle of America?s religious pluralism?if religion is so politically divisive, why are Americans so accepting of (most) religions other than their own? What explains the exceptions to that acceptance? What are the implications of a secularizing America for religious pluralism?
AMST 30373 The American Revolution
Patrick Griffin M/W 10:25am-11:15am
When speaking of the American Revolution, many writers reach for a comment made by John Adams in 1818 that, "[T]he Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people. . ." Whether this assertion is true historically or not, it still does not adequately describe what that revolution was. The American Revolution obviously had its political elements, primarily the formation of the United States. To reach its political goals, military means were necessary. Without a successful War for Independence, there would have been no revolution. To leave matters there, however, would be insufficient. A fuller understanding of the revolution would need to address how it affected the whole spectrum of American life. It would consider the revolution as a social movement that challenged the political and social hierarchies of the day. It would also ask how the revolution affected those who were not white males, especially women, slaves, and Native Americans. Without considering the possible negative implications of the revolution, any telling would be incomplete. This class will take up these challenges and attempt to make a full-orbed presentation of the events surrounding the American Revolution. It will introduce students both to elites and to those whom the popular narrative glosses over. It will attempt to count the losses, as well as the gains, which flowed from the move to independence from Britain. Finally, it will attempt to describe the many changes through this period, which resulted, not only in a new political nation, but in a new society and culture--changes that in varying degrees are still with us today and of which contemporary Americans are the inheritors.
AMST 30419 Constitutional Law
Vincent Munoz T/Th 12:45pm-2:00pm
This course introduces the basic themes of the American constitution, its historical development, and debates in constitutional politics. The course employs a variety of instructional methods including Socratic method lectures, class debates, and moot court exercises in which students play the role of lawyers and justices arguing a Supreme Court case. Students will explore the social and political struggles that have defined the allocation of constitutional power, including debates over presidential war-powers, states' rights, judicial supremacy, federal power to enforce civil rights, and the recent healthcare controversy.
AMST 30428 U.S. Foreign Policy
Daniel Lindley T/Th 9:35am-10:50am
The United States is the most powerful state in the world today. Its actions are important not just for US citizens, but they also affect whether others go to war, whether they will win their wars, whether they receive economic aid, whether they will go broke, or whether they will starve. What determines US foreign policy? What is the national interest? When do we go to war? Would you send US soldiers into war? If so, into which wars and for what reasons? How do our economic policies affect others? Does trade help or hurt the US economy and its citizens? We first study several theories about foreign policy. We then examine the US foreign policy process, including the President, Congress, the bureaucracy, the media, and public opinion. To see how this all works, we turn to the history of US foreign policy, from Washington's farewell address through the World Wars and the Cold War to the Gulf War. We then study several major issue areas, including weapons of mass destruction, trade and economics, and the environment. Finally, we develop and debate forecasts and strategies for the future.
AMST 30460 Introduction to Latino Studies
Marisel Moreno T/Th 12:45pm-2:00pm
This course will examine the Latino experience in the United States, including the historical, cultural, and political foundations of Latino life. We will approach these topics comparatively, thus attention will be given to the various experiences of a multiplicity of Latino groups in the United States.
AMST 30463 Latinos in the Future of America: Building Transformative Leadership
Luis Fraga M/W 11:10am-12:25pm
This course will examine the opportunities and challenges facing Latino communities today as they simultaneously transform and are transformed by their continuing growth in U.S. society. Through a careful examination of the biographies of leaders in Latino communities, we will examine what role they have each played in empowering Latino communities to advance in business, arts, education, community organizing, entertainment, medicine, religion, law, academia, politics, and other areas. The course will coincide with the Transformative Latino Leadership Speaker Series sponsored by the Arthur Foundation through the Institute for Latino Studies. Students in the class will have the opportunity to interact with invited leaders in several setting including the classroom, meals, receptions, and university-wide events. The primary course requirement is a research essay about the life and career of a chosen leader.
AMST 30467 History of American Indian Education
Brian Collier M/W 8:00am-9:15am
This course blends the History of Education and American Indian History and is open (by invitation only) to students interested in action research on these two topics. The course may include an opportunity to collaborate on a project with a school that is part of the Native mission network schools and may include travel to a Native community. The course is by invitation only.
AMST 30468 American Politics
Geoffrey Layman M/W 9:10am-10:00am
This course surveys the basic institutions and practices of American politics. The goal of the course is to gain a more systematic understanding of American politics that will help you become better informed and more articulate. The course examines the institutional and constitutional framework of American politics and identifies the key ideas needed to understand politics today. The reading and writing assignments have been designed not only to inform you, but also to help develop your analytic and research skills. The themes of the course include the logic and consequences of the separation of powers, the build-in biases of institutions and procedures, the origins and consequence of political reforms, and recent changes in American politics in the 21st century. This semester we will emphasize the significance of the upcoming 2016 elections, and the course will include election-related assignments. Although the course counts toward the Political Science major and will prepare prospective majors for further study of American politics, its primary aim is to introduce students of all backgrounds and interests to the information, ideas, and academic skills that will enable them to understand American politics better and help them become more thoughtful and responsible citizens.
AMST 30516 Unequal America
Joel Mittleman T/Th 12:45am-2:00pm
Although America is the world's richest nation, it has the most unequal distribution of wealth and income in the industrialized world. In this course, we will examine why this is so. In particular, we will examine the following questions: What social forces create inequality in society? Is inequality inevitable? Is there such a thing as "social class"? Who gets ahead and why? Why is race/ethnicity and gender still related to social status, wealth, and income? Does America have a "ruling elite?" Who are "the poor" and what explains their poverty? Are there social policies that can create more equality in American society -- and is that what Americans really want?
