Course Listings

Below are the descriptions for current and upcoming undergraduate and graduate courses in American Studies and U.S. Latina/o Studies. More information is available at Testudo, including available seats for each class.

Sample syllabi can be accessed by clicking on the course codes. Please note that many are sample syllabi and are likely to differ from actual syllabi used in current courses. Be careful to note the semester listed, though even current syllabi are still subject to change before the semester begins.

Fall 2013

Fall 2013 AMST Courses

AMST101 Introduction to American Studies

CORE Humanities (HO) Course. CORE Diversity (D) Course.

GenEd: Distributive Studies – Humanities; Diversity – Understanding Plural Societies.

Credit will be granted for only one of the following: AMST101 or AMST201. Formerly AMST201. Introduces students to the interdisciplinary field of American Studies by examining concepts such as culture, identity, cultural practices, and globalization, as well as theories underlying these concepts. Engages key themes, especially constructions of difference and identity, cultures of everyday life, and America and the world.

AMST202 Cultures of Everyday Life in America

CORE Social or Political History (SH) Course

GenEd: Distributive Studies – History and Social Sciences.

Examine the structures and patterns of everyday life in the U.S., utilizing methods such as ethnography, oral history, survey research, and textual, visual, and material cultural analysis.

AMST203 Popular Culture in America

An introduction to American popular culture, its historical development, and its role as a reflection of and influence on our culture and society.

AMST205 Material Aspects of American Life

AMST260 American Culture in the Information Age

What does it mean to live in an “information age?” We live in a world where data bombards us at every turn; quite literally, the ability to process information has become a defining characteristic of humanity. Access to information (or the lack thereof) has become one of the foundational aspects of contemporary American culture, redefining our relationship to space (outer, inner, and local), sexuality, community, and the body. This course asks the student to consider not only what they know, but how they know it – how is knowledge created when knowledge is everywhere? How we know what we know reflects our intersectional identities How does access to this wealth of information, these new ways of knowing shaping our lives and our understandings of self?

AMST328J Perspectives on Identity and Culture; Filipino American History and Biography

Also offered ad AAST398D. Credit will be granted for one of the following: AAST398D or AMST328J. Focus is placed on Filipino American experiences with an emphasis on identity, community building and organizing to influence public policy We will cover pertinent events from the US and Philippine history in order to understand the impact of colonialism, migration, immigration and assimilation on Filipino Americans.

AMST328L Perspectives on Identity and Culture: From Broadway to Breakbeats – Asian American Music

Also offered as AAST398G. While the recent popularity of PSY makes it seem like Asians are newcomers to the U.S. music scene, focus will be placed on the rich history of Asian Pacific American musicians across the 20th and 21st centuries. From the importation and transformation of Japanese taiko and Punjabi bhangra, to the activist-minded folk performances of A Grain of Sand, to the rise of the YouTube generation, we will examine the usefulness of Asian American music as a form of expression. Pairing academic readings with relevant examples, we will explore how Asian Americans make music and what their cultural ramifications may be.

AMST328V Perspectives on Identity and Culture: Growing Up Asian American: The Asian Immigrant Family and the Second Generation

Also offered as AAST398E. Credit granted for AAST398E or AMST328V. An interdisciplinary course examines the experiences of children of Asian immigrants in the U.S., focusing on intergenerational dynamics in the Asian immigrant family, their intersections with race, gender, class, sexuality, and religion, and how these shape second-generation Asian American life. Topics include identity and personhood, the model minority myth and education, work and leisure, language and communication, filiality and disownment, mental health, and suicide.

AMST340 Introduction to History, Theories and Methods in American Studies

Prerequisite: AMST201; and 2 courses in AMST. Restriction: Must be in American Studies program; and Sophomore standing or higher. Introduction to the process of interdisciplinary research, including research literatures, questions, first-hand sources and library and analytic methods in American Studies. Each student will craft a prospectus for original research.

AMST386 Experiential Learning

Prerequisite: permission of department. Junior standing. Faculty mentored independent learning. Online interaction using Blackboard required.

AMST388 Honors Thesis

Individual Instruction Course

AMST398 Independent Studies

Individual Instruction Course

AMST418A Cultural Themes in America: African-American Visual and Material Culture

Prerequisite: At least three credits of prior coursework in AMST.

Moving from the shores of Africa to the birth of African American culture to the study of African diasporic cultural influences, this class will explore the active role of visual and material culture in the shaping and defining of identity. Our goal is to develop visual literacy as we discover the historical uses of the arts in service of the struggles for freedom and equality. Visual art, material culture, politics, popular culture, music, literature, philosophy, theater, film, poetry, and anthropology will shape the inquiry through which we examine both the diasporic dimensions of African American aesthetics and its economic exploitation in the service of global capitalism. Understanding the multi-layered impact of African American history and cultural influences on a personal, societal, and global scale will be the mission of this class.

AMST418D Cultural Themes in America: Growing Up American

Prerequisite: At least three credits of prior coursework in AMST.

AMST418D examines central issues connected with the processes of socialization in the United States, drawing on works of fiction and autobiography as well as historical and sociological scholarship.

