Courses ofInstruction
American Studies
Core Faculty
Ani Mukherji, American Studies, Chair
Elizabeth Belanger, American Studies
Kirin Makker, American Studies
Rebecca Burditt, Media and Society
Anna Creadick, English and Creative Writing
Alex Black, English and Creative Writing
Kendralin Freeman, Sociology
Michelle Martin-Baron, Gender, Sexuality, and Intersectional Justice
Whitney Mauer, Environmental Studies
Angelique Szymanek, Art and Architecture
Affiliated Faculty
Jeffrey Anderson, Anthropology
Laura Free, History
Christopher Hatch, Theater
DeWayne Lucas, Political Science
James Sutton, Sociology
Katherine Walker, Music
Christine Woodworth, Theater
Tasked to think about the familiar in an unfamiliar way, American Studies students are creative problem solvers, storytellers, educators, and activists. Our majors are known for a unique skill set within the liberal arts. They take information from disparate sources, evaluate and understand it, and weave it together to make sense of America. They work to make the invisible visible and amplify access for those unheard. They train in multiple critical approaches to interpret American culture, politics, and society from an interdisciplinary point of view.
Transfer credit for courses taken at other institutions for either the major or minor, excepting HWS-sponsored abroad programs, are considered on a case-by-case basis. Students must petition the department for these courses to count towards the American Studies degree. Petition forms for transfer courses can be downloaded here.
Mission Statement
The American Studies program draws on multiple methodologies and critical interdisciplinary approaches to understand US culture, politics, and society. The program is dedicated to developing student knowledge of American life and history with an emphasis on investigating problems of power and difference in local, national, and global contexts. Grounded in creative and collaborative reflection, we prepare students to interrogate dominant ideologies and systems, produce knowledge in multiple forms, and engage various publics.
Offerings
American Studies Major (BA)
interdisciplinary, 11 courses
Learning Objectives:
- Synthesize, analyze, and interpret a wide range of evidence of U.S. beliefs and practices while attending to patterns, absences, and differing interpretative strategies.
- Apply their growing and deepening understanding of the diversity of American life to advance the critical creation of new knowledge in various forms of communication.
- Describe how power and difference (race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, citizenship) have interacted at specific moments in time to shape subjectivities, groups, and a wide variety of political, economic, and cultural institutions.
- Work collaboratively with others to understand difficult issues and problems of American life.
- Conduct research in US history and life using appropriate methods and protocols.
Requirements:
One AMST 100-level course, AMST 201, AMST 465; two courses from the American Studies Foundations group (one can be a second 100-level AMST course); four AMST electives and two electives from the cross-listed courses or two additional AMST courses. At least two of the AMST electives must be at the 300-level or above. A cross-listed 300-level elective may be substituted upon approval by advisor and program chair. All courses must be passed with a grade of C- or higher. No more than one credit/no credit courses can be counted towards the major. No more than three courses can be taken in one department outside of American Studies.
American Studies Minor
interdisciplinary, 5 courses
Requirements:
One AMST 100-level course; one Foundations course (or a second 100-level AMST course); two AMST electives, one of which must be at the 300 level or above, and one cross-listed elective or AMST course. A cross-listed 300-level elective may be substituted upon approval by advisor and program chair. All courses must be passed with a grade of C- or higher. No more than one credit/no credit courses can be counted towards the minor. No more than two courses can be taken in one department outside of American Studies.
Foundations Courses
Foundations courses are 100-level courses in fields adjacent to American Studies in terms of their content, major questions, and/or methodologies. These courses are meant to provide a foundation for upper-level American Studies coursework, along with 100-level introductory courses in American Studies. Majors must take two foundations courses. Students may propose to count a course not listed with a solid rationale and the advisor's permission of the advisor and chair. Minors must take at least one foundations course.
