AMSTUD 1B:
Media, Culture, and Society (COMM 1B)
The institutions and practices of mass media, including television, film, radio, and digital media, and their role in shaping culture and social life. The media's shifting relationships to politics, commerce, and identity.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
AMSTUD 2:
Introduction to American National Government and Politics (POLISCI 2)
The role and importance of the ideal of democracy in the evolution of the American political system. American political institutions (the Presidency, Congress, and the Court) and political processes (the formation of political attitudes and voting) are examined against the backdrop of American culture and political history. The major areas of public policy in the current practice of the ideal of democracy.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, WAY-SI
AMSTUD 12:
Race, Poverty and Disaster Relief
An Exploration of pre and post-Katrina New Orleans, is Hillel at Stanford¿s preparation course for all students participating in Hillel¿s alternative spring break trip to New Orleans from March 25-April 2. Professors and other speakers from a variety of fields will offer perspectives on the historical, racial, and political context for the disastrous effects of Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast. This course will also offer Jewish and secular perspectives on service, emphasizing the importance of questioning our motivations and approaches to helping others.
Terms: Win
| Units: 1
AMSTUD 15A:
IDA Integrative Seminar: Occupy Art - Immigration, Nation, and the Art of Occupation (AFRICAAM 15A, COMPLIT 36, CSRE 15A, ENGLISH 15A)
This course consists of film screenings, dialogues, and performances that engage critically with the theme of Occupation across contexts, exploring both the potential and limitations of the art of Occupation. Students will engage some of the most provocative artists, writers, and thinkers of our times to consider the purpose of the arts across diverse communities that engage Occupation in local, transnational and global perspective.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 1-4
AMSTUD 25N:
Understanding the Sixties (SOC 25N)
Preference to freshmen. The tendency of critics to view the 60s through ideological lenses as either the best or worst of times has made a balanced perspective difficult to achieve. Goal is to provide a sociological explanation for the political and cultural turbulence that marked the era. The confluence of demographic, political, economic, and cultural trends that date back to at least the 30s. The ambiguous legacy of the 60s. Using the 60s to shed light on the 80s and 90s. Enrollment limited to 16.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci
AMSTUD 51N:
Comparative Fictions of Ethnicity (COMPLIT 51N, CSRE 51N)
We may "know" "who" we "are," but we are, after all, social creatures. How does our sense of self interact with those around us? How does literature provide a particular medium for not only self expression, but also for meditations on what goes into the construction of "the Self"? After all, don't we tell stories in response to the question, "who are you"? Besides a list of nouns and names and attributes, we give our lives flesh and blood in telling how we process the world. Our course focuses in particular on this question--Does this universal issue ("who am I") become skewed differently when we add a qualifier before it, like "ethnic"?
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP, Writing 2
AMSTUD 68N:
Mark Twain and American Culture (ENGLISH 68N)
Preference to freshmen. Mark Twain has been called our Rabelais, our Cervantes, our Homer, our Tolstoy, our Shakespeare. Ernest Hemingway maintained that all modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. President Franklin D.nnRoosevelt got the phrase New Deal from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Class discussions will focus on how Twain's work illuminates and complicates his society's responses to such issues as race, technology, heredity versus environment, religion, education, and what it means to be American.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
AMSTUD 69SI:
Last Exit to Springfield: The Simpsons and American Society
Explores the ways in which the animated television sitcom "The Simpsons" reflects and critiques American culture and society. The course will examine episodes from the series as well as secondary sources. Course topics include the dynamics of humor, parody and satire as social commentary; perspectives on American politics, democracy, and gender roles in the nuclear family. Weekly interactive discussions on episodes, and articles. Final presentations.
Terms: Win
| Units: 2
AMSTUD 101:
American Fiction into Film: How Hollywood Scripts and Projects Black and White Relations
Movies and the fiction that inspires them; power dynamics behind production including historical events, artistic vision, politics, and racial stereotypes. What images of black and white does Hollywood produce to forge a national identity? How do films promote equality between the races? What is lost or gained in film adaptations of books?
