University Bulletin (2021-2022)

• Major (BA)

The American Studies major takes an interdisciplinary approach to the study of American identity and identities – the beliefs, values, ideas, and traditions that have animated American culture and been manifest in the country’s institutions, laws, and art (broadly defined).

The major seeks to provide students with an informed awareness of the ways in which American culture has shaped and been shaped by the lives, aspirations, thinking, and action of its own citizens and the citizens of other nations.

Particular disciplines and areas of focus within the major include History, Literature, Film, Religion, Politics, Journalism, Music, Women’s and Gender Studies, Legal Studies, and Environmental Studies.

Typically, students who major in American Studies anticipate careers in fields such as law, business, public service, education, journalism, and the entertainment industry.

The goal of the American Studies major is to encourage students to view America as a distinct culture – one that has been constructed over time by a series of deliberate actions and unplanned developments, and is composed of a diverse selection of peoples, experiences, traditions, and values.

Ideally, students will come to see American identity as something that must be actively assumed. They will see American culture as something worthy of deep interrogation. And they will be able to situate American culture within a global context, recognizing its indebtedness to and influence on some of the political, legal, artistic, and religious cultures found in other parts of the world.

The major consists of a two-semester sequence of courses that examine the history of American culture from the seventeenth century to the present. Students also take at least one offering from a selection of courses designated as “Main Currents” courses. These courses are organized along broad themes (e.g.: “Hollywood and American Culture”; “Religion and American Life”; “American Environmental History”) and give students the opportunity to explore the construction and evolution of particular American ideas and identities across an extended period of time and within a variety of disciplines and genres.

In addition to the two foundational courses and the one “Main Currents” course, students take six elective courses from a list of approved classes that are either housed in the American Studies program or cross-listed with it.

Knowledge

Students completing the major in American Studies will be able to:

1. Identify and understand many of the most influential, widely regarded, ground-breaking, and pivotal texts in American cultural history.
2. Understand the historical roots of many of the contemporary issues, institutions, movements, and policies affecting life in the United States.
3. Situate American culture within a global context, recognizing its indebtedness to and influence on some of the political, legal, artistic, religious, and environmental cultures found in other parts of the world.
4. View America as a distinct culture – one that has been constructed over time by a series of deliberate actions and unplanned developments, and is composed of a diverse selection of peoples, experiences, traditions, and values.

Core Skills

The American Studies major emphasizes core skills in analysis, critical thinking, research, and communication. Within the major, students are challenged to:

1. Perform "close readings" of a variety of texts – identifying core ideas or arguments within the texts and recognizing the details, evidence, patterns, and forms that reflect or advance the ideas or arguments.
2. Develop clear, logical, substantiated, and convincing arguments and articulate those arguments in writing and in speech.
3. Recognize the difference between a primary and secondary source – and use each kind of source effectively and appropriately.
4. Conduct research utilizing both digital and analog resources.

Social Justice

The American Studies curriculum prepares students for lives of civic engagement, providing the knowledge and skills necessary to contribute to public debate, scholarship, and policy initiatives related to social justice in the modern world. The curriculum fosters an open climate for consideration of a full range of ideological, political, social, cultural, and religious perspectives about the United States in the world.

We take pride in our long tradition of faculty involvement in social and political life, refining ways in which scholarship and activism can be combined to improve the common good. American Studies faculty developed the idea for Brandeis’ Transitional Year Program, which served as a template for many other college programs. Our faculty have also been involved in many public service enterprises at the local, national, and global levels. Numerous American Studies courses, particularly those taught by the directors of the Environmental Studies Program, the Legal Studies Program, and the Journalism Program, incorporate experiential learning components, which directly connect learning to issues of social justice.

Upon Graduation

American Studies graduates go on to careers in a variety of fields, including journalism and communication; law and politics; government and public policy; film, television and the entertainment industry; advertising, public relations, business, and marketing. Majors often enter academic scholarship in a variety of fields, including but not limited to American Studies.

Normally, students declare their major in their sophomore year and complete the three required courses by the end of their junior year. Working with an American Studies adviser, students are urged to develop a coherent selection of electives tailored to their particular interests and gifts. American Studies majors often take several departmental courses that also satisfy the requirements of their program. Courses in other departments that satisfy American Studies elective requirements are listed below and are also listed on the American Studies website. Students who wish to be considered for honors in American Studies must write a senior thesis in a full-year course (AMST 99d). Special opportunities are available for supervised internships (AMST 92a), one-on-one readings courses (AMST 97a,b), and individually directed research courses (AMST 98a,b). Majors are encouraged to gain a valuable cross-cultural perspective on America by studying abroad in their junior year.

Maura Farrelly, Chair
Journalism, religion.

Thomas Doherty
Media and culture.

Brian Donahue
Environmental studies.

Richard Gaskins (on leave academic year 2020-2021)
Law, social policy, philosophy.

Paula Musegades
Music and American culture.

Eileen McNamara
Journalism, media, ethics.

Affiliated Faculty (contributing to the curriculum, advising and administration of the department or program)
Daniel Breen (Legal Studies)
Laura Goldin (Environmental Studies)
Jonathan Krasner (Near Eastern and Judaic Studies)
James Mandrell (Romance Studies)
Jerome Tharaud

1. At least one course from the Main Currents in American Studies cluster: AMST 30b, AMST 35a, AMST 36b, AMST 46b, AMST 50b, AMST 60a, AMST 66b, AMST 103b, AMST 106b, AMST 131b, AMST 136a, AMST 150a, AMST 177b, AMST 180b, AMST 188b, AMST/ENG 47a, AMST/ENG 138a, AMST/ENG 167b, AMST/MUS 35a, AMST/MUS 38a, AMST/MUS 39b, AMST/MUS 41a, AMST/MUS 55a, and JOUR 137b.
2. Two core courses in American culture, taken sequentially: AMST 100a and 100b.
3. Six additional courses from American Studies or from the cross-listed section below. A substitution for the required Main Currents course may be made only with advance permission of the department. Main Currents courses may also be counted as electives.
4. Foundational Literacies: As part of completing the American Studies major, students must:
   • Fulfill the writing intensive requirement by successfully completing: AMST 100a.
   • Fulfill the oral communication requirement by successfully completing one of the following: AMST 140b, AMST/ANT 117a, AMST/MUS 35a, AMST/MUS 38a, AMST/MUS 39b, AMST/MUS 41a, or AMST/MUS 55a.
   • Fulfill the digital literacy requirement by successfully completing: AMST 100b.
5. No course, whether required or elective, for which a student receives a grade below a C-minus or any course taken pass/fail may be counted toward the major.
6. To be eligible for honors, seniors must successfully complete AMST 99d (Senior Research) and participate in a year-long honors colloquium. AMST 99d does not satisfy other major requirements.
7. No more than two courses satisfying a second major or minor may be used to complete the American Studies major. Courses taught by American Studies faculty in Journalism, Legal Studies, or Environmental Studies are exempted from this limit. Students should ask the American Studies Chair for a list of such faculty.

