|
Course |
Title |
Cr |
Time/Place |
Instructor |
|
050:101:01 |
Introduction to American Studies Introduces students to the interdisciplinary field of American Studies. Employing literature, legal studies, film, history, visual culture, philosophy, and politics, the class will examine the concept and idea of America in its global, national, community, and bodily/psychic permutations. Explores key themes from the past such as American exceptionalism, manifest destiny, and the search for equality and examine how these ideas have both changed and persisted as part of a national culture and identity. Satisfies Core Goals: AHo, AHp |
3 |
TTh 2:15-3:35pm RAB 206 (DC) |
Decker |
|
050:101:02 |
Introduction to American Studies Introduces students to the interdisciplinary field of American Studies. Employing literature, legal studies, film, history, visual culture, philosophy, and politics, the class will examine the concept and idea of America in its global, national, community, and bodily/psychic permutations. Explores key themes from the past such as American exceptionalism, manifest destiny, and the search for equality and examine how these ideas have both changed and persisted as part of a national culture and identity. Satisfies Core Goals: AHo, AHp |
3 |
TTh 5:00pm-6:20pm TIL 257 (LIV) |
Cevasco |
|
050:200:01 |
Latinos and Community Examines historical and contemporary formations of Latino communities in the US. Critically analyze social, cultural, geographic, political, and symbolic developments and forces that shape Latino populations in comparative perspective. The class also interacts with members of the local Latino community through cultural and civic events. |
3 |
Th 5:00-7:45P LSH A-256 (LIV) |
TBD |
|
050:201:01 |
The Native American Experience An introductory survey of Native American cultures, literature, history, language, and current issues that exposes students to approaches, theories, and important concepts such as colonialism and sovereignty in Native American Studies. Through oral histories, literature, and film, students will investigate thousands of years of Native American history, but with a particular focus on current issues in Indian Country. Students will analyze representations of Indian people in American popular culture and consider major shifts in the nature of Native American sovereignty into the present. Themes of colonialism, racism, and federal Indian policy but especially Indian political activism, resistance to colonialism and racism, and cultural continuity and revitalization. Readings may include: David Treuer, Rez Life: An Indian’s Journey through Reservation Life; James Welch, Fools Crow; Susan Power, The Grass Dancer; Peter Nabakov, Native American Testimony Eligible for CCRES minor |
3 |
MTh 10:55-12:15pm RAB 018 (C/D) |
Sweet |
|
050:203:01 |
The American West Examines the historical development of the US and its westward expansion and its impact on contemporary American culture. Analyzes myths, legends and the historical realities of the American West, symbols and themes, as well as Western portrayal in film and television. Satisfies Core Goals: AHp |
3 |
M/W 2:15-3:35P ARH 100 (C/D) |
Gillespie |
|
050:210: Sec 01-06 & H1 |
The American Dream The American Dream takes an interdisciplinary approach to the study of American culture and society. By reading widely and examining sources as diverse as memoirs, essays, novels, images, music, and film, this course probes the meanings and uses of the American Dream in the life of the nation as well as in each of our own lives. The American Dream, and its meaning, continues to shift as it collides with changing social realities as each generation projects its hopes and anxieties into its fabric. The history of the evolving American Dream provides the building blocks of our own dreams, aspirations, and expectations for life in the 21st Century. Satisfies Core Requirements for 21st century and AHp. |
4 |
MTh 8:40-10:00A TIL 254 (LIV) Recitation Sections Vary |
Masur |
|
050:218:01 |
Black Visual Culture This course focuses on visual art and culture by black artists and cultural practitioners. While focusing on the United States, we will consider the aesthetic and cultural value of blackness in a diasporic context. The class will offer an interdisciplinary framework to engage the history and art of black cultural production. Moreover, we will focus on the aesthetic, political, historiographic, and cultural instantiations of the idea of blackness as discourse in American visual culture. The class will be structured around various themes, movements, and genres that inform black visuality in the arts (e.g. film, television, literature, music, new media, photography, installation art). These topics will include the Civil Rights Era, the Black Arts and Black Power Movements, soul aesthetics, black feminist/womanist art, “the New Black Aesthetic,” independent cinema, black queer discourse, hip hop and popular culture, the racial grotesque, Afrofuturism, performance and multimedia art, and social protest art. |
3 |
MTh 10:55-12:15P HSB 204 (C/D) |
Fleetwood |
|