AMST418H Cultural Themes in America: Cultural Themes in America-Honors

Individual Instruction Course

AMST418R Cultural Themes in America: Identity in American Culture

Prerequisite: At least three credits of prior coursework in AMST.

Investigates the social and cultural factors shaping the creation, maintenance, and modification of identity, drawing on works of fiction as well as sociological and historical scholarship.

AMST429D Perspectives on Popular Culture: Children and the Media

Prerequisite: At least three credits of prior coursework in AMST.

This course includes critical analysis of children’s media from television to cyberspace (SpongeBob, Batman, Disney, Glee, Grand Theft Auto, Facebook) discussing not just content, but the message of the medium (McLuhan) with an emphasis on psychology. The class considers the application of child media themes as they reflect society (economics, violence, sex, and development) and act as a bridge to adult issues such as education, work, money, relationships, health and technology.

Course will include lectures, video, readings (including hand-outs) and possible special guests.

By the end of this course, students would be media-literate and understand the profound influence technology and media exert not only on children but themselves. Critical thinking about one’s own life will be the most important consequence of taking this course.

AMST429J Perspectives on Popular Culture: Social Activism and Popular Culture

This is a blended learning course covering topics related to social activism and popular culture both online and in the classroom. It is the first semester of the College of Arts and Humanities Social Innovation Scholars program taken in the spring, in which they will learn about social innovation and the public discourse and be paired with a mentor from a non-profit organization. There is also a summer internship and a fall course in which they will implement their innovation. Participation is by application and permission only. To enroll, students must contact the ARHU advising office in 1120 Francis Scott Key, x5-2108. AMST majors are eligible for ARHU439J only.

AMST450 Seminar in American Studies

Prerequisite: AMST201 and two additional AMST courses. Sophomore standing. For AMST majors only. Introduction to the process of interdisciplinary research, including research literatures, questions, first-hand sources and library and analytic methods in American Studies. Each student will craft a prospectus for original research.

AMST498B Special Topics in American Studies: Fashion and Consumer Culture in the U.S.

Prerequisite: At least three credits of prior coursework in AMST.

This seminar will introduce major theoretical works in the study of consumer behavior, from Veblen’s “Theory of the Leisure Class” to emerging fashion theory. Along the way, we will examine a variety of phenomena through these theoretical lenses. Possible topics include religion and consumption, children as consumers, media representations of the fashion industry, consumer activism, dress codes, class and consumption and how individuals use clothing to express identities and group membership. Resources will include artifacts from the University of Maryland Historic Costume and Textile Collection. All students will develop a research project resulting in a final paper; graduate students will also lead one class session on a topic of their choice.

AMST498D Special Topics in American Studies: Black Masculinities

Prerequisite: At least three credits of prior coursework in AMST.

This course introduces students to black masculinities within America. Through an exploration of critical writings, literature, films, and performances from slavery to the present, we will gain a broad, but valuable insight into the complicated relationship between black male identity and American manhood. Our course focuses on understanding black masculinity as lived and represented. As we encounter various voices and versions of the black masculine, we will be using both our critical writing and reading skills to further our understanding of black male performances of gender.

AMST498G Latinas/os on the Silver Screen

Prerequisite: At least three credits of prior coursework in AMST. Restriction: Junior standing or higher. Repeatable to 9 credits if content differs.

Also offered as USLT498A.

Since the early days of moving images, the cinema has held a uniquely prominent and influential position in U.S. culture. In pursuit of commercial reward, Hollywood studios and independent filmmakers create in their cinema not only (sometimes not even!) entertainment, but also ideas about politics and culture, which disseminate from the “silver screen” to mass audiences in the Americas and across the globe. Embedded in a culture in which race was and is always an issue, the U.S. film industry remains a crucial arena in which representations of ethnoracial identity and its relationship to national identity are produced, interpreted, debated, and reconceived. Beginning with the era of silent film and concluding with contemporary films, this course explores the ambiguous and shifting history of U.S. Latinas/os both behind and in front of the camera. Combining media theory and film history, we will consider the film industry’s relationship to Latinidad, examining issues such as the shift from silent film to sound, the impact made on Latino/a images by the Second World War and the “good neighbor” era, and Latinas/os in the Cold War Red Scare. In these periods, representational power remained chiefly in the hands of white Hollywood producers, and Latinos/as (most often Mexican Americans) were subject to a series of demeaning representational strategies. As we move into the second half of the course, we will turn attention to self-representation by Latina/o filmmakers and empathetic images created by whites in and after the 1970s. How have Latinas/os been depicted in Hollywood history? How have inter-American foreign relations shaped the US Latino/a image? How have Latina/o filmmakers confronted issues such as racism and sexism in the United States? Students will explore these issues throughout the semester, and in doing so gain insight into both Latina/o racial formations and the practice of film criticism.

AMST498J Special Topics in American Studies: Asian American Politics

Prerequisite: At least three credits of prior coursework in AMST.

Also offered as AAST498T. Credit granted for AAST498T or AMST498J.

Students will gain a greater understanging of 1)the role of Asian Americans in US politics, 2) the political attitudes and behaviors of Asian Americans and 3) help students to conduct research on Asian American politics. Though the class will concentrate on Asian Americans, issues related to Asian American politics will be examined within the larger context of Americas multicultural political landscape.

