printer friendly pageAMSTUD 124A: The American West (ARTHIST 152, ENGLISH 124, HISTORY 151, POLISCI 124A)
The American West is characterized by frontier mythology, vast distances, marked aridity, and unique political and economic characteristics. This course integrates several disciplinary perspectives into a comprehensive examination of Western North America: its history, physical geography, climate, literature, art, film, institutions, politics, demography, economy, and continuing policy challenges. Students examine themes fundamental to understanding the region: time, space, water, peoples, and boom and bust cycles.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-SI, WAY-A-II, GER:DB-Hum
Instructors:
Burbank, S. (PI)
;
Cain, B. (PI)
;
Fishkin, S. (PI)
...
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Instructors:
Burbank, S. (PI)
;
Cain, B. (PI)
;
Fishkin, S. (PI)
;
Freyberg, D. (PI)
;
Kennedy, D. (PI)
;
Hammann, A. (TA)
;
Krass, M. (TA)
;
Oberholzer, J. (TA)
AMSTUD 125: Perspectives on American Journalism (COMM 125, COMM 225)
An examination of American journalism, focusing on how news is produced, distributed, and financially supported. Emphasis on current media controversies and puzzles, and on designing innovations in discovering and telling stories. (Graduate students register for
COMM 225.
COMM 125 is offered for 5 units,
COMM 225 is offered for 4 units.)
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, WAY-SI
Instructors:
Hamilton, J. (PI)
;
Ross, R. (TA)
AMSTUD 130A: In Sickness and In Health: Medicine and Society in the United States: 1800-Present
Explores the history of medical institutions, ideas and practices in the United States from the early nineteenth century to the present. How are ideas of illness and health historically rooted and socially constructed? How did scientific and medical discoveries lead to the rise of scientific medicine, and how were these innovations adopted within the American cultural landscape? Topics include the transformation of therapeutics and technologies, medicine and the scientific ideal in the U.S., gender and race and medicine, the history of public health, and the professionalization and specialization of American medical practice.
Last offered: Autumn 2017
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, WAY-SI
AMSTUD 131: Food and American Culture
This course introduces students to the cultural history, politics, and aesthetics of eating in America, exploring topics that have fueled debates about what Americans should eat over the last hundred years. Discussions of American cuisine will lead directly into larger concepts of American identity, culture, and politics. We will ask questions such as: What role does food play in national identity? Have restaurants shaped American social life? What is modern American cuisine?nnCourse goals include fluency in the key terminology and theoretical frameworks of American Studies and a deep historical understanding of our contemporary food system. Students will actively engage with primary sources, including nutrition manuals, advertisements, cookbooks, restaurant menus, and paintings.
Last offered: Spring 2019
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
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 135X: Contemporary Islam and Muslims in America (AFRICAAM 135A, CSRE 135, GLOBAL 137, RELIGST 135)
In this course, we will explore contemporary Islam and Muslims in a post-9/11 and post-Trump America. Following some brief grounding history in Week 1, we will use ethnographic studies and digital media content to understand the American Muslim experience in the 21st century. Each week, we will also address how the lived experience of American Muslims interacts with "theoretical" and "normative" conceptions of Islam, and whether these interactions eventually create a distinctive "American Islam." Topics covered will include: internal and external racial & gender dynamics, ideological debates, institutions, social media wars, politics, and specific communities as case studies. Together we will develop a critical perspective on the American Muslim experience, particularly as a case of how one diverse religious community negotiates religion in a complex sociopolitical setting.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
Instructors:
Ahmed, A. (PI)
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: Spr
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI, GER:EC-EthicReas, WAY-ER
Instructors:
Fishkin, J. (PI)
;
Chen, C. (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)
AMSTUD 148: Los Angeles: A Cultural History (CSRE 148R, HISTORY 148C)
This course traces a cultural history of Los Angeles from the early twentieth century to the present. Approaching popular representations of Los Angeles as our primary source, we discuss the ways that diverse groups of Angelenos have represented their city on the big and small screens, in the press, in the theater, in music, and in popular fiction. We focus in particular on the ways that conceptions of race and gender have informed representations of the city. Possible topics include: fashion and racial violence in the Zoot Suit Riots of the Second World War, Disneyland as a suburban fantasy, cinematic representations of Native American life in Bunker Hill in the 1961 film The Exiles, the independent black cinema of the Los Angeles Rebellion, the Anna Deaver Smith play Twilight Los Angeles about the civil unrest that gripped the city in 1992, and the 2019 film Once Upon a Time¿in Hollywood.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
Instructors:
Gow, W. (PI)
AMSTUD 150A: Colonial and Revolutionary America (HISTORY 150A)
(
HISTORY 50A is 3 units.
HISTORY 150A is 5 units) This course surveys early American history from the onset of English colonization of North America in the late sixteenth century through the American Revolution and the creation of the United States in the late eighteenth. It situates the origins and the development of colonial American society as its peoples themselves experienced it, within the wider histories of the North American continent and the Atlantic basin. It considers the diversity of peoples and empires that made up these worlds as well as the complex movement of goods, peoples, and ideas that defined them. The British North American colonies were just one interrelated part of this wider complex. Yet out of that interconnected Atlantic world, those particular colonies produced a revolution for national independence that had a far-reaching impact on the world. The course, accordingly, explores the origins of this revolutionary movement and the nation state that it wrought, one that would rapidly ascend to hemispheric and then global prominence.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
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