AMST 25b Individualism in America
[ ss ]
Examines the central dilemmas of the American experience through various major works. Topics include the ambition to transcend social and personal limitations and the tension between demands of self and the hunger for community. Usually offered every second year.
Stephen Whitfield

AMST 30b American Environmental History
[ ss wi ]
Provides an overview of the relationship between nature and culture in North America. Covers Native Americans, the European invasion, the development of a market system of resource extraction and consumption, the impact of industrialization, and environmentalist responses. Current environmental issues are placed in historical context. Usually offered every year.
Brian Donahue

AMST 35a Hollywood and American Culture
[ ss ]
This is an interdisciplinary course in Hollywood cinema and American culture that aims to do justice to both arenas. Students will learn the terms of filmic grammar, the meanings of visual style, and the contexts of Hollywood cinema from The Birth of a Nation (1915) to last weekend's top box office grosser. They will also master the major economic, social, and political realities that make up the American experience of the dominant medium of our time, the moving image, as purveyed by Hollywood. Usually offered every second year.
Thomas Doherty

AMST 36b Television and American Culture
[ ss ]
May not be taken for credit by students who took AMST 130b in prior years.
An interdisciplinary course with three main lines of discussion and investigation: an aesthetic inquiry into the meaning of television style and genre; a historical consideration of the medium and its role in American life; and a technological study of televisual communication. Usually offered every second year.
Thomas Doherty

AMST 45b Violence (and Nonviolence) in American Culture
[ ss ]
Studies the use of terror and violence by citizens and governments in the domestic history of the United States. What are the occasions and causes of violence? How is it imagined, portrayed, and explained in literature? Is there anything peculiarly American about violence in America--nonviolence and pacifism? Usually offered every second year.
Staff

AMST 46b American Biography
[ ss ]
Focuses on biography as a method of historical inquiry and literary expression. Students grapple with fundamental questions of the genre: Whose lives get memorialized and why? What can one life say about the period in which it was lived? How much attention should biographers pay to the private lives versus public accomplishments of their subjects? How do biographers wrestle with the fallibility of memory? Usually offered every second year.
Eileen McNamara

AMST 50b Religion in American Life
[ ss ]
May not be taken for credit by students who took AMST 167b in prior years.
Considers the historical influence of religious belief on various aspects of American political, cultural, legal, and economic life. Topics include the use and effectiveness of religious language in political rhetoric, from the American Revolution to the War in Iraq; the role that religious belief has played in galvanizing and frustrating various reform movements; and the debate over the proper role of religion in the public square. Usually offered every second year.
Maura Farrelly

AMST 60a The Legal Boundaries of Public and Private Life
[ ss ]
Examine civil liberties through landmark U.S. Supreme Court cases. Explores confrontations between public interest and personal rights across four episodes in American cultural history; post-Civil War race relations; progressive-era economic regulation; war-time free-speech debates; and current issues of sexual and reproductive privacy. Close legal analysis supplemented by politics, philosophy, and social history. Usually offered every second year.
Daniel Breen

AMST 66b American Scholars: Intellectuals in American Life
[ ss ]
May not be taken for credit by students who took AMST 166b in prior years.
Examines the role and influence of public intellectuals in American society. Students explore the ideas put forth by some of the most influential public intellectuals in American life, and they are challenged to consider how and why those ideas have been rendered relevant to a mass audience. Students are also challenged to consider the impact the modern university has had on public intellectualism; the role the broadcast and Internet media are playing in the making of public intellectuals; and whether and how pundits are different from public intellectuals. Usually offered every second year.
Maura Farrelly

AMST 92a Internship in American Studies
Off-campus work experience in conjunction with a reading course with a member of the department. Requires reading and writing assignments drawing upon and amplifying the internship experience. Only one internship course may be submitted in satisfaction of the department's elective requirements. Usually offered every year.
Staff

AMST 97a Readings in American Studies
Enrollment limited to juniors and seniors.
Independent readings, research, and writing on a subject of the student's interest, under the direction of a faculty adviser. Usually offered every year.
Staff

AMST 97b Readings in American Studies
Enrollment limited to juniors and seniors.
Independent readings, research, and writing on a subject of the student's interest, under the direction of a faculty adviser. Usually offered every year.
Staff

AMST 98a Independent Study
Usually offered every year.
Staff

AMST 98b Independent Study
Usually offered every year.
Staff

AMST 99d Senior Research
Seniors who are candidates for degrees with departmental honors should register for this course and, under the direction of a faculty adviser, prepare a thesis. In addition to regular meetings with a faculty adviser, seniors will participate in an honors colloquium, a seminar group bringing together the honors candidates and members of the American studies faculty. Usually offered every year.
Staff

AMST/ENG 47a Frontier Visions: The West in American Literature and Culture
[ hum oc ]
May not be taken for credit by students who took ENG 47a in prior years.
Explores more than two centuries of literary and visual culture about the American West, including the frontier myth, Indian captivity narratives, frontier humor, dime novel and Hollywood westerns, the Native American Renaissance, and western regionalism. Authors include Black Hawk, Cather, Doig, Silko, Turner, and Twain. Usually offered every third year.
Jerome Tharaud

AMST/MUS 35a History of Rock: Rock and Roll in American Culture
[ ca oc ]
Formerly offered as MUS 35a.
Examines the historical context, stylistic development, and cultural significance of rock and roll and other closely related genres, spanning the 1950s through the present. Close attention is paid to how political and social changes have interacted with technological innovations through commercial music to challenge, affirm and shape ideas of race, gender, class and sexuality in the United States. Usually offered every third year.
Staff

AMST/MUS 38a American Music: From Psalms to Hip Hop
[ ca oc ss ]
Open to music majors and non-majors. Formerly offered as MUS 38a.
Explores the many varieties of folk, popular, and art music in American culture. We will focus on the stylistic development of select repertoires beginning with 18thcentury New England Psalm singing and African American traditions and continuing on through folk, jazz, art, pop, rock, and hip hop music. Throughout the course, music serves as a lens to examine diverse aspects of American culture and history with an emphasis on America’s shifting definition of identity. No musical background is required. Usually offered every third year.
Staff

AMST/MUS 39b Protest Through Song: Music that Shaped America
[ ca oc ss ]
Open to music majors and non-majors. Does not fulfill the Main Currents in American Studies requirement for the major.
Examines 20th and 21st century protest music to better understand the complex relationships between music and social movements. Through class discussions, reading, writing, and listening assignments, and a final performance students will discover how social, cultural, and economic protest songs helped shape American culture. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