AFS 115 Demythologizing Race
AFS 150 Foundations Africana Studies
AFS 180 The Black Atlantic
ECON 105 Introduction to Political Economy
ECON 120 Contemporary Issues
ECON 122 Economics of Caring
EDUC 100 Perspectives on Education
ENG 151 New York Literature and Culture
ENG 152 American Revolutions
ENG 155 Banned Books
ENG 165 Introduction to African American Literature
GSIJ 100 Introduction to Gender, Sexuality, and Intersectional Justice
GLS 101 Introduction to Global Studies
HIST 111 Topics in Introduction to American History
HIST 115 Demythologizing Race
MDSC 100 Introduction to Media and Society
PHIL 151 Crime and Punishment
PHIL 152 Continuing Issues: Philosophy and Feminism
PHIL 154 Environmental Ethics
POL 110 Introduction to American Politics
POL 175 Introduction to Politics of Women, Gender, Liberation
POL 190 Introduction to Power and Movements
REL 109 Imagining American Religion(s)
SOC 100 Introduction to Sociology
Course Descriptions
AMST 110 Inequality, Power, and Violence in the Contemporary US This course introduces students to three defining themes in contemporary American life: poverty and inequality; mass incarceration; and militarism and empire. Students will learn about forces that drive impoverishment and inequality in the US, why America cages over two million people, and the effects of imperial ambitions. They will also learn how these threads of American life are intertwined, and how we might begin to unravel them to imagine life differently. Assigned course material will include relevant scholarship, journalism, documentary films, and memoirs. P4 [Prerequisite: Open to First Year or Sophomore students, or AMST majors or minors, or AFS majors or minors]
AMST 111 Myths and Paradoxes How do American ideals such as freedom and individualism relate to American inequalities? Who counts as 'American' in particular places and times in the nation's history? Is 'America' itself a place or an idea? This introductory course in American Studies will engage several questions central to the field by focusing on how questions of power and difference shape tensions and contradictions in American culture. Students will examine American paradoxes such as the "American Dream," freedom and equality, immigration and the "melting pot," as well as infrastructures like consumer culture, democracy, and national borders, through an interdisciplinary lens. The course also introduces students to American Studies methods through a close interdisciplinary analysis of a variety of cultural artifacts such as popular fiction, leisure, music, performance, propaganda, and social practices. Readings are drawn from a range of sources, including politics, history, popular culture, literature, media studies, and contemporary theory. P4 [Prerequisite: First Year and Sophomore students, or AMST majors or minors, or permission of instructor]
AMST 112 Popular Culture This course examines American culture through popular forms-novels, amusement parks, music, advertising, and comics-exploring how pop culture shapes and reflects historical developments, power dynamics, and social struggles. We analyze how it unites and divides Americans while studying 20th-21st century intersections of everyday life, mass media, and identity. Students learn American Studies methods through interdisciplinary analysis of cultural artifacts, with readings from politics, history, literature, media studies, and contemporary theory. P4 [Prerequisite: First Year and Sophomore students, or AMST majors or minors, or permission of instructor]
AMST 113 New York, New York This introductory American Studies course explores how American ideals like freedom and individualism relate to inequality, who counts as 'American,' and whether America is a place or idea. Tracing New York City's rise from the 18th century to modern metropolis, we examine the Civil War draft riots, slums, urban youth culture, Coney Island, and racial violence in Harlem. Students learn interdisciplinary methods analyzing cultural artifacts-fiction, leisure, music, performance, propaganda-through readings from politics, history, literature, media studies, and theory. P4 [Prerequisite: First Year and Sophomore students, or AMST majors or minors, or permission of instructor]
AMST 115 Literature and Social Movements Can books change the world? This course considers how U.S. literature has shaped and been shaped by social movements, and vice versa. The central question this course poses is this: What is the relationship between literature and social movements? In order to answer it, students will explore "clusters" of texts -- literary, historical, and documentary -- about a series of U.S. social movements that range from the 19th century to the present. In this way, students will learn to "read" and analyze not just literature, but also photographs, film, music, archival materials and historical narratives. Weaving together contextualizing historical readings and primary documents with poetry, memoir, novels, or other literary forms, the course will ask students to investigate the relationships between revolution and the word. P4 [Prerequisite: First Year and Sophomore students, or AMST majors or minors, or permission of instructor]
AMST 200 Indigenous Arts of the Americas in Museums This course addresses the history and ethics of the collecting and display of indigenous arts of North and Central America, including ancient artistic traditions. We will study selected episodes from the late 19th century to the present, considering both the colonial or imperial origins of museums and more recent museum practices. We also will explore the intertwined histories of private and institutional collecting of indigenous arts of the Americas and consider the legality and ethics of this collecting, as well as histories of repatriation. Furthermore, we will examine collaborative practices in which contemporary artists, curators, and activists critique, contextualize, or transform historic collections and displays. Dual-listed as CMST 200. (Szymanek, offered occasionally) P3
AMST 201 How to do American Studies: Understanding Power and Difference American Studies is one of the most vibrant and innovative fields of study in the university. This course introduces students to key terms and conceptual turns in American Studies scholarship that have been formative to the field. Students will read contemporary and classic scholarship to think through how power and difference operate in US life. In addition to reading significant research in American Studies, students will produce scholarship of their own, taking up the concepts and methods introduced in class to interpret different types of sources themselves, learning "how to do American Studies." (Mukherji or Belanger, annually) P4 [Prerequisite: Open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors]
AMST 202 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. If conditions allow, we will do some drawing sessions outside the classroom on-site. Along the way, we explore several traditions of drawing including: fine arts, architecture and urban sketching, food illustration, doodling, and map-making. Students gain skills in freehand line drawing, watercolor, visual abstraction, proportion/geometry, texture/value, and page composition. (Makker, offered annually) P2 [Prerequisite: Not open to first semester First Year students.]
