Course Descriptions: Undergraduates
A100 What is America? (3 cr. hrs.) A&H
Students compare and contrast ideas about citizenship, national identity, and the social contract across the hemisphere; focusing on the most basic building block of the nation-state: the formal terms of membership in civil society. Students situate the meaning of the concept in the United States within a hemispheric context.
A200 Comparative American Identities (3 cr. hrs.) A&H
Examines the formation of legal, social, cultural,
and economic identities within the United States within U.S. controlled
territories. Who counts as "American?" To what ends have citizens and
noncitizens assumed, claimed, or refused "American" identity? This course
employs a comparative frame in considering elite and subordinated classes
(and/or gender, races, ethnicities, sexualities); institutional and
countercultural forms of self-definition; official history and alterative acts
of collective memory.
A201 U.S. Movements & Institutions (3 cr. hrs.) A&H
Interdisciplinary approaches to a social movement, an institutional structure, or an otherwise clearly delimited arena of an object of social regulation and public activity. Constructing, deconstructing, reconstructing an object of social study. Recent topics have included: The American City; Sociologies of Consumption; Philanthropy and the Politics of Voluntarism. (May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.)
A202 U.S. Arts and Media (3 cr. hrs.) A&H
Interdisciplinary approaches to a cultural genre (e.g., science fiction, pop art, jazz), discourse (e.g., individualism, family values, globalization) or medium (e.g., comics, television, the internet). Constructing, deconstructing, reconstructing an object of cultural study. Recent topics have included: Images of the Body; Jazz and Cultural Hierarchy; Youth Cultures. (May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.)
A275 Indigenous Worldviews in the Americas (3 cr. hrs.) A&H
A survey of some of the basic aspects of indigenous lifeways, this course introduces comparative cultural analysis, providing foundational coursework for those interested in thinking about how others think and how we think about otherness. Students will examine mythology, ritual, health, art, and philosophy within the context of colonialism and globalization.
A298 Special Topics in Arts & Humanities for American Studies (3 cr. hrs.) A&H
Study and analysis of a single, closely-focused American Studies topic within arts and humanities. Topics vary from semester to semester. Focuses on refinement of students’ skills in writing, interdisciplinary interpretation, analytical reasoning, discussion, and research related to the study of fine arts, literature, film and popular culture. (May be repeated with a different topic for a total of 6 credit hours.)
A299 Special Topics in Social & Historical Studies for American Studies (3 cr. hrs.) S&H
Study and analysis of a single, closely-focused American Studies topic within social and historical studies. Topics vary from semester to semester. Focuses on the refinement of students’ skills in writing, interdisciplinary interpretation, analytical reasoning, discussion, and research related to the study of public policy, political, economic, and social realities. (May be repeated with a different topic for a total of 6 credit hours.)
A300 The Image of America in the World (3 cr.) S&H
This course explores the history and present significance of "America" - an idea and a nation - in the larger world. Specifically, it focuses its attention on the image, status, and reputation of the United States abroad, and on the importance of America's "moral" global prestige to the course of international affairs and domestic politics.
A350 Topics in Interdisciplinary American Studies (3 cr. hrs.)
This is a methodology course. It offers students a chance at sustained critical reflection on established disciplinary methodologies and an opportunity to explore possibilities for new interdisciplinary syntheses. The course will center on a specific, variable topic such as a period or event (the 1890s; the Vietnam War), a social movement (e.g., feminism; prison reform; abolition), a genre or performance mode (e.g., science fiction; punk), a figure (e.g., W.E.B. Du Bois; Susan B. Anthony), a discourse or ideology (e.g., prohibition; free markets). Beyond presenting multiple approaches to the topic, this course considers the assumptions on which particular approaches are founded: for example, what questions does a historian ask of a political manifesto and how do these differ from the questions of the literary critic or the sociologist? What kinds of knowledge does each line of inquiry produce and for what classes of users, or consumers? What counts as “data” or “evidence” within a specific methodological framework and how might we evaluate radically different kinds of data (e.g., statistical analysis and personal testimony) in a way that refuses disciplinary hierarchies (without choosing between or preferring one kind of data to the other)? Thus students should expect to think intensively about a particular topic but also about the very ways in which we acquire and produce knowledge. (May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.)