050:223:01 |
Learning from the Past: Early America and the 21st Century Early Americans faced many of the same challenges as we do in the 21st century: climate change, income inequality, rapidly changing technology, and more. This course will explore how early Americans confronted the problems of their times, and what we can learn from their successes and failures. Students will produce a portfolio of opinion essays aimed at a public audience, comparing past and present. Satisfies Core Curriculum Goals: CC/HST, a, l, k |
3 |
MTh 12:35:1:55P RAB 105 (DC) |
Cevasco |
|
050:227:01 |
19th Century Am. Lit & Culture Explores 19th-century American literature and culture: the struggle for cultural authority in the early republic, the emergence of middle class domesticity and sentimentalism, the search for a distinct American literature, race and the problem of slavery, the rise of industrialism, American Romanticism, Gothic, and social realism, and the emergence of a cultural hierarchy. Literary productions from canonical novels to journalism and poetry as well as cultural texts in the form of songs, paintings, sculpture, theater, and vaudeville. Examine popular and public culture, such as engagement with sport, leisure activities, and museums. Satisfies Core Curriculum Goals: AHp |
3 |
MW 3:55-5:15pm HCK 118 (C/D) |
Backes |
|
050:228:01 |
The Contemporary American: The Global War on Terror The War on Terror, also known as the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) is a term applied to an international military campaign starting after the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on the US. This resulted in an international military campaign to eliminate Al-Qaeda and other militant organizations, such as ISIS. We will focus on two theaters of operations—Central Asia and the Middle East. By hearing from many different narrators, we will hopefully learn more about American culture in the period under discussion. We will read, watch, and listen to a variety of academic and popular sources in order to ask broader questions about what it means to be an American in today’s world. Eligible for CCRES Minor Satisfies Core Curriculum Goals: AHp SCL (h,m,p) |
3 |
MTh 10:55-12:15pm RAB 001 (DC) |
Gillespie |
|
050:240:01 |
Latino Literature & Culture Read texts by Mexican American, Chicano and Hispanic Caribbean Diasporic writers from the 1960s until 2010. Begins with the PBS documentary “Latinos in America” and Juan Flores’s work. Then focuses on close-reading of a selection of well-known texts from the Chicano tradition and of Nuyorican, Dominican American and Cuban American texts. Topics addressed: border and hybrid identities, mestizaje, indigeneity,“la raza” and racialization, Spanglish and the limits of transculturation, the transformation of Latino gender and sexuality, and the subversion of internal colonialism in the creation of a new notion of American identity. We will also watch the following films: Selena (1997), Quinceañera (2006), Precious Knowledge (2012), Gun Hill Road(2013). Crosslisted with Africana Studies 01:595:240:01 Eligible for CCRES Minor Satisfies Core Curriculum Goals: AHo |
3 |
MW 4:30-5:50pm HH-B3 (CAC) |
Castroman |
|
050:245:01 |
Asian American Experience Thorough a variety of genres, including history, literature, film and popular culture, interrogate the fluid identity categories, the dynamic and diverse experiences, cultures, and politics of “Asian American”/ “Asian Pacific American”/ “Asian Pacific Islander American” peoples in the United States. Cross listed with: 01:098:262:01 Eligible for CCRES Minor |
3 |
MW 5:00-6:20pm LSH A139 (LIV) |
K. Ramsamy |
|
050:246:01 |
Black Experience in America Offers an inter-disciplinary examination of the Black experience in the US focusing of the themes of acculturation, alienation, oppression and resistance. While the course surveys the Black experience from slavery to the present, the subject matter is not approached in a simple chronological manner. Issues and individuals discussed in the context of the struggle of African-Americans for political rights, economic justice and cultural accommodation. Begins with a brief look of the position of Africa and the fledgling United States in the emerging international economic order of the 15th and 16th centuries and how the enslavement of Africans related to economic and political processes of this era. Proceeds to examine the institutionalization of slavery in the United States and the subsequent struggles for emancipation. Attempts by African-Americans to gain socio-cultural equality and political and economic rights in the aftermath of the slave experience. Cross listed with: 01: 014:203:01 Eligible for CCRES Minor |
3 |
MW 5:00-6:20pm BE-AUD (LIV) |
E. Ramsamy |
|
050:259:01 |