AMST498M Latinas/os and U.S. Popular Culture

Also offered as USLT498B.

Prerequisite: At least three credits of prior coursework in AMST.

Restriction: Junior standing or higher. Repeatable to 9 credits if content differs.

Using multiple theoretical and historical lenses, this course examines past and present issues surrounding Latinas/os and popular culture in the United States and beyond. A diverse ethnoracial constituency with a long history in the United States, Latinas/os also represent the fastest growing demographic in contemporary U.S. American society. This course is timely, then, in attempting to historicize and explore the political and ideological ramifications of cultural products both by and about U.S. Latinas/os. Using theories drawn from cultural studies, visual culture studies, critical race theory, borderlands theory, and feminism, this class will examine multiple texts from a variety of timeframes. As we do so, we will explore such issues as representational exclusion and inclusion from the “imagined community” of U.S. identity, transnational identifications, ethnoracial stereotyping and resistance to such, and intersections of Latina/o identities with aspects of class, race, sexuality, and gender. This will entail investigations of diverse cultural arenas and media, among them Hollywood cinema, television, popular music, and theatrical performance.

AMST498P Special Topics in American Studies: Community, Nation, and the American Pacific: Asian/Pacific Islander (Americans) in the U.S. Overseas Empire

Prerequisite: At least three credits of prior coursework in AMST.

Also offered as AAST498Q.Credit will be granted for only of the following: AAST498Q or AMST498P.

Examine the meanings of community, nation, and belonging for native Hawaiians and Asian ethnic groups living in Hawaii, from the nineteenth century to the present. Interrogate the relationship between indigenous and settler communities as a central debate within Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies.

AMST498Q Special Topics in American Studies: Advanced Material Culture

Prerequisite: At least three credits of prior coursework in AMST.

Generally speaking, the phrase “material culture” refers to the “things” of our daily lives. This can mean things we purchase, create, or otherwise come by. Our material lives range from our bodies to the clothes we wear, the specific objects we use, the food we eat, and the places we go. In essence it is the “stuff’ of our daily lives–products of culture. Artifacts denote a lot about our being. For example, certain objects can suggest our social and class status, the power relations in which we engage, and perhaps most importantly, a place, time, and people that interacted with the object. We both create material culture and are simultaneously shaped by it. The ways in which our lives interact with and are affected by objects is the subject of this course. This course focuses on the consumptive decisions we make and the ways we manage desire and power through the most seemingly commonplace material acquisitions.

AMST498R Special Topics in American Studies: Transnational American Studies

Prerequisite: At least three credits of prior coursework in AMST.

AMST601 Introductory Theories and History in American Studies

Not open to Graduate Advanced Special Students. Explores the formative literature, theories, research approaches, and history of American Studies.

AMST601 is the initial course of a two-course sequence introducing graduate students to some of the literature — from the field, the discipline, and beyond — that has shaped and reshaped Americans’ Studies over time. In this course, we focus on the theories and paradigms, or conceptual frameworks, evident in scholarly work through the mid-1990s. By concentrating on the historiography of Americans’ Studies and on the theoretical directions and assumptions of scholars, this course should help you to understand the making of theories in American Studies and, of course, the making of American Studies before the turn of the century. Reading and thinking about this “early” scholarship should also prepare you for the contemporary theories and literature that are the focus of AMST 603 (Current Approaches to American Studies).

AMST628A Seminar in American Studies: Fashion and Consumer Culture in the United States

AMST628B Seminar in American Studies: Gender & Work in the Underground Economy

AMST629M Seminar in American Studies: Cultural Politics of Neoliberalism

AMST698 Directed Readings in American Studies

Individual Instruction Course

AMST798 Non-Thesis Research

Individual Instruction Course

AMST799 Master’s Thesis Research

Individual Instruction Course

AMST856 Museum Research Seminar

Prerequisite: AMST655. Also offered as: HIST810 and ANTH856. Credit only granted for: AMST638D, AMST856, HIST810, or HIST819D. Formerly: AMST638D.

A research seminar focusing on the practice and presentation of cultura and historical scholarship in museums and historical sites. Students will complete an original research project on the challenges and opportunities of public exhibition and interpretation of cultural and historical research.

AMST857 Museum Scholarship Practicum

Prerequisite: AMST856; and Permission of Museum Scholarship Program required. Also offered as: HIST811. Credit only granted for: AMST857 or HIST811.

Students devise and carry out a research program using the collections at the Smithsonian Institution or some other cooperating museum, working under joint supervision of a museum professional and a university faculty member.

AMST878 American Studies Pedagogy Mentoring

Prerequisite: Permission of ARHU-American Studies department; and Must be a current AMST teaching assistant. Repeatable to 12 credits.

AMST898 Pre-Candidacy Research

Individual Instruction Course

AMST899 Doctoral Dissertation Research

Individual Instruction Course

Fall 2013 USLT Courses

USLT201 US Latina/o Studies I: An Historical Overview to the 1960s

CORE Social or Political History (SH) Course. CORE Diversity (D) Course.
Interdisciplinary course on focusing on demographics, terminology, and social contructs of race, class, ethnicity, indigeneity, gender, and sexuality associated with the historical and political roots of U.S. Latinidades. Examines the formation, evolution, and adaptation of U.S. Latina/o communities as critical field of inquiry.