AMST 30518 Inner City America
William Carbonaro T/Th 7:05pm-8:20pm
Most Americans think of the "inner city" as a place of misery, danger, and despair. Why do most American cities have racially segregated areas dominated by concentrated poverty? What are the lives of inner city residents like? Why do the legal, political, economic, and educational institutions that serve these communities struggle so mightily to improve the lives of inner city residents? In this course, we will address all of these questions by viewing all five seasons of The Wire, David Simon's epic tale of life in inner city Baltimore. Sociological theory and research will serve as powerful tools to help students "decode" The Wire, and better understand of the social forces that create and sustain inner city poverty, violence, and disorder. (Sophomores, Juniors & Seniors Only)
AMST 30703 History of Television
Michael Kackman M/W 11:10am-12:25pm
Television has been widely available in the United States for only half a century, yet already it has become a key means through which we understand our culture. Our course examines this vital medium from three perspectives. First, we will look at the industrial, economic and technological forces that have shaped U.S. television since its inception. These factors help explain how U.S. television adopted the format of advertiser-supported broadcast networks and why this format is changing today. Second, we will explore television's role in American social and political life: how TV has represented cultural changes in the areas of gender, class, race and ethnicity. Third, we will discuss specific narrative and visual strategies that characterize program formats. Throughout the semester we will demonstrate how television and U.S. culture mutually influence one another, as television both constructs our view of the world and is affected by social and cultural forces within the U.S.
AMST 30737 The Hyphenated American
Anne Garcia-Romero T/Th 12:45pm-2:00pm
Contemporary U.S. theater ought to value equity, diversity, and inclusion by more consistently producing works that reflect its culturally complex society. This course is designed to introduce students to theatrical texts by contemporary Latinx, African-American, Asian-American, and Native American playwrights. Many of these playwrights' works engage with a variety of cultural experiences that complicate definitions of U.S. society. This course will examine the trajectory of culturally inclusive U.S. theater from the late 20th century to the present. The course will also consider how U.S. regional theaters work toward greater equity by including diverse voices. Students will be expected to read plays and analyze them using methods provided. The course aims to provide students with tools for reflection to develop their own analytical and creative responses to contemporary U.S. theater.
AMST 30763 Transformative Justice (Winter Session 1/04 – 1/27)
Pamela Butler T/Th 12:45pm-2:00pm
As calls to defund police and abolish prisons have gone mainstream in the United States, many who encounter those demands struggle to imagine alternatives to our punitive criminal legal system, especially when it comes to violent crime. This one-credit course serves as a hands-on introduction to transformative justice -- a feminist political framework for responding to violence without relying on punishment, incarceration, or policing. We will learn about the history and philosophy of transformative justice (TJ) as it has developed in Black, immigrant, and Indigenous communities over many generations. We will read theoretical works, case studies, and personal narratives from scholars, practitioners, and community organizers seeking to solve the problem of violence without creating more violence. Most importantly, we will cultivate skills to build restorative and transformative responses to violence, abuse, and harm in our own relationships and communities. Our virtual class sessions will include a mix of discussion and activities, with an emphasis on collaboration and skill-building
AMST 30927 Diversity in Young Adult Literature (Winter Session 1/04 - 1/27))
Michael Macaluso M/T/Th/F 12:00pm-2:00pm
In this course, we will challenge the single story/ies U.S. schools and curricula have told about books, characters, and cultural groups by focusing on literature by and about people from various populations that have been traditionally underrepresented in the United States. We will discuss young adult literature from parallel cultures (including possible works by and about African Americans, Asian Americans, Latino/as, Native Americans, Middle Eastern Americans, and other ethnic groups), as well as literature by and about populations traditionally defined by class, religion, ability, gender and sexuality. Course participants will investigate theoretical perspectives, issues, controversies, and educational implications for these texts, including race and racism, whiteness and privilege (in society and in the educational system), and critical literacy. As an extension of the course, we will also examine the young adult literature market and how contemporary media may reinforce or resist the stereotypes, labels, and single stories associated with these cultures. Possible texts include All American Boys, American Born Chinese (graphic novel), a Jacqueline Woodson novel, Openly Straight, a canonical text like To Kill a Mockingbird, Every Day, and several choice options, including a Classic/Newberry text, one text representing a non-abled bodied protagonist, and one contemporary text.
AMST 40326 African-American Resistance
Richard Pierce T/Th 9:35am-10:50am
Through a close examination of twelve historical events, we will study African American resistance in the United States from the 17th century through the 20th century. We will employ a case study method and seek to categorize and characterize the wide variety of African American resistance. Our study will include the politics of confrontation and civil disobedience, polarization of arts, transformation of race relations, the tragedies and triumphs of Reconstruction, interracial violence, black political and institutional responses to racism and violence, the Harlem Renaissance, Jazz, Blues, and the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. Students will be confronted with conflicting bodies of evidence and challenged to analyze these issues and arrive at conclusions. Music and film will supplement classroom discussions.
AMST 40613 LGBT in the 20th Century USA
Gail Bederman M/W 2:20pm-3:35pm
This course covers the varied experience of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (and other gender-fluid) Americans over the course of the twentieth century. As much as possible, it will focus on the voices of LGBT people themselves, in the context of the changing meanings of what it was to claim those identities. To do this we will draw on primary sources--art, music, film, literature, interviews and oral histories, memoirs and autobiographies, plays, films. The focus will be on the ways people understood who they were--and what homosexual/ gay/ lesbian/ queer/ transsexual/ transgender/ et al identities meant to them--and how these identities changed over the course of the twentieth century, using a wide variety of primary sources and relevant disciplinary frameworks.