(3 cr. hrs.)

The above course carries COLL A & H distribution credit.
Mon./Wed. 2:30PM - 3:45PM

The goal of this course is to provide students with a useful and
interdisciplinary introduction to the study of the culture, society,
and history of the United States, with a special focus on the
significant comparative themes or hemispheric parallels that
bring “America” together with “the Americas.”  Using film,
literature, reportage, and scholarship, students will compare and
contrast ideas about national identity and culture in the broader
Americas.  More specifically, the course will emphasize a common
theme of study-—movement--as the foundation of a pan-
American “community”.  We will study movement from a variety of
perspectives and topics, from the frontier to refugee movements to
NASCAR.  At the end of the semester, students will have begun to
think about shared experiences that have brought the hemisphere
together as a single, but fractured unit of culture.  Along with the
theme of movement, we will read works that introduce us to the
practice and meanings of American Studies.