AMST 203 Cultures of Advertising Advertising is among the most pervasive forms of cultural representation in our global society. In this course, we approach advertisements as economic, aesthetic, and ideological forces whose analysis reveals crucial information about cultural attitudes and ideologies of their time and place. We will study the industrial and aesthetic history of advertising by analyzing advertising campaigns as well as their strategies, themes, and practices. Our materials will be drawn from both corporate and non-profit campaigns, global and local campaigns, and from anti-consumerist actions and other resistant practices. Our work will cover diverse media, including: print culture, television, film trailers, mobile marketing, social networking sites, and new media branding and marketing campaigns. Dual-listed as MDSC 200. (Offered every other year) P2, , P4 [Prerequisite: MDSC 100 and declared MDSC major or minor, or permission of instructor]
AMST 207 Baseball and America This class focuses on baseball and its relationship to American culture. For a long time, baseball has been the quintessential American game. In this class, we will examine the role(s) of technology, media, culture and nationalism in explaining the unique role of baseball to the American identify. P4
AMST 208 Race and Ethnic Relations What is race? What is ethnicity? Has race always existed? Why should the history of people of color matter to contemporary policy and social relationships? In this course, students analyze minority group relations including inter-group and intragroup dynamics, sources of prejudice and discrimination, social processes of conflict, segregation, assimilation, and accommodation. Minority-majority relations are viewed as a source of hierarchy, contention, and change, and the history and current context of our multigroup society are analyzed. Emphasis is placed on racial and ethnic groups in the United States. Dual-listed as SOC 221. (Freeman, offered annually) P4 [Prerequisite: SOC 100, AMST 101 or FSEM 021 with a grade of C- or better. Students can't have taken SOC 221.]
AMST 210 Black Arts in America Using a loosely chronological framework, this course presents a series of topics on Black American art and its crucial role in the shaping of the history and development of American visual arts and culture. Beginning with the Harlem Renaissance, we will study the discourse around so-called 'New Negro' art as it was formulated throughout the 1920s and the rise of the Black Arts Movement in the 1960s through contemporary practice. Importantly, this course will simultaneously engage with questions pertaining to the very category of 'Black Arts.' In our study of arts made by artists of the African and Caribbean diaspora in the U.S., we will be careful to consider the politics of identification across race as well as class, sex, and gender difference. Dual-listed as ARTH 201. (Szymanek, offered occasionally) P3, P4
AMST 213 Poverty and Place in Rural America This course centers on the study of place-based poverty in the United States with a focus on rural areas. The course examines the ways in which social and economic rewards are geographically and racially stratified, asking "Who gets what, where and why?" This course takes an interdisciplinary approach to studying poverty by including geographic and humanistic dimensions. Course content will address theoretical and conceptual approaches to poverty, poverty and population measures, and explanations of geographically concentrated poverty. Through novels and non-fictions texts students will discover lived experiences of the rural poor with particular attention to Black, Latinx, and American Indian peoples. Students will also critically examine popular representations of rurality and poverty in the U.S. Lastly, students will take a case study approach to evaluate or predict a poverty program's structural and cultural impacts, including impacts on the poverty statuses of selected minority groups. This course counts as a Social Science core for the Environmental Studies major/minor. Dual-listed as ENV 213. (Mauer, offered occasionally) [Prerequisite: ENV 110, AMST 101 or SOC 100.]
