printer friendly pageAMSTUD 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 41Q: Madwomen and Madmen: Gender and the History of Mental Illness in the U.S. (FEMGEN 41Q)
This seminar explores the ways that gender and historical context shaped the experience and treatment of mental illness in U.S. history. What is the relationship between historically constructed ideas of femininity and masculinity and madness? Why have women been the witches and hysterics of the past, while men experienced neurasthenia and schizoid conditions? Why have there historically been more women than men among the mentally ill? How has the emotional and psychological suffering of women differed from that of men, and how has it changed over time? Among the sources we use to explore these questions are memoirs and films such as The Three Faces of Eve and One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. By contrasting the changing ways women and men experienced mental illness and were treated in the past, this seminar will elucidate the historically embedded nature of medical ideas, diagnoses and treatments.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
Instructors:
Horn, M. (PI)
AMSTUD 42Q: Black & White Race Relations in American Fiction & Film (AFRICAAM 101Q, CSRE 41Q)
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? NOTE: Students must attend the first day; admission to the class will be determined based on an in class essay.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
Instructors:
Mesa, C. (PI)
AMSTUD 51Q: Comparative Fictions of Ethnicity (COMPLIT 51Q, CSRE 51Q)
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"? Note: To be eligible for WAYS credit, you must take course for a Letter Grade.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP, Writing 2
Instructors:
Palumbo-Liu, D. (PI)
AMSTUD 63N: The Feminist Critique: The History and Politics of Gender Equality (CSRE 63N, FEMGEN 63N, HISTORY 63N)
This course explores the long history of ideas about gender and equality. Each week we read, dissect, compare, and critique a set of primary historical documents (political and literary) from around the world, moving from the 15th century to the present. We tease out changing arguments about education, the body, sexuality, violence, labor, politics, and the very meaning of gender, and we place feminist critics within national and global political contexts.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
Instructors:
Freedman, E. (PI)
AMSTUD 91A: Asian American Autobiography/W (ASNAMST 91A, CSRE 91D, ENGLISH 91A)
This is a dual purpose class: a writing workshop in which you will generate autobiographical vignettes/essays as well as a reading seminar featuring prose from a wide range of contemporary Asian-American writers. Some of the many questions we will consider are: What exactly is Asian-American memoir? Are there salient subjects and tropes that define the literature? And in what ways do our writerly interactions both resistant and assimilative with a predominantly non-Asian context in turn recreate that context? We'll be working/experimenting with various modes of telling, including personal essay, the epistolary form, verse, and even fictional scenarios. First priority to undergrads. Students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE, WAY-EDP
Instructors:
Lee, C. (PI)
AMSTUD 118: Critical Family History: Narratives of Identity and Difference (AFRICAAM 118X, ASNAMST 118S, CSRE 118S)
This course examines family history as a site for understanding identity, power, and social difference in American society. Focusing in particular on the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality, we approach the family as an archive through which we might write alternative histories to the ones that dominate the national historical consciousness. To do this, we examine memoirs, oral histories, and first-person documentaries as historical texts that can be used to foreground marginalized historical voices. Students will then be asked to apply course readings and theories to their own family histories as a means of better understanding issues of identity and difference.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP
Instructors:
Gow, W. (PI)
AMSTUD 127: American Style and the Rhetoric of Fashion (ARTHIST 165B, FILMSTUD 165B)
Focus on the visual culture of fashion, especially in an American context. Topics include: the representation of fashion in different visual media (prints, photographs, films, window displays, and digital images); the relationship of fashion to its historical context and American culture; the interplay between fashion and other modes of discourse, in particular art, but also performance, music, economics; and the use of fashion as an expression of social status, identity, and other attributes of the wearer. Texts by Thorstein Veblen, Roland Barthes, Dick Hebdige, and other theorists of fashion.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
Instructors:
Kessler, E. (PI)
AMSTUD 135: Deliberative Democracy and its Critics (COMM 135, COMM 235, COMM 335, ETHICSOC 135F, POLISCI 234P, POLISCI 334P)
This course examines the theory and practice of deliberative democracy and engages both in a dialogue with critics. Can a democracy which emphasizes people thinking and talking together on the basis of good information be made practical in the modern age? What kinds of distortions arise when people try to discuss politics or policy together? The course draws on ideas of deliberation from Madison and Mill to Rawls and Habermas as well as criticisms from the jury literature, from the psychology of group processes and from the most recent normative and empirical literature on deliberative forums. Deliberative Polling, its applications, defenders and critics, both normative and empirical, will provide a key case for discussion.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-ER, WAY-SI
Instructors:
Fishkin, J. (PI)
;
Chang, S. (TA)
AMSTUD 145: Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley. The site and source of vibrant economic growth and technological innovation. A disruptive force in social, economic, and political systems. An interface between technology and academia, with the the quirky influence of the counterculture in the background. A surprisingly agile cultural behemoth that has reshaped human relationships and hierarchies of all sorts. A brotopia built on the preferences and predilections of rich, geeky white guys. A location with perpetually sunny skies and easy access to beaches and mountains. nnThis seminar will unpack the myths surrounding Silicon Valley by exploring the people, places, industries, and ideas that have shaped it from post-WWII to the present. It takes an interdisciplinary approach to the subject and considers region's history and development; the products of Silicon Valley, from computers and circuit boards to search algorithms and social networks; and Silicon Valley's depictions in photography, film, television, and literature.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
Instructors:
Kessler, E. (PI)
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