Popular Culture Explores major themes and problems in American popular culture. Analyze and discuss a wide array of movies, videos, songs, texts, and images in an effort to understand what makes popular culture popular, how it works (or does not work) in society, what kinds of meaning it generates, and how it is received by audiences. We will use a variety of scholarly models and theoretical literature to help make sense of cultural productions that seem all too familiar but bear careful scrutiny. In addition the course will take on a special question: In what ways does popular culture shape and reflect our understandings of ourselves as human in the present age of virtuality, layered reality, mechanized intelligence, and networked identities? Satisfies Core Curriculum Goals: AHo AHp |
3 |
MW 3:55-5:15pm HSB 201 (C/D) |
Rockland |
|
050:263:01 |
American Folklore Folklore is the traditional, unofficial, noninstitutional form of culture. It encompasses knowledge and beliefs transmitted in traditional forms by word of mouth or by customary examples. In the first part of the course we deal with the major genres of folklore including myth, legend, folktale, ballad, and folksong. Later in the course, we briefly take up Haitian Voodoo, a syncretic religion that originated in the Caribbean country of Haiti. It is based upon the merging of the beliefs and practices of West African peoples and Roman Catholic Christianity. Still later in the course, we take up cryptozoology, the study of animals that may or may not exist. Finally, we study fairies, said to be a race of diminutive people who were driven into hiding by invading humans. They came to be seen as another race, or possibly spirits, and were believed to live in an otherworld that was variously described as existing underground, in hidden hills (many of which were ancient burial mounds), or across the Western Sea. |
3 |
MW 3:55-5:15pm RAB 105 (C/D) |
Kennedy |
|
050:264:01 |
American Folklife In folk studies there are two terms often used—“folklore” and “folklife.” These terms are closely related, yet to scholars they have distinct meanings. What is folklore? It usually includes oral lore—such things as proverbs, riddles, myths, legends, tales, and ballads. What is folklife? It includes material folk culture—such things as folk architecture, folk crafts and art, folk costumes, and folk foods. Our focus in this course will be on American folklife. The direction in which American scholars looked for a model of folklife studies was to Europe, especially Scandinavia. In this course, we will begin with land use, cultivation, housing, settlement, and subsistence crafts, and proceed through furniture, domestic handwork, leisure-time handicrafts, decorative arts, representational art, musical instruments, and folk toys. In other words, we will be looking at the whole gamut of traditional material culture from the necessities of life to the luxuries and pleasures. |
3 |
MTh 12:35-1:55pm RAB 018 (C/D) |
Kennedy |
|
050:265:01 |
American Experimental Film & Video Survey on the history and development of the various American experimental cinema movements from its beginnings to the present. In-depth analyses of the structure and content of films by Andy Warhol, Maya Deren, Stan Brakhage, Sidney Peterson, Kenneth Anger, Bruce Baillie, Yoko Ono,and others. Emphasis on the "mise-en-scene," editing, narrative form, sound, and special effects in the films of these celebrated experimental filmmakers. Warning: some films may contain nudity, sexual situations, violence, profanity, substance abuse, and disturbing images. |
3 |
TTh 5:35-6:55P RAB 001 (C/D) H 7:15-8:35P RAB 001 (C/D) |
Nigrin |
|
050:281:01 |
Topics: Asian American Identities and Images LLC Explore and learn about the diverse array of peoples of Asia decent in the Americas, including West, South, Southeast, and East Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Examine, reflect upon, and discuss representations of Asian Americans in literature, history, politics, film, scholarship, current events, and popular culture. Living Learning Community |
1.5 |
F 1:40-3:00pm Asian American Cultural Center |
Yoon |
| 050:281:MA |
Topics: The Native American Experience (10/25-12/10) An introductory survey of Native American cultures, literature, history, language, and current issues that exposes students to approaches, theories, and important concepts such as colonialism and sovereignty in Native American Studies. This course focuses on themes of colonialism, racism, and federal Indian policy but especially Indian political activism, resistance, and cultural continuity and revitalization. Through oral histories, literature, and film, students will investigate thousands of years of Native American history, but with a focus on current issues in Indian Country. Students will analyze representations of Indian people in American popular culture and consider major shifts in the nature of Native American sovereignty into the present. |
1.5 |
MTh 11:10-12:05pm RAB 109B (C/D) |
Sweet |
| 050:281:MB |