AMST 214 Introduction to Museum Studies This course is an introduction to the history and theory of museums, and to institutional collecting and the interpretation of culture. The focus will be on the role of museums in colonization and nation building, involvement in globalizing processes as well as the opportunities museums offer for social advocacy. Aiming to provide a wide-ranging and challenging introduction to the theoretical issues involved in contemporary museum practice as a sociologically-informed and socially-situated discipline, this course will encourage the development of critically aware perspectives on professional practice and research processes. The aim of this course is to familiarize students from a range of subject specialisms with current issues in museology, and the ways in which museums have been developing from storehouses of culture and centers of authority to flexible places which engage with communities and invite audiences to author their own museum experiences. This course will be offered every spring. Dual-listed as CMST 214. (Szymanek or Belanger, offered annually) P4 [Prerequisite: First Years and Sophomores only. Juniors by permission.]
AMST 215 Power, Privilege, and the Other in US Popular Music This course examines discourses of power and privilege in US popular music from the later nineteenth century to the present day. Through non-technical analysis (no previous knowledge of music required) of a variety of musical styles, you will learn to identify ways in which music and performative gesture underscored, subverted, and sometimes transcended dominant cultural scripts and narratives. The course is organized into four units: 1.) The "Other": Primitive-Exotic in the Jazz Age of the 1920s; 2.) The Black Power(ed) and 1960s Soul; 3.) Gender, Sexuality, and Gangsta Rap; 4.) Performing Race; Performing Gender; moving the dial in contemporary popular music. Through focused engagement with these topics, you will learn to hear expressions of power and privilege that reside below the surface of specific musical works while developing skills that can be applied to other genres and style periods. Dual-listed as MUS 215. (Offered periodically) P3, P4
AMST 219 Black Feminisms In this course, we place black women's writings about their lives and factors that govern the health and well-being of black communities at the heart of our inquiry. Utilizing a wide range of texts, we will not only explore foundational texts and theories of black feminism in the US, but also the ways black artists have communicated these theories artistically: as a mirror to a broken society and as a discursive intervention. Students will emerge from this course with an in depth knowledge of the foundations of black feminism and black feminist theory as well as the debates surrounding diversity in the contemporary American landscape. Dual-listed as GSIJ 219. (Martin-Baron, offered alternate years) P4
AMST 221 Immigrant Arts: The Border, Empire, and Asian America This course explores the history of Asian American expressive cultures. Among the essential questions we will ask are: What different forms and sensibilities have Asian American writers and artists adopted in their work? How have these forms and sensibilities changed over time, and why? What can we discern of the relationship between culture, politics, and society? How have the experiences and representations of Asian American existence been mediated by class, gender, sexuality, and citizenship? And finally, how can we trace a cultural history of Asian Americans through the interpretation of novels, poetry, short stories, music, paintings, photography, sequential art, films, popular genre fiction, and cookbooks? Students will use and interdisciplinary framework to answer these questions, combining the insights of critical race theory, cultural studies, literary scholarship, and history. P4
AMST 223 Inequalities Inequality is a fundamental aspect of social structure but we, as individuals, frequently find it simple to justify without investigating its history. Despite the adoption of the rhetoric of equal rights and democratic values, inequality thrives in the United States. Our placement in Geneva, NY allows us, as sociologists, a unique opportunity to observe these systems of inequality within our city and relate them to broader patterns in the nation as a whole. This course is designed to give students a foundational knowledge in sociological theory of inequality stemming from Marx, Weber, and DuBois and continuing through contemporary theories of intersectionality. These perspectives will then be used to understand inequality in social class, race, gender, sexualities, and in the global arena. Dual-listed as SOC 223. (Freeman, offered annually) [Prerequisite: AMST 101, SOC 100, or FSEM 021, or permission of instructor.]