USLT498A Latinas/os on the Silver Screen

Prerequisite: USLT202 or USLT201. Restriction: Junior standing or higher. Repeatable to 9 credits if content differs.

Also offered as AMST498G.

USLT498B Latinas/os and U.S. Popular Culture

Also offered as AMST498M.

Prerequisite: USLT202 or USLT201. Restriction: Junior standing or higher. Repeatable to 9 credits if content differs.

Summer 2013

Summer 2013 AMST Courses

AMST101 Introduction to American Studies

0201 TuWTh 9-11:15am, Session 2 D. Bost

CORE Humanities (HO) Course. CORE Diversity (D) Course.

GenEd: Distributive Studies – Humanities; Diversity – Understanding Plural Societies.

AMST202 Cultures of Everyday Life in America

WB21 Online, Session 2 J. Chaplin

CORE Social or Political History (SH) Course

GenEd: Distributive Studies – History and Social Sciences.

Examine the structures and patterns of everyday life in the U.S., utilizing methods such as ethnography, oral history, survey research, and textual, visual, and material cultural analysis.

AMST203 Popular Culture in America

WB11 Online, Session 1 S. Stevenson

CORE Humanities (HO) Course.

GenEd: Diversity – Understanding Plural Societies.

An introduction to American popular culture, its historical development, and its role as a reflection of and influence on our culture and society.

AMST298O Digital Media and Cultural Politics in a Global World

WB21 Online, Session 2 D. Greene

Interested in the politics of the internet? Or just want to learn more about how digital media connect cultures across the globe? Then check out AMST 298O: Digital Media and Cultural Politics in a Global World. This Summer Session II course taught by Dan Greene will review massive cultural movements spread online and across borders, whether as political projects (the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street) or pop culture sensations (Gangnam Style, World of Warcraft). We’ll learn about the small corners of the Web where sexual subcultures make a home, and ask fundamental questions about what the internet is, who shapes it and how, and why a particularly precarious generation takes to the Web to make a space of their own. The course will take place online and students will use that space to its full advantage, exploring the politics of globalization as they play out in blogs, YouTube, and social networking sites, and designing research projects that focus on a border-crossing internet community of their choice. Questions about the course? Contact Dan Greene at dgreene1@umd.edu for more info.

AMST328B Internet and Social Media Cultures: Exploring Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality

WB11 Online, Session 1 P. Saiedi

So much of our everyday lives are played out in online spaces and through mobile phones. Theorists of new media call this constant and everyday use of the internet a state of ubiquitous computing or pervasive computing. This course will be an examination of the overlapping dimensions of difference and identity in internet and social media cultures focusing on sites such as YouTube videos, internet communities, mobile apps, and the mobile internet. We will focus on sites that are often labeled as “virtual” and “digital” to examine how, why, and to what end individuals and communities (mis)use them in their everyday lives; keeping in mind that both the virtual and the digital are always connected to and must be studied through the embodied lenses of race, class, gender, and sexuality. This course frames internet and social media cultures, whether conceived of as peoples’ systems of shared meanings, attitudes, and values or as the texts and practices of everyday life, as vital to unpacking and understanding how power, inequality, and resistance work in relation to what we watch, download, and stream everyday. Contemporary forms of internet and social media cultures can reveal much about social and cultural tensions in and across time. In other words people shape and negotiate cultural messages and values, economic activity, institutions, and the social relationships that underlay local, national, and international communities through the ways they use, play, ignore, and create in online spaces. In this way the internet and social media cultures can always be thought of as sites of cultural production and meaning making.

AMST328R From Ricky Ricardo to Jennifer Lopez: Exploring Latina/o Gender and Sexuality in Popular Culture

WB11 Online, Session 1 C. Perez

Also offered as USLT498L.

The objective of this course is to examine how race/ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class are constructed by and in relation to Latinas/os in U.S. popular culture. To that end, we will read and apply theory to the work of musicians like Selena, Shakira, and Ricky Martin. We will consider the depictions of Latinas/os in film by watching the likes of Desi Arnaz, Edward James Olmos, Jennifer Lopez, and Lupe Ontiveros. We will also read fiction by and about Latina/o authors, including Junot Diaz’ latest novel, This is How You Lose Her. In addition to offering a range of people and texts that we will analyze as a class, the course is also set up to allow students to chose a research question related to the course that they find interesting in order to focus on for their final paper

AMST328T Comparative Asian American/Latino Popular Cultures

WB21 Online, Session 2 D. Ishii

This class will investigate U.S. popular culture with a specific focus on Asian American and U.S. Latina/o communities and representations in popular cultural forms. Though the terms cannot express the range of ethnic identities and national cultures that get collected under “Asian American” and “U.S. Latina/o” and Asian Pacific American communities, this class begins with the shared experiences of Asian Americans and U.S. Latinas/os both in terms of 1) migration and displacement based on global circumstances, and 2) being stereotypically understood as new arrivals (forever foreigner) to the U.S. and its system of race relations. Through pairings of scholarly readings and original case studies in Asian American and U.S. Latina/o popular culture productions, such as television, music, sports, food, and fashion, we will examine how these racial categories have served both as terms of marginalization as well as terms of agency. This course will require weekly discussion, weekly quizzes, a short paper, and an original final paper; no previous coursework in AAST, AMST, or USLT required.

