Summer 2011
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AMST201 Introduction to American Studies
0201 TuWTh 9-11:15am D.Bost Session 2
What do you do in American Studies? Seems like a simple enough answer: “you study America.” This course evaluates the deceptive simplicity of such an objective by considering the diverse people and cultures that constitute America. This course is not a survey-course in American history or literature; instead, the purpose of this class is to introduce you to the interdisciplinary field of American Studies. How can we ask questions about American culture and society? To find out, we will explore the various methodologies and questions of the field through the consideration of canonical and contemporary work in the field. We will examine how we fit into a greater context by considering the role of difference, identity, and globalization in the American experience.
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AMST203 Popular Culture in America
WB11 WEB Online M. Vargas Session 1
WB11 WEB Online T.King Session 2
What is popular culture, how does it function, and why does it matter? Conventionally, “high culture” has been clearly distinguished from and privileged over “low culture.” High culture has enjoyed connotations of elite, at times even esoteric, importance and low culture has endured effective dismissal as something of vulgar irrelevance. But if we regard culture generally as essentially the ways in which we cultivate collective meanings about our lives and our place(s) in the world, what then might be the role of popular culture? What might be the scope and limits of a set of cultural forms that are considered to be, in their “popularity,“ commonly accessible? What possible contributions, for better and for worse, can popular forms offer to the cultivation of collective meanings in diverse American cultural contexts? Specifically, how does popular culture address the crucial notions of subjectivity and agency, notions that typically shape the parameters of meaningful life and -- conversely -- functional, if not actual, death?
This semester, we will keep such questions in mind as we engage a variety of popular culture forms, including (but not limited to) music, film, television, and sports, with specific attention to how these forms relate to the everyday practices and beliefs of a contemporary American context. Because as participants we are, all of us, necessarily and inextricably implicated in any discussion of American popular culture, such as exploration will invoke our personal investments in the discussion. This approach will outline our terrain and provide the tools with which we can work through our questions thoughtfully, responsively, and responsibly. Through our diligent, collaborative, critical, and self-reflexive efforts, our class together will develop resources we can use to interrogate how popular culture matters to the most critical of meaning formations, the understanding of life and death.
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AMST298M Selected Topics in American Studies: Sex, Gender, and Labor in the Contemporary Global Political Economy
WB10 WEB Online G.Callahan Session 1
Interdisciplinary course explores the ways that women, and more specifically their bodies and labor, are employed and deployed by the state and by the market. It interrogates the global and macro systems of power at stake in this usage and considers women's negotiation of these forces. Readings include both canonical and everyday texts and both theoretical works and case studies in order to illuminate various sites of knowledge production. Emphasized throughout are corporeality, materiality, and representation.
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AMST328E Perspectives on Identity and Culture: Race and Popular Culture
0101 WEB Online D. Ishii Session 1
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AMST386 Experiential Learning
WB11 TBA J. Paoletti Session 1
WB21 TBA J. Paoletti Session 2
Prerequisite: permission of department. Junior standing. Faculty mentored independent learning. Online interaction using Blackboard required.
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AMST398 Independent Studies
WB11 WEB Online J. Paoletti Session 1
WB21 WEB Online J. Paoletti Session 2
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AMST418D Cultural Themes in America: Growing Up American
SG91 WEB Online R. Kelly
Human societies, if they are to persist over time, must accomplish two things. They must replace their population, ordinarily (although not necessarily) through biological reproduction. Secondly, adults must transmit their culture -- the knowledge and beliefs that structure and give meaning to their way of life, their "social inheritance" -- to the younger generation who will be responsible, in their turn, for carrying on that way of life. "Socialization" is the process in and through which cultural transmission is accomplished. AMST418D looks at various issues connected with the process of socialization in the United States, drawing on works of fiction, autobiography, and sociology, as well as court cases, to do so.
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AMST429E Television in American Culture
WB11 WEB Online S. Parks
WB21 WEB Online A.Nelson
Television is the most popular form of leisure time activity and serious public discourse in the United States and American television is the most popular in the world. What are the relationships between the industry, the content, and the audiences? Who is watching what and why? What are the various societal results of the continual conversation between the television industry and audiences? Students will learn and try various methods of examining television content and the roles of television in the culture.
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