AMST 237 Environmental Justice in Indian Country American Indians have since 'time immemorial' had an immediate relationship to the natural world and their physical surroundings. Many native peoples are rooted to place. This course explores American Indian relationships to nature and eco-political responses to contemporary environmental issues. Beginning with the history of American Indian political relationships with the U. S. federal government, we will consider the various and complex ways in which this history has affected and continues to affect American Indian ecology, agricultural land use, natural resource conservation, urban pollution, and modem environmental movements. Topics may include: resource use; land claims; sacred and ecologically unique places; hunting and fishing rights; food and agriculture; and traditional ecological knowledge. Students in this course will be introduced to the writings and ideas of Indigenous scholars and activists such as Vine Deloria, Jr. Dual-listed as ENV 237. [Prerequisite: One 100-level ENV course, AMST 101, or any ES core course.]
AMST 250 Introduction to Chicana Feminism and Visual Culture This course lays the foundations for the study of Chicana feminism, women of color feminism, feminist visual cultural studies, and arts-based activism. This course traces the emergence of Chicana as an identity category and its challenges to Chicano and feminist activism; the radical ways Chicanas have employed visual, performance, and graphic arts as a means of educating and catalyzing social change; and the rich body of indigenous folklore that has both defined gender and sexual roles and provided the platform for defying them. Throughout the semester, we will draw from primary texts from the beginning of the Chicano movement, a rich selection of visual, performance, and graphic arts, and contemporary scholarship in women's studies, Chicana/o studies, and visual cultural studies. Dual-listed as GSIJ 250. (Martin-Baron, offered alternate fall semesters) P2, P3, P4
AMST 254 Technology, Truth, and Trust This is an introductory course in the philosophy of technology, with a focus on contemporary digital technologies. We will study epistemic, ethical, metaphysical, and political questions raised by the internet, artificial intelligence, and other technologies. Issues explored include: disinformation and social media, privacy and surveillance, governance and democracy of online speech, hacker ethics, artificial intelligence and oppression (e.g., racism, sexism, ableism, and transphobia), and shifting notions of the self and others in a world in which the lines between online and offline life are increasingly blurred. Dual-listed as PHIL 254. (K. Frost-Arnold, offered annually) P4
AMST 260 Who Am I: A Critical Family History of Race, Class, Gender and Opportunity “In all of us there is a hunger, marrow-deep, to know our heritage - to know who we are and where we have come from. Without this enriching knowledge, there is a hollow yearning. No matter what our attainments in life, there is still a vacuum, an emptiness, and the most disquieting loneliness.” ~Alex Haley. Over the past 20 years, family history has experienced a remarkable upsurge in interest. From TV shows that ask, Who do you think you are? to the popularity of DNA testing, individuals in America and beyond have engaged in personal journeys of discovery, seeking to find stories from their past. While research into family history can be personal, the research journey forces investigators to come in contact with the major forces that have shaped American life: immigration, changes in labor and social life, urbanization and suburbanization, and military conflicts and political upheavals. This course asks students to connect their individual lives and their ancestors' history to larger social and political contexts, paying particular attention to how issues of racism, classism, sexism and other structural inequalities shape individual opportunity. Through a close examination of past lives and journeys, students are guided to reflect on how their ancestors' experiences (and their own) are shaped by social and historical context. This course defines family and ancestor in broad terms and allows students to pursue research into the lives of not only blood relatives but into any individual the student feels is part of their family. P3 [Prerequisite: Open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors, or permission of instructor]
AMST 261 Popular Fiction When a novel acquires a mass readership, does it lose aesthetic value? What is the difference between "literary fiction" and "popular fiction"? Focusing on a genre fiction, cult bestsellers, middlebrow blockbusters, "pulp" or "trash" fiction produced across American history, this course invites students to consider the politics of taste and hierarchies of literary value embedded in popular reading practices. Students will read these literary works alongside a number of primary and secondary texts in order to illuminate the pleasures and anxieties of reading. Dual-listed as ENG 261. (Creadick) P3, P4