AMST386 Experiential Learning

WB21 Online, Session 2 J. Paoletti

AMST398 Independent Studies

Individual Instruction Course

AMST418G Food, Trauma, and Sustainability

WB11 Online, Session 1 P. Williams-Forson

Hurricane Sandy, Hurricane Katrina, migration, immigration, slavery, the Holocaust, domestic violence…

How do we sustain food cultures during times of trauma? Regardless of their cultural background, women usually have the primary responsibilities of caring for children and of procuring, if not also preparing, food. This kind of “women’s work” is seen as an extension of a woman’s way of being or her femininity. At the same time these tasks have often been associated with gender inequality. What happens to these dynamics of food during moments of trauma? How does food become a symbolic marker of identity and belonging during these and other times?

Sustainability tends to be defined as “the capacity for being continued; to endure; renewable.” Mainstream thinking sees environmental studies as the primary discipline for studying sustainability. However, a fourth pillar—culture—allows for more interdisciplinary ways of understanding of sustainability. When we combine discussions of food and sustainability with those of trauma our thinking is further expanded, redefined, and made more complex. This course will take together food, trauma and sustainability to consider, among other things, food resilience, justice, environments, hazards, transformation, and cultural/earth work.

AMST429E Television in American Culture

WB11 Online, Session 1 J. Farman

WB21 Online, Session 2 A. Nelson

Television is the most popular form of leisure time activity and serious public discourse in the United States and American television is the most popular in the world. What are the relationships between the industry, the content and the audiences? Who is watching what and why? What are the various societal results of the continual conversation between the television industry and audiences? Students will learn and try various methods of examining television content and the roles of television in the culture.

AMST698 Directed Readings in American Studies

Individual Instruction Course

Spring 2013

Spring 2013 AMST Courses

AMST101 Introduction to American Studies

0101 MWF 9-9:50am

0102 MWF 10-10:50am

0201 TuTh 11am-12:15pm

0202 TuTh 8:00-9:15am

CORE Humanities (HO) Course. CORE Diversity (D) Course.

GenEd: Distributive Studies – Humanities; Diversity – Understanding Plural Societies.

AMST202 Cultures of Everyday Life in America

0101 TuTh 12:30-1:45pm J. Chaplin

CORE Social or Political History (SH) Course

GenEd: Distributive Studies – History and Social Sciences.

Examine the structures and patterns of everyday life in the U.S., utilizing methods such as ethnography, oral history, survey research, and textual, visual, and material cultural analysis.

AMST204 Film and American Culture Studies

0101 TuTh 2-3:15pm S. Pramschufer

CORE Humanities (HO) Course

Exploration of the American film from a historical perspective, illustrating the motion picture’s role as an institutional phenomenon, as a form of communication, and as a source of cross-cultural study.

AMST207 Contemporary American Cultures

0101 MWF 11-11:50am D. Bost

CORE Behavioral and Social Science (SB) Course. CORE Diversity (D) Course

World views, values, and social systems of contemporary American cultures explored through readings on selected groups such as middle-class suburbanites, old order Amish, and urban tramps.

AMST212 Diversity in American Culture

0101 TuTh 11am-12:15pm

Exploration of the role of diversity in the shaping of American culture. Special emphasis will be placed on the multicultural origins of American popular and material culture, such as foodways and entertainment, and on the experience of “Americanization.”

AMST260 American Culture in the Information Age

0101 TuTh 9:30-10:45am D. Greene

CORE Behavioral and Social Science (SB) Course.

GenEd: Distributive Studies – History and Social Sciences; Signature Courses – I-Series.

Credit only granted for: AMST260 or AMST298I. Formerly: AMST298I. Examines the ways in which content and form of public information interact with the culture, families & individuals.

AMST289A Shifting Sands: Constructing Cultural Mainstreams and Margins in the U.S.

0101 MW 1-1:50pm D. Ishii

F 1-1:50pm Dis

0102 MW 1-1:50pm D. Ishii

M 2-2:50pm Dis

0103 MW 1-1:50pm D. Ishii

W 2-2:50pm Dis

0104 MW 1-1:50pm D. Ishii

F 12-12:50pm Dis

CORE Humanities (HO) Course. CORE Diversity (D) Course.

GenEd: Distributive Studies – History and Social Sciences or Distributive Studies – Humanities; Diversity – Understanding Plural Societies; Signature Courses – I-Series.

Formerly: AMST298B.