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
AMSTUD 103:
On the Road: Cars and the Auto-Mobility of Race, Gender, Class, and Age in American Literature (COMPLIT 120A)
The car in American literature, history, and culture, provides hope and makes it possible to relocate, transcend social status, and reinvent oneself. In this class we will examine how the car allows Americans to navigate identity in new ways. Readings include: Fitzgerald, Stein, Steinbeck, Escovedo-Colton, Nabokov, Barrett, Walker, Murray, Simpson, Wolfe, Kerouac, Davis, Freeman, Gilroy, Lucasi, Hamper, Moore, and Nass.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
AMSTUD 107:
Introduction to Feminist Studies (CSRE 108, FEMST 101, HISTORY 107)
Introduction to interdisciplinary feminist scholarship, which seeks to understand the creation, perpetuation, and critiques of gender inequalities. Topics include the historical emergence of feminist politics and contemporary analyses of work and family, health and sexuality, creativity, and politics. Close attention to the intersections of race, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality and to international, as well as U.S., perspectives. Students learn to think critically about gender in the past, present, and future.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
AMSTUD 114N:
Visions of the 1960s
Preference to sophomores. Introduction to the ideas, sensibility, and, to a lesser degree, the politics of the American 60s. Topics: the early 60s vision of a beloved community; varieties of racial, generational, and feminist dissent; the meaning of the counterculture; and current interpretive perspectives on the 60s. Film, music, and articles and books.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
AMSTUD 116:
American Economic History (ECON 116)
The American economy from colonial times to the present, illustrating the role of history in economic life. Topics: U.S. economic development in global and comparative context; slavery as an economic system; origins and consequences of the American technology and business organization; economics of the Great Depression and New Deal; post-World War II economic performance and social change; recent U.S. economic record in historical perspective. Prerequisite: 1A.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-SI
AMSTUD 120:
Digital Media in Society (COMM 120, COMM 220)
(Graduate students register for 220.) Contemporary debates concerning the social and cultural impact of digital media. Topics include the historical origins of digital media, cultural contexts of their development and use, and influence of digital media on conceptions of self, community, and state. Priority to Juniors and Seniors.
Last offered: Spring 2011
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, WAY-SI
AMSTUD 121:
Masterpieces of American Literature
(English majors and others taking 5 units, register for 121.) A survey of some of the definitive texts of American writing, such as Leaves of Grass, Benito Cereno, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Waste Land, The Sun Also Rises, The Golden Apples, and The Crying of Lot 49.
Last offered: Spring 2011
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
AMSTUD 121X:
Hip Hop, Youth Identities, and the Politics of Language (AFRICAAM 121X, ANTHRO 121A, CSRE 121X, EDUC 121X, LINGUIST 155)
Focus is on issues of language, identity, and globalization, with a focus on Hip Hop cultures and the verbal virtuosity within the Hip Hop nation. Beginning with the U.S., a broad, comparative perspective in exploring youth identities and the politics of language in what is now a global Hip Hop movement. Readings draw from the interdisciplinary literature on Hip Hop cultures with a focus on sociolinguistics and youth culture.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-4
AMSTUD 123D:
American Literature, 1855 to World War I
A survey of American writers from Whitman to T.S. Eliot, including Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, Kate Chopin, Theodore Dreiser, and Henry James. Topics include the tension between romance and realism, the impact of naturalism and modernism, as well as race, gender, and the literary evolution of the American language.
Last offered: Autumn 2010
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
AMSTUD 123G:
Mark Twain: A Fresh Look at an Icon and Iconoclast, 100 Years after His Death
The vitality and versatility of a writer who has been called America's Rabelais, Cervantes, Homer, Tolstoy, and Shakespeare. Journalism, travel books, fiction, drama, and sketches by Mark Twain; how Twain engaged such issues as personal and national identity, satire and social justice, imperialism, race and racism, gender, performance, travel, and technology. What are Twain's legacies in 2010, the centennial of his death, the 175th anniversary of his birth, and the 125th anniversary of his most celebrated novel? Guests include actor Hal Holbrook.
