Course Atlas - Fall 2008

Schedule subject to change - please check with instructor

Note: Please contact the Administrative Assistant at The Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts for appropriate forms on all Permission Required Courses.

AMST 190: Introduction to American Studies

Tullos, TTH, 10:00am - 11:15am

MAX: 15

Contents:This course introduces students to the methods and theories of American Studies through various case studies of American cultural history. This seminar will examine six major case studies or historical moments, ranging from the seventeenth into the twenty-first centuries. The case studies will include a broad range of materials from various scholarly disciplines: literature, history, popular culture, cultural geography, material culture, ethnic studies, gender studies, and visual culture.

Possible Texts: The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien; Salem Possessed by Paul Boyer; Showman and the Slave by Benjamin Reiss; Sideshow by Rachel Adams; Amusing the Million: Coney Island at the Turn of the Century. John F. Kasson; Weaving the[Worldwide] Web by Tim Berners-Lee; Where Wizards Stay Up Late: Origins of the Internet by Katie Hafner; “Thinking Blues” by Susan McClary.

Films may include: Land Where the Blues Began; The Crucible; Shut Up and Sing; Strange Fruit; When the Levees Broke

AMST 201WR: Introduction to American Studies

Anderson, 11:45am - 12:35pm
Abbott, 2:00pm - 2:50pm
Davis, 8:30am - 9:45am

MAX: 18

Content: This course introduces students to the methods and theories of American Studies through the case studies. This seminar will examine six major events in American cultural history, ranging from the seventeenth through the twentieth century. The case studies will include a broad range of materials from various scholarly disciplines: literature, history, popular culture, material culture, ethnic studies, gender studies, and visual culture.

Particulars: Requirements may vary somewhat from section to section, but all will require frequent writing assignments, attentive reading of primary and secondary texts, consistent attendance, and informed participation in class discussions.

AMST 346S/AAS 385S: The 'Other' African Americans

Jackson, TTH, 2:30pm - 3:45pm

MAX: 18 (AMST 12/AAS 6)

Contents: This seminar examines the diversity within black America via case studies of immigrants from the Caribbean, Africa and Latin America. This means seeing the black community as several overlapping communities including African-Americans, as well as blacks who identify as West Indians, diasporic Africans, and Afro-Latinos. Doing so raises many questions that many of us would not even think to ask: Who is African-American? How has the presence of black immigrants in the US influenced black American culture, history, and discourses on race, racism, protest and black advancement? Do these "other" blacks view themselves as distinct from native-born African-Americans? Are they perceived differently by others? How do these groups challenge popular and scholarly notions about who black Americans are?

Possible texts: Violet Johnson, The Other Black Bostonians; Paule Marshall, Brown Girl, Brownstones; Claude McKay, Home to Harlem; Mary Waters, Black Identities; Irma Watkins-Owens, Blood Relations.

Particulars: Requirements include active participation in class discussion, an independent research project, several short essays, and an end of semester "symposium" presentation.

AMST 385WR: American Publics

Moon, MWF, 10:40am - 11:30am

MAX: 45

Content: We are often told what “The American Public” thinks or wants or needs.  In this course, we will explore the differences it makes to study the U.S. as a place composed of many publics, rather than just one.  We will consider some of the consequences of the fact that many of these publics are in conflict and competition with one another.  A series of invited speakers from within and beyond Emory will discuss with the class how they understand some significant public sector of of the U.S., past and present.   Topics to be selected from the following: contemporary country and urban music, local city government, the legacies of slavery, Native American warrior traditions, transnational adoption, the treatment of the mentally ill in the nineteenth-century U.S. and today, Comedy Central, differences and similarities between the African American civil rights movement and comparable movements among American women, gays and lesbians, and the disabled.  Readings, discussion sections, short papers, and two exams.

AMST 385S/WS385S: Women, Race & Southern Culture

Wallace-Sanders, TTH, 11:30am - 12:45pm

MAX: 15 (AMST 7/WS 8)

Content: TBA

AMST 385SSWR: History of American Childhood

Nickerson, MWF, 2:00pm - 2:50pm

MAX: 18

Content: Over the span of American history, ideas about what childhood is andwhat, ideally should happen in it have been radically divergent. In different time periods, regions, social classes, religious communities, and ethnic groups, concepts of the nature of the child and the kind of education a child needs and deserves have taken many hues. We will read about a wide range of childhood experiences, including children raised by Native Americans, Puritans, African American slaves, Frontier communities, immigrants from many places and many time periods, the Victorians, the Depression generation, the post-war suburbanites, hippies, gays and lesbians, religious fundamentalists, and all manner of contemporary family configurations. Materials for the course will include social and cultural history, literature, film, television, and memoir.

Particulars: Frequent short writing assignments (1 page); two essays (3 pages each) and a longer project (8-10 pages), which could be a memoir of your own childhood placed in cultural and historical perspective.

AMST 385WR/WS 385WR: Social Movement & Media Representations

Loudermilk, TTH, 4:00pm - 5:15pm

MAX: 20 (AMST 15/WS 5)

Content: This course will examine the ways 20 th-century American social movements, such as the civil rights movement, the anti-Vietnam war movement, the women's movement and the gay rights movement, have been represented in the media.  Through an analysis of the news media, popular fiction, film, television and advertising, we will explore the popular images of the various social movements and discuss how those images may influence our cultural understanding of these movements.  Several of the movements we discuss focus on issues of gender and sexuality, and we will interrogate the ways the media affect our understanding of the gender politics present in these movements.  The course will examine questions such as: What is the relationship between cultural representation and political agency?  What pressures shape mass media representations, and how do these pressures influence critical or transgressive views?  Do issues of gender affect media representations and the ways activists use the media?  Do popular representations of social movements contribute to the ways activists represent themselves?

AMST 490SWR: Senior Symposium

Jackson, TTH 10:00am - 11:15am

MAX: 18

Content: This course is designed to deepen students' understanding of American Studies as a field of inquiry with a unique history within the academy.

Particulars: Permission Only Course

AMST 495R: Honors Thesis

MAX: TBA
Faculty: Wallace-Sanders
Day and Times: TBA TPL

Written permission of the Director of Undergraduate Studies for American Studies required prior to registration. For more information, please contact: Administrative Assistant, The Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts, S415 Callaway Ctr.

AMST 496: Internship for American Studies

MAX: TBA
Faculty:Wallace-Sanders
Day and Times: TBA TPL

Written permission of the Director of Undergraduate Studies for American Studies required prior to registration. For more information, please contact: Administrative Assistant, The Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts, S415 Callaway Ctr.