On any given issue, where do you locate yourself in terms of cultural mainstreams and margins? Do you favor mainstream media, identify with the 75% of Americans who call themselves middle class, shop in mainstream stores in the mall? Or, do you see yourself “swimming against the tide,” preferring an alternative lifestyle, listening to music that’s “out there,” or living in a neighborhood that almost everyone seems to have forgotten? Are you in a mainstream sometimes and in a margin on other things? How did you get where you are, and why does it matter? In the context of our representative democracy, how do mainstreams and margins relate to majorities and minorities, to economic and political power, to individual and collective identity(ies), to the politics of belonging, and to social policies? This course addresses these and other questions about the construction, relations, and operation of cultural mainstreams and margins via a series of case studies, including hand-held technology, shifting U.S. demographics, the New York City mosque controversy, and consumer surveys. We shall also employ a variety of primary sources, research methodologies, and interdisciplinary scholarship to examine how students themselves are actors in the making and assignment of meaning to cultural mainstreams and margins in the course of everyday life.

AMST298C Introduction to Asian American Studies

0101 TuTh 2-3:15pm J. Park

CORE Behavioral and Social Science (SB) Course. CORE Diversity (D) Course.

Also offered as AAST200.

AMST328N Perspectives on Identity and Culture: Introduction to Native American Cultures of the United States

0101 M 4-6:40pm L. Gordon

Also Offered as ANTH468F.

This interdisciplinary course surveys Native American cultures of the U.S.—and includes a regional case study of their historical and ongoing concerns—with a focus on key elements of sacred worldviews shared by indigenous peoples of the U.S. and beyond. Native American sources, including texts, films, cyberspaces, performances, and gatherings present diverse cultural representations of sacred world views for analysis. Scholarly, creative, political-activist, and visionary/prophetic voices challenge the epistemologies and meaningless/fallen material worldviews of western science, culture studies, and Abrahamic religions. Readings and discussions examine: 1) the historical and contemporary importance to First-Nation peoples of sacred worldviews in their negotiation of cultures, identities, and sovereign rights in the U.S. (and beyond) ; and 2) the reasons for increasing scientific and scholarly interest in these worldviews/knowledge systems within a globalized American context marked by mounting real-world crises.

To gain and demonstrate experiential as well as scholarly knowledge of the differences between western material/fallen worldviews and indigenous sacred worldviews and their implications/consequences for contemporary Native American cultures, identities, and everyday lives. Participants study and practice a communitarian ethical research approach and self-reflexive, participant-observation, field work-based method of person-centered ethnography and ethnographic life history narrative writing.

AMST340 Introduction to History, Theories and Methods in American Studies

0101 TuTh 12:30-1:45pm R.Chester

AMST386 Experiential Learning

0601 TBA J. Paoletti

Prerequisite: permission of department. Junior standing. Faculty mentored independent learning. Online interaction using Blackboard required.

AMST388 Honors Thesis

Individual Instruction Course

AMST398 Independent Studies

Individual Instruction Course

AMST418B Cultural Themes in America: Digital Diversity

0101 TuTh 9:30-10:45am J.Farman

Prerequisite: At least three credit hours of prior coursework in AMST.

This course will explore the cultural impact of digital media on practices of everyday life and issues of identity and difference such as race, class, gender, sexuality, and disability. We will begin by looking at the problem of the “digital divide.” As digital technologies — especially the internet — become more and more essential to our everyday lives, how are communities and nations without access to these technologies impacted? What are some solutions to this growing problem? We will then move on to look at how our individual and collective identities are built and sustained through our interaction with technologies. We will look at how we present ourselves and interact with one another on social networking sites. How do race and gender translate to these online environments? How are race and gender represented in digital media such as videogames? We will also look at how those with various disabilities must contend with media designed with able-bodies in mind. Finally, we will look at how communities utilize technology to remain connected, culminating in a student-created documentary of a particular community in the DC-Baltimore areas. The final project for this course will be a paper that applies the theories studied in this course to your experience interacting with your chosen community.

AMST418D Cultural Themes in America: Growing Up American

SG91 TBA (Web Online) R. Kelly

Restricted to Fall 2011 BMGT-Shady Grove cohort students majoring in Accounting, International Business, Marketing and to Fall 2010 BMGT-Shady Grove cohort students majoring in Management. Other students may request enrollment on a space available basis. UMCP undergraduate BMGT students are not eligible to enroll at Shady Grove.

Human societies, if they are to persist over time, must accomplish two things. They must replace their population, ordinarily (although not necessarily) through biological reproduction. Secondly, adults must transmit their culture—the knowledge and beliefs that structure and give meaning to their way of life, their “social inheritance”—to the younger generation who will be responsible, in their turn, for carrying on that way of life. “Socialization” is the process in and through which cultural transmission is accomplished. AMST418D looks at various issues connected with the process of socialization in the United States, drawing on works of fiction, autobiography, and sociology, as well as court cases, to do so.

AMST418H Cultural Themes in America – Honors

Individual Instruction Course

AMST418L Cultural Themes in America: Asian Religions in American Culture

0101 TuTh 9:30-10:45am J. Caughey

For more than 150 years Taoism, Sufism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Zen have had significant influences on American Society. Using the anthropological model of cultural encounter (what happens when an individual encounters an unfamiliar cultural meaning system), we will explore how various writers, artists, activists, musicians, scientists, health professionals, and other kinds of Americans have found inspiration in these traditions and adapted them to life in the U.S. In addition to studying five basic texts from these traditions, we will use self (or auto-) ethnography to explore our own reactions to these texts as we seek to understand what these spiritual traditions have to say about the problems and possibilities of life in the U.S.