Last offered: Spring 2010
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul
AMSTUD 132:
American Art and Culture, 1528-1860 (ARTHIST 132, ARTHIST 332)
The visual arts and literature of the U.S. from the beginnings of European exploration to the Civil War. Focus is on questions of power and its relation to culture from early Spanish exploration to the rise of the middle classes. Cabeza de Vaca, Benjamin Franklin, John Singleton Copley, Phillis Wheatley, Charles Willson Peale, Emerson, Hudson River School, American Genre painters, Melville, Hawthorne and others.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II
AMSTUD 137:
The Dialogue of Democracy (COMM 137W, COMM 237, POLISCI 232T, POLISCI 332T)
All forms of democracy require some kind of communication so people can be aware of issues and make decisions. This course looks at competing visions of what democracy should be and different notions of the role of dialogue in a democracy. Is it just campaigning or does it include deliberation? Small scale discussions or sound bites on television? Or social media? What is the role of technology in changing our democratic practices, to mobilize, to persuade, to solve public problems? This course will include readings from political theory about democratic ideals - from the American founders to J.S. Mill and the Progressives to Joseph Schumpeter and modern writers skeptical of the public will. It will also include contemporary examinations of the media and the internet to see how those practices are changing and how the ideals can or cannot be realized.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:EC-EthicReas, WAY-ER, WAY-SI
AMSTUD 139B:
American Women Writers, 1850-1920 (ENGLISH 139B)
The ways in which female writers negotiated a series of literary, social, and intellectual movements, from abolitionism and sentimentalism in the nineteenth century to Progressivism and avant-garde modernism in the twentieth. Authors include Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Jacobs, Rebecca Harding Davis, Emily Dickinson, Kate Chopin, Edith Wharton, Gertrude Stein, Willa Cather, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
AMSTUD 140:
Stand Up Comedy and the "Great American Joke" Since 1945
Development of American Stand Up Comedy in the context of social and cultural eruptions after 1945, including the Borscht Belt, the Chitlin¿ Circuit, the Cold War, censorship battles, Civil Rights and other social movements of the 60s and beyond. The artistry of stories, monologues, jokes, impersonations, persona, social satire, scatology, obscenity, riffs, rants, shtick, and more by such artists as Lenny Bruce, Dick Gregory, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Margaret Cho, Sarah Silverman, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, as well as precursors such as Mark Twain, minstrelsy and vaudeville and related films, TV shows, poems and other manifestations of similar sensibilities and techniques.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
AMSTUD 142:
The Literature of the Americas (COMPLIT 142, CSRE 142, ENGLISH 172E)
This course offers a wide-ranging overview of the literatures of the Americas innncomparative perspective, emphasizing continuities and crises that are common to North American, Central American, and South American literatures as well as the distinctive national and cultural elements of a diverse array of primary works. Topics include the definitions of such concepts as empire and colonialism, the encounters between worldviews of European and indigenous peoples, the emergence of creole and racially mixed populations, slavery, the New World voice, myths of America as paradise or utopia, the coming of modernism, twentieth-century avant-gardes, and distinctive modern episodes¿the Harlem Renaissance, the Beats, magic realism, Noigandres¿in unaccustomed conversation with each other.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II
AMSTUD 143:
Introduction to African American Literature (AFRICAAM 43, ENGLISH 43, ENGLISH 143)
(English majors and others taking 5 units, register for 143.) African American literature from its earliest manifestations in the spirituals, trickster tales, and slave narratives to recent developments such as black feminist theory, postmodern fiction, and hip hop lyricism. We will engage some of the defining debates and phenomena within African American cultural history, including the status of realist aesthetics in black writing; the contested role of literature in black political struggle; the question of diaspora; the problem of intra-racial racism; and the emergence of black internationalism. Attuned to the invariably hybrid nature of this tradition, we will also devote attention to the discourse of the Enlightenment, modernist aesthetics, and the role of Marxism in black political and literary history.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
AMSTUD 146:
Asian American Culture and Community (ASNAMST 146S, COMPLIT 146, CSRE 146S)
An examination of the history, art and culture of Vietnamese Americans, and their contemporary experiences in the South Bay. The course will combine in-class learning with a major conference featuring prominent artists and scholars on the Vietnamese Diasporic community. A service learning component requires community work at a service organization in San Jose. Service Learning Course (certified by Haas Center). Course can be repeated once.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
AMSTUD 146C:
Hemingway, Hurston, Faulkner, and Fitzgerald (ENGLISH 146C)
While Hemingway and Fitzgerald were flirting with the expatriate avant-garde in Europe, Hurston and Faulkner were performing anthropological field-work in the local cultures of the American South. Focus on the tremendous diversity of concerns and styles of four writers who marked America's coming-of-age as a literary nation with their multifarious experiments in representing the regional and the global, the racial and the cosmopolitan, the macho and the feminist, the decadent and the impoverished.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
AMSTUD 15:
Global Flows: The Globalization of Hip Hop Art, Culture, and Politics
This course consists of film screenings, dialogues, and performances that examine and engage Hip Hop Cultures and artists from around the world. We will explore diverse scenes and artists, from the formation of new musical genres such as hiplife in Ghana, to the impact of the first Hip Hop concert in Morocco, to comparative investigations of race and citizenship in Japan, Cuba, Palestine, France, and the United States (including Black, Mexican and Arab-Americans).
