CSI American Studies: Courses

American Studies Courses

AMS 101: America: An Introduction 3 hours, 3 credits).: Classic interpretations of American culture through a broad interdisciplinary survey of the men and women, ideas, and events that have contributed to the American experience. The abiding ideas, values, and myths that have shaped the nation's arts, actions, and beliefs, drawing from painting, architecture, film, music, history, and literature. From 17th-century witchcraft to 20th-century witch hunts, from General Washington to General Hospital, from the assembly line to assembler language, from Revere to Rambo. (social science)
AMS 150: Dance History: Twentieth-Century Survey (4 hours, 3 credits).: (Also DAN 150); Concentrating on the "pioneers of modern dance"–Duncan, Denishawn, Graham, Humphrey, Weidman, and others–as well as on the experimental and avant-garde, using lectures, demonstrations, video, and film to illustrate examples of outstanding choreography. The course includes the dance of India and Black dance coordinated with professional concerts and student reports. Includes "Happenings in Today's World of Dance." No dance background required. (arts & com)
AMS 205/ART 205 Modern Art in Latin America (4 hours; 4 credits).: An introduction to the development of modern art in Latin America. We will study the emergence of key art movements in Latin America and how artists participated in and responded to important historical events and social changes across the Americas. How have Latin American artists portrayed the idea of "Latin America" or being "Latino" in their work? Other issues will include: negotiating with their colonial past and with European models of modernity; art and revolution; the question of indigenous art forms and the "popular"; diasporic continuities within Latin America, Latino experience in the United States, and mestizaje (cultural mixing). (arts & com) (p&d); Prerequisites: ENG 111; and ART 100 or ART 200 or ART 201 or AMS 101
AMS 209: Art and Society in America (4 hours, 4 credits).: (Also ART 209); Three hundred years of American art, studied as an expression of American life. Works of art are viewed in terms of style and also as guides to the complexities of American history and culture. (arts & com); Prerequisites: ENG 111; and ART 100 or ART 200 or ART 201 or AMS 101
AMS 210: American Philosophy (4 hours,4 credits).: (Also PHL 210); A study of philosophy in America, incA study of philosophy in America. Topics of inquiry will be selected from such movements and figures as the following: Puritanism, empiricism, idealism, and pragmatism; Jonathan Edwards, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Josiah Royce, Charles S. Peirce, William James, John Dewey, George Santayana, and Alfred North Whitehead. (social science); Prerequisites: ENG 111, COR 100
AMS 211: American Culture in Black and White (4 hours, 4 credits).: (Also AFA 211); Mutual perceptions of Blacks and Whites in 19th- and 20th-century America; how these perceptions were born, and how they have changed. (social science) (p&d); Prerequisites: ENG 111, COR 100
AMS 212: Twentieth-Century America (4 hours, 4 credits).: An examination of selected works that are landmarks in the development of 20th-century American culture. Authors will include Hemingway, Faulkner, Ellison, Wright, Miller, Mailer, and Beattie; Harrington, Friedan, and Galbraith. (social science); Prerequisites: ENG 111, COR 100
AMS 214: America in the World (4 hours, 4 credits).: Cross-cultural perspectives on American values, arts, and events. What foreign observers have thought about the United States. How our experience has paralleled, or differed from, that of Europe since the 18th century. What the important similarities, differences, and influences are between Western and Eastern cultures. (social science); Prerequisites: ENG 111, COR 100
AMS 220: Geography of the United States (4 hours, 4 credits).: (Also GEG 222); This course explores the geographic variety of the United States. The country's physical characteristics are regionally diverse and provide an array of resources. Different populations have put them to use in various ways. The course traces who lives where, why, what they have found there and what have they done with it. Emphasis is placed on the contrasting threads of regional variation and national homogenization. (social science); Prerequisite: ENG 111 and COR 100
AMS 221: The American Dream (4 hours, 4 credits).: The hopes, the frustrations, and, particularly, the dreams of American society as observed by foreign and native commentators in the past and present. This course will attempt to assess not only the idealization of the American dream but also disillusionment with it as expressed by such writers as Franklin, Tocqueville, Emerson, Whitman, Henry Adams, and Norman Mailer. (social science); Prerequisites: ENG 111 and COR 100 or any American studies or history course
AMS 222: The City in American Culture (4 hours, 4 credits).: Impressions and analyses (literary, social, historical, cinematic, and photographic) of the varied cultures, institutions, and environments that are the substance of American urban life. A course that posits few facile solutions to the urban crisis but knows which questions are to be asked and which myths must be demolished if cities are ever to become humane and pleasurable organisms rather than death- and profit-bound ones. (social science); Prerequisites: ENG 111, COR 100
AMS 224: Religion in America (4 hours, 4 credits).: (Also HST 246); Addresses the development of religion—Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, and others—in the context of American social, cultural, and intellectual history. (social science); Prerequisites: ENG 111, COR 100
AMS 230: American Film and American Myth (4 hours, 4 credits).: (Also CIN 230); The American film and its relationship to American myth, society, and culture. Topics to be included are: the American West, the gangster, rural and urban life, the nature of war, race and class, comic views of America. (arts & com); Prerequisite: ENG 111