AMST/MUS 41a Leonard Bernstein: Composer, Conductor, Educator, and Humanitarian
[ ca oc ss ]
Explores the life and career of Leonard Bernstein. As a composer, conductor, educator, and humanitarian, Bernstein played an important role in shaping American music and culture. Through class discussions, group projects, and reading, writing, and listening assignments, this course will help students better understand the musical, cultural, political, and educational influence of Leonard Bernstein both then and now. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

AMST/MUS 55a Music in Film: Hearing American Cinema
[ ca oc ]
Formerly offered as MUS 55a.
Examines the aesthetics and the history of music in film. Through lecture, class discussions, screenings, and readings, the course teaches students how to critically read image, script, and music as an integrated cultural text, ultimately helping one understand and appreciate the progression of film and sound technology from the 1890s to the present. Usually offered every third year.
Staff

AMST 100a Foundations of American Culture
[ ss wi ]
This is the core seminar for American studies majors; a text-based course tracing the American experience from the earliest colonizations through the nineteenth century. Usually offered every fall.
Staff

AMST 100b Twentieth-Century American Culture
[ dl ss ]
Prerequisite: AMST 100a.
The democratization of taste and the extension of mass media are among the distinguishing features of American culture in the twentieth century. Through a variety of genres and forms of expression, in high culture and the popular arts, this course traces the historical development of a national style that came to exercise formidable influence abroad as well. Usually offered every spring.
Staff

AMST 103b Advertising and the Media
[ ss ]
Combines a historical and contemporary analysis of advertising's role in developing and sustaining consumer culture in America with a practical analysis of the relationship between advertising and the news media in the United States. Usually offered every second year.
Maura Farrelly

AMST 104a China and America: A History of Cultural Exchanges
[ ss ]
Familiarizes students with the basic ideas, themes, and developments that have governed the history of Sino-American cultural relations for the last 250 years. Topics range from the role of tea in the American Revolution and the legal status of Chinese immigrants in the United States, to the popularity of the fictional character, Dr. Fu Manchu, and the ideological origins of the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Special one-time offering, fall 2021.
Simon Sun

AMST 105a The Eastern Forest: Paleoecology to Policy
[ ss wi ]
Yields six semester-hour credits towards rate of work and graduation.
Can we make sustainable use of the Eastern Forest of North America while protecting biological diversity and ecological integrity? Explores the forest's ecological development, the impact of human cultures, attitudes toward the forest, and our mixed record of abuse and stewardship. Includes extensive fieldwork. Usually offered every second year.
Brian Donahue

AMST 106b Food and Farming in America
[ ss wi ]
Yields four semester-hour credits towards rate of work and graduation.
American food is abundant and cheap. Yet many eat poorly, and some argue that our agriculture may be unhealthy and unsustainable. Explores the history of American farming and diet and the prospects for a healthy food system. Includes extensive fieldwork. Usually offered every second year.
Brian Donahue

AMST 116b Race and American Cinema
[ hum ]
From its earliest beginnings, the history of American cinema has been inextricably--and controversially--tied to the racial politics of the United States. This course explores how images of racial and ethnic minorities such as African Americans, Jews, Asians, Native Americans, and Latino/as are reflected on the screen, as well as the ways that minorities in the entertainment industry have responded to often limiting representations. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

AMST 120a The Social and Theological Development of the Black Church in America
[ ss ]
Introduces students to the complex development of black Christianity in America. Topics include the emergence of various denominations; the development of particular theological, liturgical, and musical traditions; and the impact the black church has had on the political lives of African-Americans. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

AMST 121a The American Jewish Woman: 1890-Present
[ ss ]
Surveys the experiences of American Jewish women in work, politics, religion, family life, the arts, and American culture generally over the last 100 years, examining how the dual heritage of female and Jewish "otherness" shaped often-conflicted identities. Usually offered every second year.
Keren McGinity

AMST 121b Gospel Music in America
[ ss ]
Students learn how to "read" gospel music as a text – musically, lyrically, and from the standpoint of physical and visual performance. They explore gospel music's theological underpinnings, and they consider how gospel has shaped and been shaped by African-American history can culture. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

AMST 123b Interfaith, Interethnic, Interracial America
[ ss ]
Focuses on how religion, ethnicity, and race contributed to maintaining group separatism at some early points in American history and intersected to create a unified national identity at others. Usually offered every fourth year.
Keren McGinity

AMST 124b Sex, Love, and Marriage in America
[ ss ]
Ideas and behavior relating to love and marriage are used as lenses to view broader social patterns such as family organization, generational conflict, and the creation of personal and national identity. Usually offered every second year.
Keren McGinity

AMST 125b Comedy and American Culture
[ ss ]
Drawing upon multiple forms of cultural expression, students examine popular styles of humor and satire, using humor to gain insight into an "American" national character that has both shaped and been shaped by the country's comedic traditions. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

AMST 127b Women and American Popular Culture
[ ss ]
Examines women's diverse representations and participation in the popular culture of the United States. Using historical studies, advertising, film, television, music, and literature, discusses how constructions of race, gender, class, sexuality, ethnicity, and religion have shaped women's encounters with popular and mass culture. Topics include women and modernity, leisure and work, women's roles in the rise of consumer culture and relation to technology, representations of sexuality, and the impact of feminism. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

AMST 129a From American Movie Musicals to Music Videos
[ ss ]
Examines the spectacle of song and dance in movie musicals and music videos, beginning with the earliest talking pictures in the late 1920's and continuing to the present. Particular emphasis will be on technological change, race, gender and the commodification of culture, among other topics. Usually offered every second year.
James Mandrell

AMST 131b News on Screen
[ ss ]
An interdisciplinary course exploring how journalistic practice is mediated by moving image--cinematic, televisual, and digital. The historical survey will span material from the late-nineteenth-century "actualities" of Thomas Edison and the Lumiere Brothers to the viral environment of the World Wide Web, a rich tradition that includes newsreels, expeditionary films, screen magazines, combat reports, government information films, news broadcasts, live telecasts, television documentaries, amateur video, and the myriad blogs, vlogs, and webcasts of the digital age. Usually offered every second year.
Thomas Doherty

AMST 133a The History of Media in America
[ ss ]
An introductory survey that considers the development and influence of the mass media in America from the colonial period to the present. The goal is to bring the skills of historical analysis to the study of mass media, so that students will come to know the fluid and constructed nature of the media environment that shapes their understanding of the contemporary world. Usually offered every year.
Maura Farrelly

AMST 134b Digital Media and American Culture
[ ss ]
Analyzes how the Internet, the Blogosphere, Facebook, Twitterdom, iPhones and iPads (all in all the entire array of constantly expanding techniques for instant (and incessant) information transmission and reception) have affected American Culture--thought, expressive styles, politics, liberties, prose, education, journalism, social and personal relations, values, identities, senses of self, nation, and the globe. In brief: what has been replaced, and with what, and is all this for better or worse? Usually offered every year.
Staff