AMST418N Cultural Themes in America: Asian American Public Policy

0101 M 5-7:30pm P. Nash

Also offered as AAST498N. This course is for Juniors or Seniors only. Prerequisite: AAST200/AMST298C or AAST201/HIST221.

AMST432 Literature and American Society

0101 TBA (Web Online) R. Kelly

Prerequisite: Must have completed 1 course in American Literature or 1 course in American History; or 1 course in SOCY; or 1 course in AMST. Examination of the relationship between literature and society: including literature as cultural communication and the institutional framework governing its production, distribution, conservation and evaluation.

AMST432, Literature and American Society, introduces students to a socio-cultural approach to literary works. Taking “literature” to be both a socially-constructed category and a complex institution, we will:

1) investigate the use of literary works as cultural evidence; 2) examine the creation, distribution, interpretation, evaluation, and selective memorialization of literary works in American society from the nineteenth century to the present; and 3) analyze the functions of literary works in larger cultural processes. A key question addressed in the course is the role of literature in the lives of readers.

AMST450 Seminar in American Studies

0101 MW 10-11:15am J. Paoletti

0201 MW 2-3:15pm J. Paoletti

CORE Capstone (CS) Course.

GenEd: Distributive Studies – Scholarship in Practice.

Prerequisite: AMST201 and AMST340; and 1 course in AMST. Restriction: Senior standing; and must be in American Studies program. Developments in theories and methods of American Studies scholarship, with emphasis upon interaction between the humanities and the social sciences in the process of cultural analysis and evaluation.

AMST498E Special Topics in American Studies: Culture and Difference in the Global Economy

0101 MW 2-3:15pm J. Padios

Prerequisite: At least three credit hours of prior coursework in AMST.

Since the late twentieth century, massive transformations in technology, economic regulation, and politics have led to what has been called the “new international division of labor.” Now more than ever before, a single commodity—whether clothing, a car, or even customer service—can be produced, distributed, and purchased by workers and consumers in various parts of the world. With so many different people making up this global assembly line, what roles do culture and social difference—especially but not exclusively race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality—play in the global economy? In this course we will explore the various ways that historians, feminist theorists, social scientists, and political philosophers, among others, have approached this question. While we will focus on global production and consumption within and involving the United States, we will also look at workers in other parts of the world. We will see, for example, how local gender politics shape the work culture of women workers in South China, Barbados, and North America; how religious practice informs modes of resistance to capitalism in Malaysia and Colombia; and how management figures use race and ethnicity to divide labor forces in Central America and indeed all over the world. We will also look closely at modes of transnational consumption, especially tourism. This course will provide students with a solid ground from which to understand the U.S. in the global economy, as well as how to think about cultural practices and forms of difference as constitutive, not just ancillary, to economic life.

AMST498K Special Topics in American Studies: Indigenous Thought in the Americas

0101 TuTh 11am-12:15pm J.Maffie

Prerequisite: At least three credit hours of prior coursework in AMST.

Using historical and contemporary texts authored by native authors, the course examines the views of the indigenous peoples of the Americas (South, Central, and North) on a variety of topics including: not being discovered; racism and genocide against native peoples and cultures; internal colonialism; globalization; the environment; native peoples as mascots; indigenous philosophies and religions; contemporary indigenous resistance movements; and indigenous education. Authors include Vine Deloria, Jr., Rigoberta Menchú, Winona LaDuke, V.F. Cordova, Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, Daniel R. Wildcat, Simon J. Ortiz, Luís Macas, Gregory Cajete, Leslie Marmon Silko, Inés Hernández-Ávila, and N. Scott Momaday.

AMST498M Special Topics in American Studies: Latinas/os and U.S. Popular Culture

0101 TuTh 2-3:15pm R. Chester

Also offered as USLT498B.

Prerequisite: At least three credit hours of prior coursework in AMST

AMST498O Special Topics in American Studies: The Diversifying U.S.: Globalization, Immigrants, Migrants, and Refugees

0101 TuTh 12:30-1:45pm P. Guerrero

Prerequisite statement: At least three credit hours of prior coursework in AMST.

Also offered as USLT498K.

This course critically engages with the ebbs and flows of globalization. While often talked about as a recent phenomenon and one focused on capital, the process has a longer history and its consequences move far beyond the financial sector. In this class we will explore the web of connections, relationships, and consequences of globalization and learn how regions, places, and people are shaped by it and in turn shape it—sometimes in unexpected ways. In order to have a strong foundation of what globalization is and how it’s constituted, we’re going to explore the various ways scholars have defined and theorized the process and its consequences. Although this class has a United States and Latina/o focus, we will also move beyond the U.S. borders and talk about other immigrant and refugee groups that live and work in the same neighborhoods and workplaces in which Latinas/os live and toil.

AMST498V Special Topics in American Studies: Sex and the City

0101 TuTh 2-3:15pm C. Hanhardt

Prerequisite: 3 Credits of prior coursework in AMST.

Also offered as LGBT448C.

