Notes to students majoring in American Studies will be posted here.

New Courses for Fall 2007:

AMS 220 Colloquium

          Topic:  In the 'burbs : Culture, Politics, Identity

Perhaps no single occurence has had so broad an impact upon the overall shape of American life as the move of so much of the nation's population to the suburbs. And perhaps no single occurence has drawn so much criticism from cocerned social commentators. The suburbs are blamed for everything from the homogenization of the U.S. mass culture to the proliferation of new forms of racial and ethnic segregation to the resurgent rise of the political right in the late 20th century. This course will start from the premise that suburbia, politically fraught though it may be, is also a cultural location of considerable complexity which has given rise both to reconstructed forms of social regulation and to new ways of experiencing difference and negotiating cultural conflict in the United States. We will study suburbia from multiple angles and through a range of sources, from select films and novels to ethnographic studies of suburban life.

Enrollment limited to 20.

{H/S}

Steve Waksman

          Topic: Black Charisma as the Resource for American Cultural Renewal

An exploration- through a wide range of expressive forms: theatre, music, literature, film-of the complex interaction between African American and Euro-American cultures in the United States. Focus on three transformative movements: the 1830's, the 1920's and the 1950's.

{A/L}

W. T. Lhamon, Jr.

AMS 340 Symposium

 Limited to senior majors

            Topic: The United States as a Consumer Society

Among the issues we will consider are: in what ways is shopping a social, moral or political experience? What does it mean to look at travel sites that offer a view of history( Historic Deerfield and Yankee Candle Company, for example) as part of a consumer's experience? What is the relationship between consumer culture and public life or political participation (such as protests against the World Trade Organization or boycotts against goods produced under oppressive conditions?) How does the experience of shopping vary with one's race, class, gender or sexuality?

{H/S}

Daniel Horowitz

                Topic: Media Cultures

Manufactured images are everywhere, flickering across our computer monitors and television screens, adorning billboards and buses. These images are designed to grab our attention and to motivate us to acts of consumption. But they are also a source of education for us, instilling values and a sense of proper social behavior. Who owns these images? How do they work on our emotions and psyches? How have they shaped the organization of American and political and economic life? Why is the media saturated with images of sex and violence? What is the relationship between mass culture, ethics, and political mobilization? What has been the role of the media in the "age of terrorism"? Texts to address these questions include novels, memoirs, photographs, graffiti studies, news broadcasts, advertisements, histories of mass culture and theoretical studies of "the society of the spectacle."

Kevin Rozario

* * *