| Units: 1-2
AMSTUD 150:
American Literature and Culture to 1855 (ENGLISH 123)
A survey of early American writings, including sermons, poetry, captivity and slave narratives, essays, autobiography, and fiction, from the colonial era to the eve of the Civil War.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II
AMSTUD 150A:
Colonial and Revolutionary America (HISTORY 150A)
(Same as HISTORY 50A. History majors and others taking 5 units, register for HISTORY 150A.) Survey of the origins of American society and polity in the 17th and 18th centuries. Topics: the migration of Europeans and Africans and the impact on native populations; the emergence of racial slavery and of regional, provincial, Protestant cultures; and the political origins and constitutional consequences of the American Revolution.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
AMSTUD 150B:
19th-Century America (AFRICAAM 150B, HISTORY 150B)
(Same as HISTORY 50B. History majors and others taking 5 units, register for 150B.) Territorial expansion, social change, and economic transformation. The causes and consequences of the Civil War. Topics include: urbanization and the market revolution; slavery and the Old South; sectional conflict; successes and failures of Reconstruction; and late 19th-century society and culture.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-SI
AMSTUD 150C:
The United States in the Twentieth Century (HISTORY 150C)
(Same as HISTORY 50C. History majors and others taking 5 units, register for 150C.) Major political, economic, social, and diplomatic developments in the U.S. Themes: the economic and social role of government (Progressive, New Deal, Great Society, and Reagan-Bush eras); ethnic and racial minorities in society (mass immigration at the turn of the century and since 1965, the civil rights era of the 50s and 60s); the changing status of women since WW II; shifting ideological bases, institutional structures, and electoral characteristics of the political system (New Deal and post-Vietnam); determinants of foreign policy in WW I and II, and the Cold War.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
AMSTUD 152A:
"Mutually Assured Destruction": American Culture and the Cold War
The temperature of the early Cold War years via readings of Soviet and U.S. propaganda; documentary film and film noir; fiction by Bellow, Ellison, O¿Connor, and Mailer; social theory by Arendt, the New York Intellectuals, and the Frankfurt School; and political texts such as Kennan¿s Sources of Soviet Conduct, the ¿Truman Doctrine¿ speech, and the National Security Council Report 68. Major themes include the discourse of totalitarianism, MacCarthyism, strategies of containment, the nuclear threat, the figure of the ¿outsider¿ and the counterculture, and the cultural shift from sociological to psychological idioms.
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
AMSTUD 152D:
DuBois and American Culture (AFRICAAM 152, ENGLISH 152D)
His life and career. Focus on first half of his life from his Harvard doctoral dissertation to the end of the Harlem Renaissance in which he played a crucial role. Sources include his books on history and sociology, scholarly essays, novels, and journals that he edited. AAAS WIM course.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul
AMSTUD 152G:
Global Harlem Renaissance (AFRICAAM 152G)
Examination of the explosion of African American artistic expression during 1920s and 30s New York known as the Harlem Renaissance. Amiri Baraka once referred to the Renaissance as a kind of ¿vicious Modernism,¿ as a ¿BangClash,¿ that impacted and was impacted by political, cultural and aesthetic changes not only in the U.S. but Europe, the Caribbean and Latin America. Focus on the literature, graphic arts, and the music of the era in this global context.