AMST498X Special Topics in American Studies: Social and Ethnic Issues in Historic Preservation Practice

0101 Th 7-9:40pm M. Sies

AMST498Z Special Topics in American Studies: Biography as Journalism

0101 Tu 9-11:45am M. Feldstein

AMST603 Current Approaches to American Studies

0101 Tu 4-6:40pm M. Sies

Restriction: Must be in one of the following programs (American Studies (Master’s); American Studies (Doctoral)) or permission of ARHU-American Studies department; and permission of instructor. Builds on AMST601 and explores contemporary literature, theory, and intellectual issues in American Studies.

AMST628O Seminar in American Studies: Performance and Culture

0101 W 4-6:40pm J. McCune

AMST629C Seminar in American Studies: Social and Ethnic Issues in Historic Preservation Practice

0101 Th 7-9:40pm M. Sies

AMST629T Seminar in American Studies: Body, Sexuality, and Society

0101 M 4-6:40pm N. Struna

This course will cover works that drive and are driven by significant questions, both today and in prior years regarding the body and sexuality. In the contexts of cultures, societies, and individual people, what are bodies? How are they framed, constructed, deployed? How do we get beyond the materialist-discursive binary, and the limits of the ever-increasing list of dimensions of cultural identity that we claim are shaped in and by the body and sexuality? What, in a nutshell, are the intellectual significations we do, can, and might attribute to bodies and sexualities, as well as the contexts, complications, and cultural ways of real bodies in real life and real cultural contests? What kinds of questions about bodies and sexualities haven’t we even asked yet, and how might we go about generating “new” knowledge (if there is such a thing) about bodies and sexualities and, thus, culture and society? Readings draw from many disciplines and interdisciplinary fields, and offer alternative premises, perspectives, and problematics.

AMST629W Seminar in American Studies: Comparative History of Crime and Punishment, England, France, and America 1550-Present

0101 Th 3:30-6pm H. Brewer

Also offered as HIST639W.

AMST629Z Seminar in American Studies: History of Investigative Journalism

Bottom of Form

0101 M 9-11:45am M. Feldstein

AMST655 Introduction to Museum Scholarship;

0101 Mon 4:30-7:10pm M. Perez & E. Hughes

Restriction: Must be in one of the following programs (Anthropology (Master’s); American Studies (Master’s); History (Master’s); American Studies (Doctoral); Historic Preservation (Master’s); Anthropology (Doctoral); History (Doctoral)) ; or permission of ARHU-American Studies department. Also offered as: HIST610. Credit only granted for: AMST655 or HIST610. Provides students a basic understanding of museums as cultural and intellectual institutions. Topics include the historical development of museums, museums as resources for scholarly study, and the museum exhibition as medium for presentation of scholarship. Meets in the Smithsonian Institution Library Conference room on the ground floor of the National Museum of Natural History near the 10th Street NW and Constitution Avenue entrance. The first class session will meet at the information desk.

AMST698 Directed Readings in American Studies

Individual Instruction Course

AMST798 Non-Thesis Research

Individual Instruction Course

AMST799 Master’s Thesis Research

Individual Instruction Course

AMST857 Museum Scholarship Practicum

0401 TBA M. Sies

Prerequisite: AMST856 and Permission of Museum Scholarship Program. Credit will be granted for only one of the following: AMST857 or HIST811. Students devise and carry out a research program using the collections at the Smithsonian Institution or some other cooperating museum, working under joint supervision of a museum professional and a university faculty member. Also offered as HIST811.

AMST898 Pre-Candidacy Research

Individual Instruction Course

AMST899 Doctoral Dissertation Research

Individual Instruction Course

Spring 2013 USLT Courses

USLT202 US Latina/o Studies II: A Contemporary Overview 1960′s to present

0101 TuTh 9:30-10:45am P. Guerrero

CORE Behavioral and Social Science (SB) Course. CORE Diversity (D) Course.

Interdisciplinary course on emerging populations of Latinos in the 20th century with a focus on the multiple waves of Latino immigration as a result of neocolonialism, imperialism, globalization and transnationalism. Examines the positioning of immigrant waves in the political, sociocultural and historical contexts of US Latinidades.

USLT488B US Latina/o Senior Seminar

0101 TuTh 11am-12:15pm R. Chester

This course will facilitate students in researching and integrating primary and secondary texts in order to formulate a senior thesis. With the instructor’s guidance, students will select a research problem, conduct research, and analyze the issue using theories and methods drawn from Latino/a studies, visual culture studies, and popular culture studies. Each student will compose a senior thesis paper on a topic chosen in collaboration with the instructor. Readings and discussions will establish an overview of topics and methods in the field of visual and popular culture and U.S. Latina/o studies to offer models for analytical inquiry and research. Students will work independently and collaboratively on their projects, meeting regularly in research groups and with the instructor to discuss and review one another’s ideas and work. Students will thus serve as peer editors and offer feedback on classmates’ projects as well as working on their own major essay.

USLT498B US Latina/o Studies: Special Topics: Latinas/os and U.S. Popular Culture

0101 TuTh 2-3:15pm R. Chester

Also offered as AMST498M.

USLT498K US Latina/o Studies: Special Topics: The Diversifying U.S.: Globalization, Immigrants, Migrants, and Refugees

0101 TuTh 12:30-1:45pm P. Guerrero

Also offered as AMST498O.

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