AMS 231: American Myths and Realities (4 hours, 4 credits).: American society, chiefly in the 19th and 20th centuries, and its problems, including democracy in an industrial order, the city, class stratification, and racial conflict, as seen by such representative realistic writers as Henry James, Dreiser, Veblen, William Dean Howells, and W.E.B. DuBois. (social science); Prerequisites: ENG 111, COR 100
AMS 236: Music in American Life (4 hours, 4 credits).: (Also MUS 236); The music-making and listening habits of the American people, examining the musical activities, the musicians, and the social setting. The course focuses on the history and significance of rock as an American and international phenomenon, exploring issues of gender, race, and the multicultural musical traditions that have enriched American popular music. This course develops the ability to understand music as an expression of cultural values, and does not require instrumental training or the ability to read music. This course does not meet requirements for the major or the minor in Music. (arts & com); Prerequisite: ENG 111
AMS 237: American Musical Theater (3 hours, 3 credits).: (Also MUS 237); A survey of American musical theater and its development from the second half of the 19th century to our own times, considered in the context of a changing America. Sousa, Herbert, Friml, Cohan, Kern, Gershwin, Bernstein, Arlen, Weill, Thomson, and Copland are some of the composers whose works will be covered. (arts & com); Prerequisite: ENG 111; for Music majors, MUS 120 or permission of the instructor
AMS 239: The American Civil War (4 hours, 4 credits).: Civil, cultural, and military aspects of the Civil War, including the events and issues leading up to the war, the struggle over the expansion of slavery, the Union's and the Confederacy's military strategies, analysis of key battles, and cultural responses to these events. The contested memory of the Civil War in American culture will be examined.; Prerequisites: ENG 111, COR 100
AMS 241: Popular Culture and Mass Society (4 hours, 4 credits).: Popular entertainment as the expression of American cultural values: television, radio, music, and sports; westerns, detective stories, and soap operas. Functional analysis of entertainment as the myth and ritual of mass society. The problems of aesthetic standards in a culture dominated by commercialized taste. Relationships between popular entertainment and political values. Readings from Durkheim, Ellul, McLuhan, Nye, and Browne. (arts & com); Prerequisite: ENG 111
AMS 243: American Humor (4 hours, 4 credits).: Humor in America shares some characteristics found in all cultures, past and present, and sometimes has seemed peculiarly "native.'' This course traces the variety and development of American humor from colonial days to the present through literature, drama, art, cartoons, and film. Humor will be examined as psychological phenomenon, as philosophical outlook, and as intellectual history. (literature); Prerequisite: ENG 111
AMS 251: American Ideas (4 hours, 4 credits).: (Also HST 240); A major idea in American intellectual history will be examined from the perspective of two or more disciplines. This course will demonstrate the interdisciplinary method and philosophy of American Studies. Puritanism, transcendentalism, the idea of freedom, social Darwinism, Freudianism, and socialism are possible topics. (social science); Prerequisites: ENG 111, and COR 100 or AMS 101 or any history course.
AMS 252: American Arts (4 hours, 4 credits).: A major artistic theme will be traced through two or more of the American arts. This course will demonstrate the interdisciplinary method and philosophy of American Studies. Realism and romanticism, functionalism and formalism, naturalism and the genteel tradition, and organic form are possible topics. (arts & com); Prerequisites: ENG 111 and COR 100
AMS 258: Vietnam and America, 1945-1975 (4 hours, 4 credits).: (Also HST 258); An examination of the history of American involvement in Vietnam, the experience of Americans and Vietnamese who fought the Second Indochina war and its effects on American society. For History majors and minors, this is designated as a United States history course. (social science); Prerequisites: ENG 111, COR 100 or any college-level history course
AMS 306: Latinas/os in the United States (4 hours; 4 credits).: (Also SOC 306/ANT 306); An examination of the sociological and anthropological literature on Latinas/os in the United States. The main goal is to acquaint students with the most important economic, political, and social aspects that contemporary Latino communities are experiencing. Using ethnographies, the course will focus on community formation, social movements, race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality issues, immigration, and transnationalism. Class discussions will also address differences based on national origin, class, and generation. This is a reading and writing intensive course in which students are expected to conduct primary research. (p&d); Prerequisites: ANT 201 and one of the following: SOC 200, SOC 201, SOC 240, or SOC 260
AMS 308: American Art Since 1945 (4 hours, 4 credits).: (Also ART 308); The course will examine the development of American art since World War II.; Prerequisite: ART 100 or ART 200 or ART 201 or AMS 212 or ART 208, or permission of the instructor
AMS 311: The American Cultural Experience (4 hours, 4 credits).: A senior seminar for American Studies majors who will do independent research on a common theme of the American experience and meet to discuss and analyze their findings. Examples of such topics are Puritan religion, the frontier, slavery, reform, feminism, big business, radicalism, literary naturalism, imperialism, and popular culture.; Prerequisite: A 200-level American studies course
AMS 335: Society and Culture in the United States (4 hours, 4 credits).: (Also HST 335); Major artistic and intellectual developments in America from the 18th century to the present, and their relationship to changing social and political realities. For History majors and minors, this is designated as a United States history course.; Prerequisites: Any 200-level history course or any 200-level American studies course and ENG 151

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Prepared by Catherine Lavender
Last updated Friday 30 March 2012.