PROGRAM IN AMERICAN STUDIES

This is the Winter 2022 Seminar for Majors. A general description:

This course aims to provide a "how-to" of American Studies from an integrative, multiracial, and socio-cultural perspective. Taking U.S. American cultures as a site for testing classic and contemporary theories about how society works, this seminar in American Studies serves to introduce resources and techniques for interdisciplinary research. Students will be exposed to and experiment with a wide range of current theoretical and methodological approaches applied in American Studies and contributing disciplinary fields. The goal of the course is not only for students to develop knowledge of main currents in the field of American Studies but also to become practitioners through a series of assignments that will permit students to exercise their newfound skills. For instance, as students develop rhetorical analyses, describe and evaluate visual culture, or conduct and analyze interview data, they will also examine themes such as national narratives, civil rights and immigration, and the historical and social meanings of work, discipline, and justice.

Co-listed with RELIGION 364-0-20.

Amish Rumspringa, the Apache ‘Isanaklesh Gotal, Jewish bar and bat mitzvah, the quinceañera, and high school senior prom. What do all of these have in common? They are all teenage rites of passage. Drawing from anthropological and sociological case studies, we will examine various rites of passage experienced by teens in the U.S.  In analyzing these rites, students will become conversant with theories of ritual, contemporary surveys of teen demographics and cultural trends, media and cultural studies. We will examine teen popular media and consumption related to rites of passage as well as historical literature on the rise and development of the American teenager as a cultural phenomenon. Students will be asked to generate original research for their seminar final project, applying the tools from the course to a case study of their own choosing. This seminar will make use of multimedia materials and will feature multi-source digitized media viewing, analysis, and some mediamaking as part of course assignments.

Co-listed with HISTORY 300-0-20.

Why does American medicine look the way it does? The United States spends more on health care than any other country in the world, but is almost singular in its lack of universal health care. American medicine is at once distinguished by its capacity for research and innovation and by its inability to resolve the profound health inequalities that shape this country. Which historical processes produced this unique set of circumstances? When and how have activists, patients, and politicians agitated for change? What alternate futures might we imagine? This course traces the history of American medicine from the nation’s founding to the present day. We will learn about the formation of the medical profession, track changing understandings of health and disease, discuss the development of drugs and medical technologies, and investigate the role of professional organizations in combatting efforts to nationalize healthcare. At the same time, we will hear about efforts to reform American medicine in the name of anti-racism, gender equality, decolonization, disability rights, and social justice. By studying these complex histories, we will ask questions about the relationship between health, power, bodies, and knowledge and consider what it has meant to provide care and pursue health throughout American history.