American Studies Courses for Fall Semester 2011-12
All of these courses carry Humanities Credit
Introduction to American Studies (AMST 215/ HIST 278A), 12:30-13:45, TR, Nicely 107. Instructor: Dr. Sam Haselby. Through political history and literature, this course introduces students to some of the major problems of American Studies. From where does the rhetoric of American identity come? In what ways did the colonization of the North American shape American politics and culture? How was the contradiction between slavery and freedom resolved? What is new about consumerism? The course gives students a sense of some of the basic features of the American historical experience while, in the tradition of the American studies field, raising questions about the relationship between cultural and political power.
America in the Middle East/ The Middle East in America (AMST 240), 11:00-12:15, TR, Nicely 107. Instructor: Dr. Alexander Lubin. This course historicizes contemporary United States military and economic involvement in the Middle East by considering the cultural history of U.S./Middle East relations from the mid-19th century to the present. An emergent area of transnational study within American Studies, studies of U.S./Middle East cultural relations are focused on policy, economic, cultural, and affective dimensions. Students will engage the field by analyzing primary documents, reading literature, and viewing visual and popular culture.
Sp. Tp. In American Humanities: Christianity in American History (AMST 275N/ HIST 278F), 14:00-15:15, TR, Nicely 107. Instructor: Dr. Sam Haselby. The course introduces students to a few major developments in the history of Christianity in America. It begins with a consideration of who were the Puritans. Moving to modern history, the course approaches religion as a central arena for conflict and mediation between nation and state. Topics include the development of Afro-American religion and Mormonism. The course looks at American evangelicalism, including its missionary enterprise in the Middle East, as manifestations of bourgeois nationalism. By considering its social aspect and intellectual ambitions, particularly its claim to challenge science, the course presents religious fundamentalism in the context of cultural history. The course concludes with reading on religion in the experience of immigration and American cities.
Sp. Tp. In American Humanities: America, the Arab World and Music Video (AMST 275P/ SOAN 243E), 14:00-15:15, MF, Nicely 105. Instructor: Dr. Marwan Kraidy. This course explores the advent of music video as a cultural form in the US in the 1980s, and the ensuing music video canon in American cultural studies, which was animated by debates about feminism, postmodernism, and how images relates to music; the rise of music video in the Arab world and the polemics it continues to trigger about gender, sexuality, and social norms. In classroom discussion and student projects, special attention will be paid to US influence on Arab popular culture and constructions of "America" in Arab videos.
Sp. Tp. In American Humanities: Comparative Media Systems: The US and the Arab World (AMST 275Q/ SOAN 238B), 15:30-16:45, MF, Nicely 105. Instructor: Dr. Marwan Kraidy. This course has two objectives. The first is to familiarize you with the comparative approach to media systems, focused on the media-politics relations. This entails reading key literature, grasping theoretical and epistemological issues, and understanding basic concepts. A more challenging but more exciting objective is to go beyond the existing literature to address the following questions: To what extent are taxonomies developed in and about North America and Europe helpful in understanding media systems and institutions in other parts of the world? What challenges arise from using nation-states as units of analysis? What would happen to the model were we to adopt the transnational media institution operating on a global scale as a unit of analysis? How do new media like the Internet and mobile devices compel a rethinking of comparative media research? How does the emergence of regional, multi-national, sometimes language-based media spheres (especially pan-Arab media) challenge the comparative systems approach? Do we need to add a fourth model to the “liberal,” “social-democratic,” and “polarized-pluralist,” or is a more systemic, fundamental, revision of the comparative media method necessary? To what extent does the advent of globalization as a framework for global communication theory and research compel a rethinking of the comparative systems approach?
Courses offered in other departments and count towards AMST Minor:
HIST 279 Special Topics in United States History
A course emphasizing a particular subject, theme, period, or region in the history of the United States (e.g., Native Americans, US environmental history, Civil War and Reconstruction, the American West) to be offered by resident or visiting specialists with expertise in the field. May be repeated for credit. Offered occasionally. Equivalent to AMST 215/230.
PSPA 251 Politics and Government: United States of America
A survey of the main features of the American political system, including the foreign policy making process. Annually.
ENGL 201 Survey of American Literature
An introduction to a broad range of major American writers and texts, most of which are drawn from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This course may vary in content depending on the instructor. Annually.
ENGL 219 Film as Text
Using the analytical methods of literary analysis, as well as those pertinent to the study of film, students will study a selection of influential twentieth-century film texts. Screening of films and practical analysis will form the core activities of this course. Annually.
ENGL 225 American Literature from 1900 to 1960
A course that looks at the development of American literature in the first half of the twentieth century, starting with Realism and Naturalism and ending with the works of the Beat Generation. Major figures whose works might be examined include Cather, Wharton, Anderson, Frost, O’Neill, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Steinbeck, and O’Connor. Annually
ENGL 226 Contemporary American Literature
A course that examines recent and current trends and movements in American literature, such as Absurdism, Post-Modernism, and ethnic literatures of the United States. Authors studied might include Morrison, Walker, Vonnegut, Heller, and Carver. Annually
ENGL 242 Modernism and Post-Modernism
A course that examines selected works of twentieth-century modernism and post-modernism, which are considered against a cultural, historical, and artistic background. Major writers studied might include Joyce, Woolf, T.S. Eliot, Beckett, Nabokov, and Garcia Marquez. Annually.