AMST 135a Photography and American Culture
[ ss ]
Looks at how photography has (and has not) shaped understanding of certain key themes and issues in American history and culture-and how American history and culture have (and have not) done the same to photography. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

AMST 136a Planet Hollywood: American Cinema in Global Perspective
[ hum ss ]
Examines the global reach of Hollywood cinema as an art, business, and purveyor of American values, tracking how Hollywood has absorbed foreign influences and how other nations have adapted and resisted the Hollywood juggernaut. Usually offered every second year.
Thomas Doherty

AMST 140b The Asian American Experience
[ oc ss ]
Examines the political, economic, social, and contemporary issues related to Asians in the United States from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. Topics include patterns of immigration and settlement, and individual, family, and community formation explored through history, literature, personal essays, films, and other popular media sources. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

AMST 147b Bestsellers in American Culture
[ ss ]
Considers what makes a book popular at a particular moment in history - or put differently, how the hopes, fears, needs, anxieties, and longings expressed in a particular book reveal and reflect the personal, cultural, and historical experiences of the people who made the book popular. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

AMST 149a The Future as History
[ ss ]
Examines how visionaries, novelists, historians, social scientists, and futurologists in America from 1888 to the present have imagined and predicted America's future and what those adumbrations--correct and incorrect--tell us about our life today, tomorrow, and yesterday, when the predictions were made. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

AMST 150a The History of Childhood and Youth in America
[ ss ]
Examines history, cultural ideas, and policies about childhood and youth, as well as children's literature, television, and other media for children and youth. Includes an archival-based project on the student movement in the 1960s. Usually offered every second year.
Jonathan Krasner

AMST 156b Transatlantic Crossings: America and Europe
[ ss ]
Examines how the United States has interacted with the rest of the world, especially Europe, as a promise, as a dream, as a cultural projection. Focuses less on the flow of people than on the flow of ideas, less on the instruments of foreign policy than on the institutions that have promoted visions of democracy, individual autonomy, power, and abundance. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

AMST 166b American Political Satire
[ ss ]
Political satire has a rich history as a tool of dissent in America, and has taken many forms, from magazine cartoons to song parodies to television comedy. Today, satirists are part of a national debate over censorship, political correctness, and jokes that “go too far,” and some critics wonder if satire has been weaponized by the alt-right. In this class, we will explore different types of political satire in the United States, including digital and newspaper cartoons, stand-up comedy, tweets and memes, podcasts, and television shows like Saturday Night Live, from the 19th to the 21st centuries. We will share examples of Presidential satire leading up to the November election. And we will discuss the following questions: Can political satire produce social change? Does it function as entertainment or activism? How has political satire evolved over time? Usually offered every fourth year.
Sascha Cohen

AMST 170a Conspiracy Theory
[ ss ]
Considers the "paranoid style" in America's political and popular culture and in recent American literature. Topics include allegations of "conspiracy" in connection with the Kennedy assassinations, the Sacco and Vanzetti, Hiss, and Rosenberg cases; alleged antisemitism and anti-Catholicism; Islamophobia; and Watergate and Irangate. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

AMST 176a Southern California in the American Imagination
[ ss ]
Examines the cultural history of Southern California and compares that cultural history to the "visions" of the region that have been portrayed in film, literature, music, and the visual arts. Students consider why the topography, climate, economy, demographics, and culture of Southern California have proven to be such rich subjects for American artists. Usually offered every second year.
Mark Feeney

AMST 177b True Crime and American Culture
[ ss ]
Explores a series of enduringly fascinating cases from the true crime files of American culture. Our crime scene investigations range from 1692 Salem to 1994 Brentwood; our line-up includes witches, outlaws, kidnappers, gangsters, murderers, and serial killers; and our evidence is drawn from literature, film, and television. Usually offered every second year.
Thomas Doherty

AMST 180b Topics in the History of American Education
[ ss ]
Examines major themes in the history of American education, including the development of schools; changing ideas about education; the quest for equity and inclusion; the place of religion; the role of the media, and efforts at reform, privatization, and corporatization. Usually offered every second year.
Jonathan Krasner

AMST 188b Louis Brandeis: Law, Business and Politics
[ ss ]
Brandeis's legal career serves as model and guide for exploring the ideals and anxieties of American legal culture throughout the twentieth century. Focuses on how legal values evolve in response to new technologies, corporate capitalism, and threats to personal liberty. Usually offered every second year.
Daniel Breen

AAAS 70a Introduction to African American History
[ ss ]
Introduces the experiences of African Americans from the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade to the present. Explores major themes that have shaped African American history, such as survival and resistance, struggles for freedom, citizenship and equality, institution building and the meaning of progress. Particular attention given to the role of class, gender and diaspora. Usually offered every second year.
Chad Williams

AAAS 79b African American Literature of the Twentieth Century
[ hum ss ]
An introduction to the essential themes, aesthetic concerns, and textual strategies that characterize African American writing of this century. Examines those influences that have shaped the poetry, fiction, and prose nonfiction of representative writers. Usually offered every second year.
Brandon Callender or Faith Smith

AAAS 156a #BlackLivesMatter
[ deis-us ss ]
Explores the evolution of the modern African American civil rights movement through historical readings, primary documents, films and social media. Assesses the legacy and consequences of the movement for contemporary struggles for black equality. Usually offered every second year.
Chad Williams

AAPI 142a The War in Vietnam in Literature and Film
[ djw hum ]
What we have come to call the Vietnam War fundamentally changed the histories of Vietnam and the U.S. through the Cold War to the present day. Taking a transnational approach, this course will examine various understandings of the war through major U.S., Vietnamese, and Vietnamese American literary texts and films from the mid-twentieth century to the present day. All course materials are in English; no Vietnamese language knowledge is required. Special one-time offering, fall 2021.
Howie Tam

AMST/ENG 138a Race, Region, and Religion in the Twentieth-Century South
[ deis-us hum wi ]
May not be taken for credit by students who took ENG 38b in prior years.
Twentieth century fiction of the American South. Racial conflict, regional identity, religion, and modernization in fiction from both sides of the racial divide and from both sides of the gender line. Texts by Chestnutt, Faulkner, Warren, O'Connor, Gaines, McCarthy, and Ellison. Usually offered every third year.
John Burt

AMST/ENG 167b Writing the Nation: James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Toni Morrison
[ deis-us hum ]
May not be taken for credit by students who took ENG 57b in prior years.
An in-depth study of three major American authors of the twentieth century. Highlights the contributions of each author to the American literary canon and to its diversity. Explores how these novelists narrate cross-racial, cross-gendered, cross-regional, and cross-cultural contact and conflict in the United States. Usually offered every third year.
Staff