AMST 270 Storytelling with Data: Quantitative Tools for the Humanities Americans are increasingly confronted with data - sports statistics, crime maps, text mining of presidential tweets. What does all this data tell us about America? What does it hide? What tools and ways of thinking help us to better understand it? This course will introduce students to the instruments and techniques useful for quantitative research in the humanities. Students will learn a range of tools which will help them apply a critical lens for understanding and evaluating what data can bring to study of American life including statistics, text analysis, geospatial analysis, and data visualization. Topics relevant to social justice, social change, civic engagement, and social action such as race, sexuality, gender, and class will be highlighted through in-class conversations and research projects. Offered bi-annually. P1 [Prerequisite: Open to First Year, Sophomore and Junior students who have taken AMST 101, WMST 100, CSQS 101, GSIJ 100, or SOC 100]
AMST 282 20th Century American Art This course traces the history of American art as it developed throughout the first half of the 20th century. Using a loose chronological framework, the course is a study of a series of major stylistic, technological, and ideological developments within American art and visual culture including those precipitated by the shift of the Western avant-garde art world from Paris to New York City with the onset of WWI. Spanning half of the century as well as a vast array of mediums such as painting, sculpture, photography, and architecture, the aim of this course is to familiarize students with notable movements and art world figures as well as the socio-political contexts that both made their innovations possible and expanded the field of possibilities for the very definitions of art and authorship as they continue to develop into the 21st Century. Dual-listed as ARTH 282. (Szymanek, offered regularly) P3
AMST 301 Cultural Theory and Popular Culture This course introduces cultural studies as a major area of contemporary theory which has reshaped the way we think and write about literature. Critical cultural studies, historicism, and reader-response theory have expanded understandings of literary meaning to include production and reception of those texts as well as their ideological content and consequences. Students read theoretical essays by such thinkers as Marx, Gramsci, Althusser, Foucault, White, Butler, and Baudrillard, as well as examples of scholars applying these ideas to the study of literature and other cultural forms. Students will then become the critics, applying these theories to the contemporary literary, material and popular culture "texts" that surround them - stories, poems, film, photographs, toys, fashion, sports, and music. Dual-listed as ENG 301. [Prerequisite: Open to Juniors and Seniors only.]
AMST 314 The Art of Memoir How can a lived life be transformed into literature? What forms has life-writing taken in the past? Why is memoir one of the most popular literary forms today? Through lecture, discussion, readings, and criticism, this class explores a wide array of memoirs, such as graphic/illustrated memoir, confessional, portrait, or memoir-in-essay. Alongside the works themselves, we study theoretical concepts important to life-writing such as memory, subjectivity, confession, narrative, and affect. In addition to substantial critical papers, students will try their hands at some creative exercises in order to consider how memoirs function internally, as well as in the context of a broader literary landscape. (Staff, offered occasionally)
AMST 330 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 will 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: students will do their own original research into nineteenth century dime novels to make an on-line exhibit for our library. Creating this project will teach students the skills of humanities scholars-research, writing and analyzing, and will let them put this knowledge to work. No technical background is required. [Prerequisite: Open to juniors and seniors, AMST 101, or permission of instructor.]
AMST 333 Other American Studies: Varieties of Research in US Print Culture Cookbooks, zines, travel guides, photo books...Research about life in the United States is recorded in many formats other than journal articles, academic monographs, and textbooks. This course examines the production and communication of knowledge about the United States that occurs outside of colleges, universities, and research centers. We'll look at cookbooks to think about community histories, foodways, gender roles, and cultural politics. We'll read zines to examine subcultures, music scenes, and local histories. We'll interpret the work of photographers as investigators of everyday life, built environments, and landscapes. While looking at the creation of knowledge by non-academic researchers, we'll also reflect on the limits and possibilities of American Studies as a field of study. (Mukherji) [Prerequisite: Open to Juniors and Seniors only.]