A351 American Studies in Transnational Contexts (3 cr. hrs.) A&H
Prerequisite: A200 or permission of instructor. This course invites students to think critically and historically about the relation of culture and nation: why is the study of culture traditionally bound to national frames of reference (e.g., one studies American literature or Indonesian history or French politics) and how might we organize the study of culture differently? The course will pursue the question topically by considering discourses, peoples, social movements, performance modes, commodities, corporations, etc. that cross national borders (e.g., revolution in France (1789), Haiti (1803), and the U.S.(1776); Reaganism and Thatcherism; corridos in Mexico and the southwestern U.S.; Afro-Caribbean communities in New York and London; and so forth). These comparative perspectives will be complemented at the conceptual level by attention to the intellectual traditions and theoretical frameworks that make possible alternate mappings of cultural study, such as Americas studies, Pacific Rim studies, or Atlantic studies. (May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.)
A397 Foreign Studies in American Studies (1-6 cr. hrs.)
Prerequisite: Acceptance into an approved IU Study Abroad / Overseas Study Program. Credit for foreign study in American Studies when no specific equivalent is available among departmental offerings. (May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.)
A398 Advanced Topics in Arts and Humanities for American Studies (3 cr.) A&H
Advanced study and analysis of a single, closely-focused American Studies topic within arts and humanities. Topics vary from semester to semester. Focuses on refinement of students'skills in writing, interdisciplinary interpretation, analytical reasoning, discussion, and research related to the study of fine arts, literature, film, and popular culture. (May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.)
A399 Advanced Topics in Social and Historical Studies for American Studies (3 cr. hrs.) S&H
Advanced study and analysis of a single, closely-focused American Studies topic within social and historical studies. Topics vary from semester to semester. Focuses on the refinement of students' skills in writing, interdisciplinary interpretation, analytical reasoning, discussion, and research related to the study of public policy, political, economic, and social realities. (May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.)
A401 Readings in American Studies (1-3 cr. hrs.)
Enables undergraduates of advanced standing to undertake independent research projects under the direction of an American Studies faculty member. Students will typically arrange for a 1 to 3 credit hours of work, depending upon the scope and depth of reading, research, and production. Projects will be interdisciplinary, and should foreground topics clearly within the rubric of American Studies. (May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of
6 credit hours.)
A402 Service Learning in American Studies (1-3 cr. hrs.)
Enables undergraduates of advanced standing to make intellectual connections between scholarly pursuits and community involvement. Students arrange 1-3 credit hours of service work either on creative projects that benefit a community (howsoever defined), or with local non-profit organizations, government agencies, activist groups, or foundations. Under the direction of their faculty sponsor, students will develop a project outline consistent with American Studies inquiry and concerns, a method of accountability, and a final report. (May be repeated for a maximum of
6 credit hours.)
A450 Senior Seminar (3 cr. hrs.)
Prerequisite: A350 and A351, or permission of instructor. The course will offer students direction in the formulation of an interdisciplinary senior project. Such interdisciplinary activity requires the ability to incorporate multiple methodologies (e.g., textual analysis; ethnography; statistical analysis; performance study, historiography), so the course begins with the detailed consideration of a series of case studies in interdisciplinary American Studies (works that model some of the more influential or innovative approaches to interdisciplinary research). These case studies will include at least some works of multi-sited or comparative research, that link aspects of U.S. culture, society, or economy to related phenomena outside U.S. borders (in other national, regional, or global contexts). The readings and discussions in this section of the course will invite critical reflection on the design of interdisciplinary work, its motives, and on the standards of coherence and of evidence that may govern its evaluation. During the second half of the semester, students will work intensively on the delineation of their own interdisciplinary project, resulting in a formal, written project that defines the form and scope of the project, the question(s) or problem(s) it engages, and includes a bibliography of relevant sources and materials, as well as a detailed plan of work.
A451 Honors Seminar (3 cr. hrs.)
For honors students only. Prerequisites: A350 and A351. Introduction to various approaches in American Studies scholarship, illustrated by the work of professors in the program, in preparation and training for the writing of an honors thesis.
A452 Honors Thesis (3 cr. hrs.)
Senior level course for honors students only. Prerequisite: A451. An intensive writing seminar, culminating in an honors thesis to be written under the direction of an American Studies faculty member. An oral examination of the thesis is conducted by three faculty members.