AMST/MUS 35a History of Rock: Rock and Roll in American Culture
[ ca oc ]
Formerly offered as MUS 35a.
Examines the historical context, stylistic development, and cultural significance of rock and roll and other closely related genres, spanning the 1950s through the present. Close attention is paid to how political and social changes have interacted with technological innovations through commercial music to challenge, affirm and shape ideas of race, gender, class and sexuality in the United States. Usually offered every third year.
Staff

AMST/MUS 55a Music in Film: Hearing American Cinema
[ ca oc ]
Formerly offered as MUS 55a.
Examines the aesthetics and the history of music in film. Through lecture, class discussions, screenings, and readings, the course teaches students how to critically read image, script, and music as an integrated cultural text, ultimately helping one understand and appreciate the progression of film and sound technology from the 1890s to the present. Usually offered every third year.
Staff

ANTH 61b Language in American Life
[ oc ss ]
Examines the relations between language and some major dimensions of American social life: social groupings (the structures of ethnic, regional, class, and gender relations); social settings (such as courtrooms, workplaces, and homes); and social interaction. Usually offered every second year.
Janet McIntosh

ANTH 159a Museums and Public Memory
[ oc ss ]
Explores the social and political organization of public memory, including museums, cultural villages, and memorial sites. Who has the right to determine the content and form of such institutions? Working with local community members, students will develop a collaborative exhibition project. Usually offered every second year.
Ellen Schattschneider

ENG 6a The American Renaissance
[ hum ]
Explores the transformation of U.S. literary culture before the Civil War: transcendentalism, the romance, the slave narrative, domestic fiction, sensationalism, and their relation to the visual art and architecture of the period. Authors will include Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, Stowe, Poe, Ridge, and Crafts. Usually offered every second year.
Jerome Tharaud

ENG 7a American Literature from 1900 to 2000
[ hum wi ]
Focuses on literature and cultural and historical politics of major authors. Prose and poetry. May include Eliot, Frost, Williams, Moore, Himes, Cather, and Faulkner as well as contemporary authors. Usually offered every second year.
John Burt or Caren Irr

ENG 15b Black Joy
[ hum ]
Explores the exuberant and sometimes strained relationship between black people
and joy. In addition to literature, we will encounter various performances and perspectives that approach joy from multitude of perspectives, including minstrelsy, meditation, nature writing, ancestral remembrance, and the erotics of eating well and feeling good. Usually offered every year.
Brandon Callender

ENG 17a Alternative and Underground Journalism
[ hum ]
A critical history of twentieth-century American journalism. Topics include the nature of journalistic objectivity, the style of underground and alternative periodicals, and the impact of new technologies on independent media. Usually offered every third year.
Caren Irr

ENG 27b Classic Hollywood Cinema
[ hum ]
A critical examination of the history of mainstream U.S. cinema from the 1930s to the present. Focuses on major developments in film content and form, the rise and fall of the studio and star system, the changing nature of spectatorship, and the social context of film production and reception. Usually offered every second year.
Paul Morrison

ENG 42a Blackness and Horror
[ deis-us djw hum ]
Examines the tense and transformative place that blackness has within the horror tradition, beginning with the late nineteenth century and moving into the present. In addition to documentaries and critical texts, we will analyze literature, films, and various aspects of material culture that explore the relationship between blackness and horror. Usually offered every third year.
Brandon Callender

ENG 102a Ghosts of Race
[ deis-us djw hum ]
Examines ghost stories and films from across the African Diasporic. Our discussions will consider a range of phenomena, from ancestral visitations and paranormal ethnography to haunted plantation tours. We will do so in order to highlight a variety of pressing themes within Black film and literatures, including trauma, memory, and xenophobia. Usually offered every third year.
Brandon Callender

ENG 110b The Great American Picture Book
[ hum ]
The Great American Picture Book: Contemporary consumers and citizens are constantly bombarded by words and images designed to shape how we think, feel, and act. This course explores the history and theory of American “imagetexts,” multimedia works that combine pictures and words to simulate the real thing, whether the abundance of New World nature, New York’s immigrant neighborhoods, or “vanishing” Native American cultures. We trace the phenomenon from Audubon’s Birds of America to the graphic novel. Usually offered every third year.
Jerome Tharaud

ENG 128a Race and US Cinema
[ deis-us hum ]
Explores the central role film plays in the construction and policing of racialized identities in the US. We will focus primarily, but not exclusively, on the Black/white binarism. The course is structured as a survey. US cinema originates in the white depiction of Blacks or in the white deployment of blackface, and racialized bodies continue to serve as a ubiquitous (if frequently unacknowledged) source of fascination and anxiety in contemporary cinema. We will begin with early “whitewashing” films and D.W. Griffith’s foundational epic, The Birth of a Nation, and conclude with new queer Black cinema and contemporary Black filmmakers. Usually offered third year.
Paul Morrison

ENG 140a American War Novels of the 20th Century
[ hum wi ]
Studies classic war novels of the 20th and 21st century, from Hemingway, Heller, and O'Brien through recent novels by Jin, Benedict and Vollman. Usually offered every third year.
John Burt

ENG 146a Reading the American Revolution
[ dl hum ]
Explores the role of emerging literary forms and media in catalyzing, shaping, and remembering the American Revolution. Covers revolutionary pamphlets, oratory, the constitutional ratification debates, seduction novels, poetry, and plays. Includes authors Foster, Franklin, Jefferson, Paine, Publius, Tyler, and Wheatley. Usually offered every third year.
Jerome Tharaud

ENG 147a Film Noir
[ hum ]
A study of classics of the genre (The Killers, The Maltese Falcon, Touch of Evil) as well as more recent variations (Chinatown, Bladerunner). Readings include source fiction (Hemingway, Hammett) and essays in criticism and theory. Usually offered every third year.
Paul Morrison

ENG 154b Spirit Worlds: Religion and Early American Literature
[ hum ]
Explores how the religious imagination shaped literary expression in colonial America and the early United States, and how early American religion is represented in contemporary culture. Authors may include Ann Bradstreet, Charles Brockden Brown, Emily Dickinson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Arthur Miller, and Nat Turner. Usually offered every third year.
Jerome Tharaud

ENG 166b The Promise of Poetry: Whitman, Dickinson, and Others
[ hum wi ]
Poetry of Whitman, Dickinson, Emerson, and Melville, with representative poems of Whittier, Bryant, Longfellow, Poe, Sigourney, and Tuckerman. Usually offered every third year.
John Burt

ENG 177a Hitchcock's Movies
[ hum ]
A study of thirteen films covering the whole trajectory of Hitchcock's career, as well as interviews and critical responses. Usually offered every second year.
Paul Morrison