Last offered: Autumn 2010
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
AMSTUD 154:
American Intellectual and Cultural History to the Civil War (HISTORY 154)
(Same as HISTORY 54. History majors and others taking 5 units, register for 154.) How Americans considered problems such as slavery, imperialism, and sectionalism. Topics include: the political legacies of revolution; biological ideas of race; the Second Great Awakening; science before Darwin; reform movements and utopianism; the rise of abolitionism and proslavery thought; phrenology and theories of human sexuality; and varieties of feminism. Sources include texts and images.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
AMSTUD 156H:
Women and Medicine in US History: Women as Patients, Healers and Doctors
Women's bodies in sickness and health, and encounters with lay and professional healers from the 18th century to the present. Historical consttruction of thought about women's bodies and physical limitations; sexuality; birth control and abortion; childbirth; adulthood; and menopause and aging. Women as healers, including midwives, lay physicians, the medical profession, and nursing.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
AMSTUD 159:
Introduction to Asian American History (HISTORY 159)
(Same as HISTORY 59. History majors and others taking 5 units, register for 159.) The historical experience of people of Asian ancestry in the U.S. Immigration, labor, community formation, family, culture and identity, and contemporary social and political controversies. Readings: interpretative texts, primary material, and historical fiction. (Chang)
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
AMSTUD 160:
Perspectives on American Identity
Required for American Studies majors. Changing interpretations of American identity and Americanness.
Terms: Win, Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
AMSTUD 161:
WOMEN IN MODERN AMERICA (CSRE 162, HISTORY 161)
Considers the political, economic, and social development of women in the United States during a long twentieth century. How have women been shaped or constrained by gendered conceptions of work, reproduction, education, family, and culture? Have all women reacted similarly to wars and depression or domestic and foreign policy? Through personal narratives and historical accounts, the course will answer these questions, observing how women negotiated gender, race, sexuality, and class difference to achieve greater opportunity and citizenship rights.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
AMSTUD 163S:
Post Black Drama in the Age of Obama (AFRICAAM 163S, CSRE 163S, DRAMA 163S, DRAMA 363S)
This course will examine works of the new millennium that confront questions of African American experience. These plays are written by African American and non-black writers. In analyzing these works, this course will investigate such questions as: In a time that has been called 'Post Race' or 'Post Soul' or even 'Post Black,' what can we discern about African American drama? How do these plays reflect or contradict such labeling? How do these works speak to our times? Who does the form relate to in matters of content in these works? What do these works tell us about the contemporary constructions and meanings of blackness?
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
AMSTUD 165:
History of Higher Education in the U.S. (EDUC 165, EDUC 265, HISTORY 158C)
Major periods of evolution, particularly since the mid-19th century. Premise: insights into contemporary higher education can be obtained through its antecedents, particularly regarding issues of governance, mission, access, curriculum, and the changing organization of colleges and universities. (SSPEP-APA)
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
AMSTUD 166:
Introduction to African American History: The Modern African American Freedom Struggle (AFRICAAM 166, HISTORY 166)
Focus is on political thought and protest movements after 1930. Individuals who have shaped and been shaped by modern African American struggles for freedom and justice. Sources include audiovisual materials. Research projects required for fifth unit.
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-AmerCul
AMSTUD 167:
The Hollywood Musical (FILMSTUD 167, FILMSTUD 367)
The sense of physical, emotional, aesthetic, and social liberation in this most colorful of film genres. Musicals as a place for the staging of issues of identity, including the impact of African American and Jewish culture, and issues of gay reception and interpretation. Attention to technologies of sound and color, the relation to vaudeville and Broadway, and ethnic and aesthetic diversity. Musicals as the epitome of filmic illusionism and the Hollywood studio system; the implications of their seduction of audiences; the meaning of spectacle, the centrality of performance. Busby Berkeley, Fred Astaire, Judy Garland, Bob Fosse, Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly, Vincente Minnelli.