AMST 349 Gender, Space and Narrative Reparation: The Womb Chair Speaks Project This course engages students in an interdisciplinary art and activism project called the Womb Chair Speaks (www.wombchairspeaks.net) through an intimate seminar, centered on discussion and hands-on learning. The research for the project draws from the fields of art history, architectural history, medicine, women's studies, and studio art. Begun in 2018 at HWS by Professor Kirin Makker and two students Ainsley Rhodes `19 and Abbey Frederick `20, the project employs feminist theory and methods of inquiry to examine sexism and racism in the fields of architecture and medicine. The course is composed of two main experiences to underscore two methods of research and productive inquiry. First, students will read and discuss a series of written pieces related to the project including white masculinity in architectural education and practice, women's craft history in the domestic arts, women's healthcare, social art practice, and spatial agency. Second, in the spirit of other craftivist projects, students will be working actively on the Womb Chair Speaks project, embroidery and sewing, sharing out knowledge and practicing the theories of community building and resistance examined in class. The project is purposefully perpetual; the chair is not meant to be finished, offering students direct participation in an ongoing, process-oriented activist art project. No sewing experience is required. Offered annually. [Prerequisite: AMST 101, or GSIJ 100 or SOC 100, or permission of instructor. Not open to First Year students]
AMST 351 Archives of American Literature Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote that "language is the archives of history." This course will explore early American history through literature. In addition to reading historical fiction, autobiography, epic poetry, and other genres that revisit and revise the past, we will investigate how researchers come to know it. In other words, we will study the theory and practice of archives. What do these literary examinations of the country's past say about its present? How is the historical record created and preserved for, and how will it be accessed in, the future? Who and what gets left out, and why does it matter? Our authors, who may include Nathaniel Hawthorne, Frederick Douglass, Lydia Marie Child, and Pauline Hopkins, will use writing to reckon with the past. And so will we. Dual-listed as ENG 351.
AMST 354 Media in Early America Scholars of early American media take printed matter and other cultural objects as artifacts of the lives of Americans. Before the twentieth-century, Americans used letters, journals, books, pamphlets, newspapers, and magazines to express themselves and to communicate with each other. They were also informed and entertained by paintings, sculptures, panoramas, plays, demonstrations, lectures, sheet music, hymnals, and songsters. Literature, in other words, was one medium among many others. Writers like Frederick Douglass, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Emily Dickinson used language like other artists use their tools. In this course we will primarily study literary language as it was manifested on paper, though we will also examine how other cultural forms, like art and music, were mediated through print. We will interest ourselves in every stage of text's production: from how it was written to how it was read. In addition to exploring technologies of representation before the photograph and the phonograph, we will investigate the ways that digitization changes what we can experience and what we can know, of early American culture. Dual-listed as ENG 353. (Black) [Prerequisite: ENG 200 or MDSC 100 (may be taken concurrently), or permission of instructor.]
AMST 370 History Wars: The Politics of the Past in America History is never neutral, and the stories we tell about the past carry profound moral weight. From textbook battles to monument controversies, interpretations of America's past have served as weapons in contemporary political struggles, raising critical questions about truth, responsibility, and justice. This course examines how individuals, organizations, and institutions strategically deploy historical narratives to advance ideological agendas, while exploring the ethical implications of these choices. Through compelling case studies from Reconstruction to the present, students will analyze the construction of historical memory in school curricula, museums, monuments, and politics. Central to our investigation are fundamental ethical questions: Who has the right to shape collective memory? How do we balance competing claims to truth? What are the consequences when historical narratives perpetuate harm or injustice? Students will develop critical analytical skills alongside an ethical framework for evaluating the moral responsibilities of historians, educators, and citizens. P4 [Confirmation approval for students in study abroad programs to enroll.]
AMST 371 The Civil War in American Popular Culture and Memory Since the end of the Civil War Americans have sought to better understand the brutal struggle that divided families, neighbors and regions. Through the veterans' parades and public statues, films and novels, impassioned debates about the Confederate battle flag, battle reenactments, and public unrest over monument placement and removal, Americans, popular culture has 'remembered' the Civil War in varied ways, thereby assigning varied meanings to the conflict. This class explores these diverse meanings, interrogates why this particular moment in American history continues to fascinate and enrage Americans, and examines the complicated relationship between American history, memory, and culture. Dual-listed as HIST 371. (Free, offered alternate years) [Prerequisite: One HIST or AMST course.]
AMST 465 Senior Seminar This seminar is the capstone course for the Bachelor of Arts degree in American Studies. It is a chance for the student to reflect on the skills and knowledge that they have gained as a student of American Studies, and then hone some skills and deepen their knowledge by completing a substantial research project. (Offered annually) [Open to Junior and Senior American Studies majors only. Prerequisite: AMST 201.]
AMST 495 Honors
AMST 499 American Studies Internship