ENG 180a The Modern American Short Story
[ hum ]
Close study of American short-fiction masterworks. Students read as writers write, discussing solutions to narrative obstacles, examining the consequences of alternate points of view. Studies words and syntax to understand and articulate how technical decisions have moral and emotional weight. Usually offered every third year.
Staff

ENVS 108b Land Conservation in the United States: History and Practice
[ ss ]
Explores land conservation in the context of broader environmental movements, focusing on the U.S., but extending to international conservation work. It examines and critiques today's techniques and practice of conservation by non-profit land trusts and by government. Usually offered every year.
Frank Lowenstein

FA 56a American Art
[ ca ]
May not be taken for credit by students who took FA 123a in prior years.
A survey of American painting from the colonial period to the early twentieth-century. Usually offered every third year.
Peter Kalb

FA 157a Georgia O'Keeffe: Art and Life
[ ca ]
Explores the art of Georgia O'Keeffe, and her place in American culture and history, within the larger development of American modernism in the culture of New York and the Southwest. Other important painters of the early 20th century, from Marin, Hartley, Dove and Demuth to the photographers Stieglitz, Strand and Steichen, paralleled and fueled her creative work. On-campus resources in Native American arts, along with museum visits, will enlarge our view of O'Keeffe's world. Usually offered every third year.
Nancy Scott

HIST 50b American Transformations: Perspectives on United States History, Origins to the Present
[ dl ss ]
Investigates U.S. history in a wider world, from its origins to the present, starting with the premise that American History itself is a construct of modern empire. Only by investigating the roots of power and resistance can we understand the forces that deeply influence our world as we live it today. Usually offered every second year.
Abigail Cooper

HIST 51a History of the United States: 1607-1865
[ ss ]
An introductory survey of American history to the Civil War. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

HIST 118a The History of American Advertising
[ dl ss ]
Considers American advertising from the eighteenth century to the present to understand the growing role of consumerism in our lives. We will begin by examining how the professionalization of advertising and a rise of a new occupation, the advertising agent, created the national market and assisted in the transition of American society from a rural to urban society in the nineteenth-century U.S. We will follow this discussion by identifying the role of advertising in shaping the normative foundations of American identity in terms of race, class, and gender. Finally, we will use advertising as a starting place for researching the ways popular protests emerge under consumer and corporate capitalism. This course will foster the development of incisive analysis and advanced digital literacy skills by exploring a range of primary sources, engaging in structured forum discussions, and conducting independent research. Usually offered every year.
Nataliia Laas

HIST 152a American History, American Literature
[ ss ]
Readings and discussions on the classical literature of American history, the great books that have shaped our sense of the subject. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

HIST 153b Slavery and the American Civil War: #1619 Project
[ deis-us dl ss ]
A hard look at American slavery from the Middle Passage to Mass Incarceration, plus an investigation into the Civil War through the lens of Black self-emancipation. Uses the tools and insights from #1619 Project. Usually offered every second year.
Abigail Cooper

HIST 158b Social History of the Confederate States of America
[ deis-us dl ss ]
An examination of the brief life of the southern Confederacy, emphasizing regional, racial, class, and gender conflicts within the would-be new nation. Usually offered every third year.
Abigail Cooper

HIST 160a American Legal History I
[ deis-us ss ]
Surveys American legal development from colonial settlement to the Civil War. Major issues include law as an instrument of revolution, capitalism and contract, invention of the police, family law, slavery law, and the Civil War as a constitutional crisis. Usually offered every third year.
Michael Willrich

HIST 160b American Legal History II
[ deis-us ss ]
Survey of American legal development from 1865 to the present. Major topics include constitutionalism and racial inequality, the legal response to industrialization, progressivism and the transformation of liberalism, the rise of the administrative state, and rights-based movements for social justice. Usually offered every year.
Michael Willrich

HIST 164a Recent American History since 1945
[ ss ]
American politics, economics, and culture underwent profound transformations in the late twentieth century. Examines the period's turmoil, looking especially at origins and legacies. Readings include novels, memoirs, key political and social documents, and film and music excerpts. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

HIST 164b The American Century: The U.S. and the World, 1945 to the Present
[ ss wi ]
America's global role expanded dramatically in the aftermath of World War II. Explores key aspects of that new role, from the militarization of conflict with the Soviets to activities in the Third World. Usually offered every third year.
Staff

HIST 166b The United States in World War II
[ ss ]
Focuses on the American experience in World War II. From the 1920s to the early 1940s, totalitarian regimes were widely believed to be stronger than open societies. The outcome of World War II demonstrated the opposite. By combining the methods of the old military and political history with the new social, cultural, and economic history, examines history as a structured sequence of contingencies, in which people made choices and choices made a difference. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

HIST 174a U.S. Relations with Latin America and the Caribbean
[ nw ss wi ]
Explores United States economic, political, and cultural relations with the major Caribbean nations in the context of U.S. relations with Latin American nations. Topics include interventions, cultural understandings and misunderstandings, migration, and transnationalism. Usually offered every third year.
Staff

HIST 195a American Political Thought: From the Revolution to the Civil War
[ ss ]
Antebellum America as seen in the writings of Paine, Jefferson, Adams, the Federalists and Antifederalists, the Federalists and Republicans, the Whigs and the Jacksonians, the advocates and opponents of slavery, and the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

HIST 196a American Political Thought: From the 1950s to the Present
[ ss ]
Covers the New Left of the 1960s, its rejection of the outlook of the 1950s, the efforts of liberals to save the New Left agenda in the New Politics of the 1970s, and the reaction against the New Left in the neoconservative movement. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

HS 104b American Health Care
[ ss ]
Examines and critically analyzes the United States healthcare system, emphasizing the major trends and issues that have led to the current sense of "crisis." In addition to providing a historical perspective, this course will establish a context for analyzing the current, varied approaches to health care reform. Usually offered every year.
Stuart Altman

HS 110a Wealth and Poverty
[ ss ]
Examines why the gap between richer and poorer citizens appears to be widening in the United States and elsewhere, what could be done to reverse this trend, and how the widening disparity affects major issues of public policy. Usually offered every year.
Tom Shapiro

JOUR 45a Sports Writing
[ ss wi ]
Applies skills in research, interviewing, and direct observation to write game stories, features, and opinion pieces about sports. Students learn to also see and write about sports in the broader context of business, political and social issues. Guest lectures from professionals in the field will also address the class. Usually offered every second year.
Peter May

JOUR 104a Political Packaging in America
[ ss ]
Examines the history of political marketing, image making in presidential campaigns, the relationship between news and ads, and the growth of public-policy advertising by special-interest groups to influence legislation. Usually offered every second year.
Eileen McNamara

JOUR 107b Media and Public Policy
[ ss wi ]
Examines the intersection of the media and politics, the ways in which each influences the other, and the consequences of that intersection for a democracy. Through analytic texts, handouts, and contemporaneous newspaper and magazine articles, explores the relationship between policy decisions and public discourse. Usually offered every year.
Eileen McNamara