Last offered: Spring 2011
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
AMSTUD 179:
Introduction to American Law (POLISCI 122, PUBLPOL 302A)
For undergraduates. The structure of the American legal system including the courts; American legal culture; the legal profession and its social role; the scope and reach of the legal system; the background and impact of legal regulation; criminal justice; civil rights and civil liberties; and the relationship between the American legal system and American society in general.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci
AMSTUD 183:
Border Crossings and American Identities (ANTHRO 183A, CSRE 183)
How novelists, filmmakers, and poets perceive racial, ethnic, gender, sexual preference, and class borders in the context of a national discussion about the place of Americans in the world. How Anna Deavere Smith, Sherman Alexie, or Michael Moore consider redrawing such lines so that center and margin, or self and other, do not remain fixed and divided. How linguistic borderlines within multilingual literature by Caribbean, Arab, and Asian Americans function. Can Anzaldúa's conception of borderlands be constructed through the matrix of language, dreams, music, and cultural memories in these American narratives? Course includes examining one's own identity.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
AMSTUD 183C:
Feminism and American Literature (ENGLISH 183C, JEWISHST 153C)
Exploration of the ways in which an eclectic group of American writers from the 19th century to the 20th have endeavored to enlarge the canvas on which women can paint their lives. Readings include stories, novels, journalism, poetry and drama that engage the social cultural, and political forces that can shape the kinds of futures students can imagine for themselves--forces that are further inflected by issues of race, ethnicity and class.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender
AMSTUD 185:
American Studies Internship
Restricted to declared majors. Practical experience working in a field related to American Studies for six to ten weeks. Students make internship arrangements with a company or agency, under the guidance of a sponsoring faculty member, and with the consent of the director or a program coordinator of American Studies. Required paper focused on a topic related to the internship and the student's studies. May be repeated for credit.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 1-3
| Repeatable
for credit
Instructors: ;
Abrams, W. (PI);
Bernstein, B. (PI);
Breitrose, H. (PI);
Bukatman, S. (PI);
Chang, G. (PI);
Eisen, A. (PI);
Elam, M. (PI);
Fishkin, S. (PI);
Freedman, E. (PI);
Gillam, R. (PI);
Jenkins, N. (PI);
Jones, G. (PI);
Mesa, C. (PI);
Obenzinger, H. (PI);
Palumbo-Liu, D. (PI);
Rakove, J. (PI);
Reich, R. (PI);
Saldivar, R. (PI);
White, R. (PI);
Wolf, B. (PI);
Wright, G. (PI);
Arcenas, C. (GP);
Katzen, R. (GP);
Moore, M. (GP)
AMSTUD 186:
Tales of Three Cities: New York, Chicago, Los Angeles
How urban form and experience shape literary texts and how literary texts participate in the creation of place, through the literature of three American cities as they ascended to cultural and iconographical prominence: New York in the early to mid 19th century; Chicago in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; and Los Angeles in the mid to late 20th century.
Last offered: Winter 2011
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
AMSTUD 195:
Individual Work
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 1-5
| Repeatable
for credit
Instructors: ;
Abrams, W. (PI);
Bernstein, B. (PI);
Breitrose, H. (PI);
Bukatman, S. (PI);
Chang, G. (PI);
Eisen, A. (PI);
Elam, M. (PI);
Fishkin, S. (PI);
Freedman, E. (PI);
Gillam, R. (PI);
Jenkins, N. (PI);
Jimenez, T. (PI);
Jones, G. (PI);
Koelle, A. (PI);
Mesa, C. (PI);
Obenzinger, H. (PI);
Palumbo-Liu, D. (PI);
Rakove, J. (PI);
Reich, R. (PI);
Rutten, A. (PI);
Saldivar, R. (PI);
White, R. (PI);
Wolf, B. (PI);
Wright, G. (PI);
Arcenas, C. (GP);
Katzen, R. (GP);
Moore, M. (GP)
AMSTUD 201:
History of Education in the United States (EDUC 201, HISTORY 158B)
How education came to its current forms and functions, from the colonial experience to the present. Focus is on the 19th-century invention of the common school system, 20th-century emergence of progressive education reform, and the developments since WW II. The role of gender and race, the development of the high school and university, and school organization, curriculum, and teaching. (SSPEP)
| Units: 3-5
AMSTUD 214:
The American 1960s: Thought, Protest, and Culture
The meaning of the American 60s emphasizing ideas, culture, protest, and the new sensibility that emerged. Topics: black protest, the new left, the counterculture, feminism, the new literature and journalism of the 60s, the role of the media in shaping dissent, and the legacy of 60s protest. Interpretive materials from film, music, articles, and books.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
AMSTUD 240A:
Pre-Honors Seminar
