American Studies

Drawing for Study and Storytelling
This course introduces students to the habits and approaches of using drawing as a creative tool to think, represent, and interpret the world and ourselves visually. We are not trying to produce masterpieces. Instead, we use drawing as a medium for critical observation and study, creative work for creative work’s sake, and expressive storytelling about places, spaces, and society. All our drawing is done without any measuring tools or straightedges. Instead we sharpen our hand-eye coordination and learn to visually and spatially proportion the world around us. Our primary medium is watercolor. We draw objects, structures, social spaces, and natural scenery. Along the way, we explore several traditions of drawing including: fine arts, architecture and urban sketching, food illustration, doodling, and cartography. Students gain skills in freehand line drawing, watercolor, visual abstraction, proportion/geometry, texture/value, and page composition.

American Empire
Over the course of the twentieth century, the United States came to wield increasing power over much of the globe. This central fact of American life has defined US politics, culture, and society. Yet many Americans know little of their country's actions abroad. This cultivated ignorance has allowed foreign policy to be governed by a small group of elites and their specialists. It also diminishes the realities of violence in far away places. This course addresses this collective innocence of foreign affairs by mapping the history of the American empire.

Digital Humanities
The term "digital humanities" has a plethora of different definitions, ranging from the idea of fusing digital tools to perform traditional humanities work; studying modes of new media as objects of humanistic inquiry; and a new culture and ethos of collaboration. In this course we'll be using the tools of digital technologies to extend our inquiry into the cultural productions of the United States. Through a mix of seminar discussions, hands-on tutorials, and project-based work, this course will provide students with theoretical and practical foundations for working in the Digital Humanities, covering topics such as digitization, encoding, analysis, and visualization. The centerpiece of this class will be a digital humanities project: you will do your own original research into nineteenth century dime novels to make an on-line exhibit for our library. Creating this project will teach you the skills of humanities scholars-research, writing and analyzing, and will let you put this knowledge to work.