JOUR 109b Reinventing Journalism for the 21st Century
[ ss wi ]
Technology has transformed journalism into a genuinely multimedia enterprise. This fast-paced course examines innovation at work, from digital storytelling to data visualization, at both start-up and legacy media outlets. It also explores the political, sociological, legal and ethical issues raised by these new technologies and the impact of business pressures on journalism’s watchdog role in our democracy. Usually offered every year.
Neil Swidey

JOUR 110b Ethics in Journalism
[ ss wi ]
Should reporters ever misrepresent themselves? Are there pictures that newspapers should not publish? Is it ever acceptable to break the law in pursuit of a story? Examines the media's ethics during an age dominated by scandal and sensationalism. May be combined with an experiential learning practicum (EL 94a). Usually offered every year.
Eileen McNamara

JOUR 112b Literary Journalism: The Art of Feature Writing
[ ss wi ]
Introduces students to significant works of literary journalism. Helps develop the students' own voices by honing and improving students' own work and by critiquing the work of professionals and colleagues. Guest lectures from professionals in the field will also address the class. Usually offered every second year.
Peter May

JOUR 114b Arts Journalism, Pop Culture, and Digital Innovation
[ ss wi ]
How do journalists cover the arts in a world of ever-expanding online options, and where artists are increasingly telling their own stories through social media? This course explores the evolution of arts and entertainment coverage, from its earliest days to its current digital incarnation. Students will develop skills using new tools and innovative approaches to deliver meaningful pop culture coverage and cultural criticism. Usually offered every second year.
Josh Wolk

JOUR 120a The Culture of Journalism
[ ss ]
Examines the social, cultural, political and economic influences on the practice of journalism. In particular, the course will explore the generational debates around identity, advocacy, and digital disruption that newsrooms around the country are grappling with today, providing the background and concepts for a critical analysis of the contemporary American press. Counts toward History/Culture requirement for Journalism minor. Usually offered every second year.
Ann Silvio

JOUR 137b Journalism in Twentieth-Century America
[ ss ]
May not be taken for credit by students who took AMST 137b in prior years.
Examines what journalists have done, how their enterprise has in fact conformed with their ideals, and what some of the consequences have been for the republic historically. Usually offered every year.
Eileen McNamara

LGLS 10a Introduction to Law
[ oc ss ]
Surveys the nature, process, and institutions of law: the reasoning of lawyers and judges, the interplay of cases and policies, the impact of history and culture, and the ideals of justice and responsibility in a global context. Usually offered every fall.
Daniel Breen

LGLS 114a American Health Care: Law and Policy
[ ss ]
Closed to first-year students.
Focuses on individual rights, highlights how our laws and policies affect American health care. Traces the evolution of the doctor-patient relationship; explores access issues, including whether health care is or should be a fundamental right; assesses the quality of care and the impact of malpractice; and examines the cost of having (or not having) adequate health insurance. Concludes with options and prospects for meaningful reform. Usually offered every year.
Sarah Curi

LGLS 114aj American Health Care: Reform
[ ss ]
Nine years after the historic passage of the ACA, the United States and our health care system are at a crossroads. While the ACA seems to have weathered most of the significant implementation challenges, even its most ardent supporters acknowledge that the law provides only a partial fix for our nation's health care system. While access should improve appreciably, particularly for those who are currently uninsured, many will still remain without access to needed care. Moreover, among advanced nations our costs are the highest by far and the quality of our care is no better than that found in these less costly nations. We will explore the ACA, the events leading up to its passage, the policies the law was designed to further, its impacts so far--and the potential repeal and replace efforts. Offered as part of the JBS program.
Alice Noble

LGLS 116b Civil Rights and Civil Liberties: Constitutional Debates
[ ss ]
May not be taken for credit by students who successfully completed POL 116b or LGLS/POL 116b previously.
The history and politics of civil liberties and civil rights in the United States, with emphasis on the period from World War I to the present. Emphasis on freedom of speech, religion, abortion, privacy, racial discrimination, and affirmative action. Readings from Supreme Court cases and influential works by historians and political philosophers. Usually offered every year.
Daniel Breen

LGLS 132b Environmental Law and Policy
[ oc ss wi ]
Provides students with an understanding of complex environmental issues from a policy perspective. We begin by considering the broad origins of environmentalism in the U.S and then focus on federal and some state and international treaties and policies. We’ll survey major environmental laws, environmental justice, risk and recent cross-cutting issues. Finally, we’ll discuss current environmental issues ripped from the headlines, like fracking, lead in drinking water as in Flint, Michigan, and the Paris Climate Change Agreement. Usually offered every third year.
Staff

LGLS 138b Science on Trial
[ qr ss ]
Surveys the procedures and analytic methods by which scientific data enter into litigation and regulation/policy making. Introduces basic tools of risk analysis and legal rules of evidence. Case studies of tobacco litigation and regulation; use of DNA and other forensic evidence in the criminal justice system; the Woburn ground-water contamination case; and other topics to be selected, such as genetics in the courtroom, court-ordered Cesarean sections, polygraph testing, alternative medicine, and genetically modified foods. Usually offered every second year.
Daniel Breen

LGLS 140b Investigating Justice
[ ss ]
Examines methods used by journalists and other investigators in addressing injustices within criminal and civil legal systems. Problems include wrongful convictions, civil rights, privacy protection, and ethical conflicts. Research methods and reporting techniques enhance skills in interviewing, writing, and oral presentation. Usually offered every second year.
Rosalind Kabrhel

LGLS 141b Juvenile Justice: From Cradle to Custody
[ deis-us djw ss ]
After an overview of the basics of juvenile justice in the United States, this course examines the realities and remedies for the school-to-prison pipeline analyzing this pattern from the perspectives of law, society, and economics, tracing the child's experience along that path, and exploring creative public solutions. Usually offered every second year.
Rosalind Kabrhel

MUS 32b Elements of Jazz
[ ca ]
Open to music majors and non-majors.
Examines the development of Jazz styles from the origins of Jazz in the late 1800’s through today's Jazz masters. Early Jazz, Swing, Bebop, Cool, the year 1959, and Avant Garde are some of the styles we will be examining through recordings, videos, and in-class performances by local jazz musicians. The emphasis will be on learning how to listen to the various layers of the music and recognize specific stylistic techniques. Usually offered every third year.
Bob Nieske

NEJS 158a Divided Minds: Jewish Intellectuals in America
[ hum ]
Jewish intellectuals in the United States have exerted tremendous influence on the changing landscape of American culture and society over the last century. Explores the political, cultural, and religious contours of this diverse and controversial group. Usually offered every third year.
Eugene Sheppard