Methods, interpretations, and issues pertinent to honors work in American Studies. Open to juniors interested in honors.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 2-5
AMSTUD 250:
Senior Research
Research and writing of senior honors thesis under the supervision of a faculty member. The final grade for the thesis is assigned by the chair based on the evaluations of the primary thesis adviser and a second reader appointed by the program. Prerequisite: consent of chair.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 1-15
| Repeatable
for credit
AMSTUD 251C:
The American Enlightenment (HISTORY 251C)
Eighteenth century America was like a laboratory for exciting new social, political, religious, scientific, and artistic theories that we collectively call "the Enlightenment." With readings in original texts and studies of material culture, examines ways in which eighteenth century Americans applied Enlightenment thinking to some of the most important problems and questions of their time. What was the best kind of government, and how could this be known? Was the new world of America fundamentally different or the same as Europe, and did animals, plants,and people improve or worsen there? What creatures (children, apes, women, slaves) were considered unreasonable in the Age of Reason, and why? What was the place of religion and passion in the Age of Reason?
Last offered: Winter 2011
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
AMSTUD 253:
American Wonders (ARTHIST 253)
Seminar on American art, literature and culture of the nineteenth century organized around the exhibition, ¿The Great American Hall of Wonders,¿ on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Taking our cue from the exhibition, course focuses on three topics from the world of nature and three from technology, all serving as ¿cultural lightning rods¿ during the period: the buffalo, the Giant Sequoia, Niagara Falls, the clock, the gun and the railroad. The class travels to Washington, D.C. to view the exhibition during an extended weekend.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
AMSTUD 255D:
Racial Identity in the American Imagination (AFRICAAM 255, CSRE 255D, HISTORY 255D, HISTORY 355D)
Major historical transformations shaping the understanding of racial identity and how it has been experienced, represented, and contested in American history. Topics include: racial passing and racial performance; migration, immigration, and racial identity in the urban context; the interplay between racial identity and American identity; the problems of class, gender, and sexuality in the construction of racial identity. Sources include historical and legal texts, memoirs, photography, literature, film, and music.
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-EDP
AMSTUD 258:
Topics in the History of Sexuality: Sexual Violence (CSRE 192E, HISTORY 258, HISTORY 358)
Recent historical interpretations of sexual violence, with particular attention to the intersections of gender and race in the construction of rape, from early settlement through the twentieth century. Topics include the legal prosecution of rape in Early America; the racialization of rape in the U.S.; lynching and anti-lynching in the U.S.; and feminist responses to sexual violence.
Last offered: Winter 2011
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
AMSTUD 268E:
American Foreign Policy and International History since 1941 (HISTORY 268E, HISTORY 368E)
Major events and interpretations from WW II to the war in Iraq. Issues of race, expansionism and power; nuclear weapons; and war.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci
AMSTUD 130:
Introduction to Environmental Humanities: Cultures of Nature in the American West
What do we mean when we use the terms "nature" and "culture"? This course examines these two complex ideas in the context of the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first century American West. Topics include Los Angeles as a lived space and its place in the national spatial imaginary, urban environmental movements, mining cultures, toxics legacies, geographies of social difference, animal studies, and biodiversity and Native American DNA databases. The approach is interdisciplinary, and includes environmental history, cultural geography, critical race studies, literature, and documentary film methodologies and texts.
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
AMSTUD 164C:
From Freedom to Freedom Now: African American History, 1865-1965 (HISTORY 164C)
(Same as HISTORY 64C. History majors and others taking 5 units, register for 164C.) Explores the working lives, social worlds, political ideologies and cultural expressions of African Americans from emancipation to the early civil rights era. Topics include: the transition from slavery to freedom, family life, work, culture, leisure patterns, resistance, migration and social activism. Draws largely on primary sources including autobiographies, memoirs, letters, personal journals, newspaper articles, pamphlets, speeches, literature, film and music.
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-AmerCul
AMSTUD 210:
Critical Theory and The Environment (ANTHRO 210B, MTL 210)
Critical theoretical approaches (such as cultural studies, Marxism, postcolonial theory, cultural geography, feminism, and science studies) have generally been underutilized as methodologies for grappling with environmental situations, yet they hold much promise for addressing their complexity. This course asks: How does critical theory about the environment construe the current situation? What kinds of political or technological solutions do these theories call for or imply? The first half of the seminar introduces critical approaches and methodologies in relation to the environment. In the second section, we will use a variety of theoretical approaches to address environmental justice, water, agriculture, toxics, and animals.
| Units: 3-5
AMSTUD 240:
Sister Arts: Image and Text in America (ARTHIST 240)
Seminar focuses equally on painting and literature in American history. Classes meet twice per week: one session devoted to a literary text, and the other to a visual artifact. The course is organized topically, placing text and images into dialogue with each other, asking for example, how Glen Ligon's contemporary reworking of nineteenth century runaway slave posters relates to Toni Morrison's Beloved, or how Melville's story of urban life, Bartleby the Scrivener, alludes to Hudson River School painting.
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
AMSTUD 257:
Journalism and Imaginative Writing in America (COMM 278)
Walt Whitman spent twenty-five years as a journalist before publishing his first book of poems. Mark Twain was a journalist for twenty years before publishing his first novel. Topics include examination of how writers¿ backgrounds in journalism shaped the poetry or fiction for which they are best known; study of recent controversies surrounding writers who blurred the line between journalism and fiction. Writers include Whitman, Fanny Fern, Twain, Pauline Hopkins, Theodore Dreiser, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Ernest Hemingway, Meridel LeSueur.
| Units: 5
AMSTUD 261A:
Geography, Time, and Trauma in Asian American Literature (ASNAMST 187)
The notion that homes can be stable locations for cultural, racial, ethnic, and similarly situated identity categories. Tthe possibility that there really is no place like home for Asian American subjects. How geography, landscape, and time situate traumas within fictional Asian American narratives.
| Units: 5
AMSTUD 261E:
Mixed Race Literature in the U.S. and South Africa (AFRICAAM 261E)
As scholar Werner Sollors recently suggested, novels, poems, stories about interracial contacts and mixed race constitute ¿an orphan literature belonging to no clear ethnic or national tradition.¿ Yet the theme of mixed race is at the center of many national self-definitions, even in our U.S. post-Civil Rights and South Africa¿s post-Apartheid era. This course examines aesthetic engagements with mixed race politics in these trans- and post-national dialogues, beginning in the 1700s and focusing on the 20th and 21st centuries.
| Units: 5
AMSTUD 261F:
Gender and Sexuality in Asian American Literature (ASNAMST 188)
How writers and representations dialogue, challenge, resist, and complicate such formative constructions of gendered/sexual identities. How queer Asian Americans face ¿multiple negations¿ that include potential expulsion from their own families and from various communities. Authors include Bharati Mukherjee, Russell Leong, Suki Kim, Shawn Wong, Louis Chu, Lawrence Chua, Catherine Liu, Jessica Hagedorn, Timothy Liu, Shani Mootoo, David Mura, among others. Secondary readings will include literary criticism, feminist and queer theory.
| Units: 5
AMSTUD 262C:
African American Literature and the Retreat of Jim Crow
After the unprecedented carnage of WWII, the postwar era witnessed the slow decline of the segregated Jim Crow order and the onset of landmark civil rights legislation. What role did African American literature and culture play in this historical process? What does this shift in racial theory and praxis mean for black literary production¿a tradition constituted by the experience of slavery and racial oppression? Focus on these questions against the backdrop of contemporaneous developments: the onset of the Cold War, decolonization and the formation of the Third World, and the emergence of the ¿new liberalism.¿
| Units: 5
AMSTUD 262D:
African American Poetics (AFRICAAM 262D)
Examination of African American poetic expressive forms from the 1700s to the 2000s, considering the central role of the genre--from sonnets to spoken word, from blues poetry to new media performance--in defining an evolving literary tradition and cultural identity.
| Units: 5