NEJS 161b American Jewish Family Matters
[ hum ]
Examines the evolution of the American Jewish family from the colonial period to the present from historical, sociological and cultural perspectives. We will explore how the definition of family; the rituals and performance of family life; and the challenges that families negotiate have changed in response to cultural forces. We will also utilize the lenses of ethnicity, class, gender and sexuality to analyze the representations of the Jewish family in American popular culture, including literature, film and television. Usually offered every third year.
Jonathan Krasner

NEJS 162a American Judaism
[ hum ss wi ]
American Judaism from the earliest settlement to the present, with particular emphasis on the various streams of American Judaism. Judaism's place in American religion and comparisons to Judaism in other countries. Usually offered every year.
Jonathan Sarna

NEJS 162b It Couldn't Happen Here: American Antisemitism in Historical Perspective
[ hum ]
A close examination of three American anti-Semitic episodes: U.S. Grant's expulsion of the Jews during the Civil War, the Leo Frank case, and the publication of Henry Ford's The International Jew. What do these episodes teach us about anti-semitic prejudice, about Jews, and about America as a whole? Usually offered every second year.
Jonathan Sarna

NEJS 164a Judaism Confronts America
[ hum wi ]
Examines, through a close reading of selected primary sources, central issues and tensions in American Jewish life, paying attention to their historical background and to issues of Jewish law. Usually offered every second year.
Jonathan Sarna

NEJS 164b The Sociology of the American Jewish Community
[ hum ss ]
Open to all students.
A survey exploring transformations in modern American Jewish societies, including American Jewish families, organizations, and behavior patterns in the second half of the twentieth century. Draws on social science texts, statistical studies, and qualitative research; also makes use of a broad spectrum of source materials, examining evidence from journalism, fiction, film, and other cultural artifacts. Usually offered every year.
Staff

NEJS 181a Jews on Screen: From "Cohen's Fire Sale" to the Coen Brothers
[ hum ]
Open to all students.
Survey course focusing on moving images of Jews and Jewish life in fiction and factual films. Includes early Russian and American silents, home movies of European Jews, Yiddish feature films, Israeli cinema, independent films, and Hollywood classics. Usually offered every second year.
Sharon Rivo

POL 14b Introduction to American Government
[ ss ]
Open to first-year students.
Analysis of American political institutions: Congress, the presidency, Supreme Court, bureaucracy, political parties, pressure groups, and problems of governmental decision making in relation to specific areas of public policy. Usually offered every semester.
Jill Greenlee or Daniel Kryder or Amber Spry

POL 101a Political Parties and Interest Groups
[ ss ]
Role and organization of political parties, interest groups, and public opinion in the American political system. Emphasis on historical development and current political behavior in the United States in relation to American democratic theory. Comparison with other countries to illuminate U.S. practice. Usually offered every second year.
Zachary Albert

POL 105a Elections in America
[ ss ]
Examines modern campaigns and elections to the United States presidency and Congress. Topics include the influence of partisanship, policy differences, and candidate images on the vote; the impact of money on campaigns; the role of the mass media; and the differences among presidential, Senate, and House elections. Usually offered every third year.
Zachary Albert

POL 108a Seminar: The Police and Social Movements in American Politics
[ deis-us ss wi ]
Analyses American mass political movements, their interaction with police, and their influences on American politics. Topics include the relationship between social movements and various political institutions. Explore various theories with case studies of specific political movements. Usually offered every third year.
Daniel Kryder

POL 111a The American Congress
[ oc ss ]
The structure and behavior of the Congress. Emphasis on the way member incentives for reelection, power on Capitol Hill, and good public policy shape Congress. Usually offered every second year.
Jill Greenlee

POL 116b Civil Liberties in America
[ deis-us ss ]
May not be taken for credit by students who successfully completed LGLS 116b or LGLS/POL 116b previously.
The history and politics of civil liberties and civil rights in the United States, with emphasis on the period from World War I to the present. Emphasis on freedom of speech, religion, abortion, privacy, racial discrimination, and affirmative action. Readings from Supreme Court cases and influential works by historians and political philosophers. Usually offered every year.
Jeffrey Lenowitz

POL 120b Seminar: The Politics of Policymaking
[ ss ]
Examines the connection between politics and policymaking to identify the political determinants of public policy since the 1970’s. By paying close attention to what policy makers say about what they are doing, the course connects the world of ideas to the world of actions. The course examines concrete cases from specific time periods across a wide range of policy areas such as health care, tax policy, Social Security, education reform, immigration, tort reform,and deregulation. Usually offered every year.
Zachary Albert

POL 168b American Foreign Policy
[ ss ]
Overview of America's foreign policy since 1945. Topics include the Cold War era, the economic competitiveness of the United States, the role of the United States in selected world regions, the role of human rights in U.S. foreign policy, the U.S. participation in the United Nations, post-Cold War foreign policy, and the making and implementing of foreign policy. Usually offered every year.
Staff

POL/WGS 125a Gender in American Politics
[ deis-us ss ]
May not be taken for credit by students who took POL 125a in prior years.
Addresses three major dimensions of women's political participation: social reform and women-identified issues; women's organizations and institutions; and women politicians, electoral politics, and party identification. Covers historical context and contemporary developments in women's political activity. Usually offered every second year.
Jill Greenlee

SOC 122a The Sociology of American Immigration
[ ss ]
Most of us descend from immigrants. Focusing on the United States but in a global perspective, we address the following questions: Why do people migrate? How does this affect immigrants' occupations, gendered households, rights, identities, youth, and race relations with other groups? Usually offered every second year.
Kristen Lucken

THA 66a The American Drama since 1945
[ ca ]
Examines the major plays and playwrights representing styles from social realism to avant-garde performance groups and the theater of images. Usually offered every second year.
Arthur Holmberg

THA 123a American Musical Theater
[ ca ]
Analyzes American musicals in their historical contexts: students learn how to analyze the structure and score of musicals, and develop a vocabulary for examining the visual dimensions of productions. Attention will be given to production histories. Usually offered every year.
Ryan McKittrick

THA 155a Icons of Masculinity: Media Images of Men
[ ca ]
Using icons from movies, fiction, theater, and television who represent manhood, this course explores how American men have defined and performed their masculinity. Various archetypes, including the cowboy, the gangster, the rogue cop, the athlete, the buddy, the lover, and Woody Allen are examined. Usually offered every second year.
Arthur Holmberg

THA 165b Tough Guys and Femmes Fatales: Gender Trouble in Noir and Neo-Noir
[ ca ]
Looking at gender anxiety in noir and neo-noir, this course explores how the genre has evolved and what this evolution reveals about the ongoing negotiations of masculinity, femininity, and power. Attention paid to how actors embody and perform masculinity. Usually offered every second year.
Arthur Holmberg