Topics: American Folklife (10/24-12/12) American Folklife and Public Folklore will introduce students to the field of folklife studies and will explore the ways it has been integrated into the public life of America through government agencies, non-profit organizations, and educational systems. From the inception of The American Folklore Society in 1888, the study of folklore and folklife was imagined as a form of scientific inquiry about American culture that could benefit public knowledge. Realized in the formation of agencies such as the Bureau of American Ethnology, the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, museums, and state and local arts organizations, the study of folklore and folklife has taken a role to preserve and support traditional cultures in America for 130 years. In this course, students will explore the history and evolving theory of the field of public folklore, and will study the theoretical concepts of genres of folklife essential to its practice, such as ritual, festival, performance, and material culture. |
1.5 |
MW 2:30-3:25pm RAB 105 (C/D) |
Kennedy |
|
050:282:MA |
US as Seen from Abroad I (10/25-12/10) First of two courses that look at the US in a transnational context—that is, how it may be seen from abroad and how it may be seen in comparison with other civilizations. The focus will be on 18th and 19th century writers, both foreigners writing from abroad (some of whom never visited the United States so they write what they imagine about our country) and those who visited here. The Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville in his Democracy in America will figure importantly in the course; Charles Dickens in his book, American Notes, with reference as well to his only novel with a large portion taking place in the US; Martin Chuzzlewit; Mark Twain in his hilarious travelogue, The Innocents Abroad; and Henry James in his novel taking place in Paris, The American. A film or two will also be seen outside of class. It may be worth mentioning that Professor Rockland began his career in the US Diplomatic Service and that three of his books concern America on the international scene. |
1.5 |
MTh 12:35-1:55pm LOR 020 (C/D) |
Rockland |
|
050:283:MA |
Topics: Contemporary Arts Adventure (10/28-12/9) Visits to museums, galleries, and arts centers in New Brunswick, Princeton, and New York City, as well as Off‐Broadway theatre, dance, music, and poetry readings to experience the arts of our time. We will examine the way current events are depicted in the arts, how the arts shape social values, and how the arts are interpreted by different social groupings. We will also consider the human figure in artistic representation, as well as the body as an expressive vehicle. |
1.5 |
Sun 11:30-2:30p SC 201 (CAC) |
Appels |
|
050:283:MB |
Topics: Contemporary Arts Adventure (10/28-12/9) Visits to museums, galleries, and arts centers in New Brunswick, Princeton, and New York City, as well as Off‐Broadway theatre, dance, music, and poetry readings to experience the arts of our time. We will examine the way current events are depicted in the arts, how the arts shape social values, and how the arts are interpreted by different social groupings. We will also consider the human figure in artistic representation, as well as the body as an expressive vehicle. |
1.5 |
Sun 8:20-11:20a SC 201 (CAC) |
Appels |
|
050:284:MB |
US as Seen from Abroad II (10/25-12/10) Like “The United States as Seen From Abroad I,” the course understands our country by comparing it with other countries. This second course looks at 20th century writers and their works, including Graham Greene’s, The Quiet American and David Lodge’s hilarious Changing Places, in which a British professor and an American one exchange positions and countries for a year. We will also see a film or two outside of class. Finally, a portion of the course will be devoted to American Foreign Policy and, as well, our tendency to think of our country in exceptionalist terms. Professor Rockland began his career in the United States Diplomatic Service and that three of his books are concerned with the United States from an international perspective. |
1.5 |
MTh 9:15-10:35a RAB 208 |
Rockland |
|
050:301:02 |
Topics: Director Spike Lee This course will survey the work of Spike Lee through screenings, lectures and group discussions. Students will expand their understanding of the narrative film genre as well as that of storytelling. Most importantly, this course will examine the use of film as a medium and conduit for change, conversation and understanding. Spike Lee's films, both narrative and non-narrative will be compared and contrasted for their similarities and differences. Cross listed with: 01:014:301:02 |
3 |
W 5:00-8:00p TIL 251 (LIV) |
Grier |
|
050:303:01 |
Decades: 1990s This course is a study of the history, literature, and popular culture a single decade in American life: the 1990s. Topics include the presidency of George HW Bush, Bill Clinton, the middle east, urban decline and renewal, deindustrialization, LGBTQ rights, the second generation of the AIDS crisis, the war on drugs, evangelical Christianity, the Wall Street boom, a changing workforce, RAP music, "white trash" culture, cyberpunks, and the new American family. Public figures explored include Spike Lee, Bikini Kill, Nirvana, Vanilla Ice, David Lynch, Mike Meyers, Rose Troche, Kevin Smith, OJ Simpson, the Cohen Brothers, Hillary Clinton, Quentin Tarantino, N.W.A. and Donald Trump. Course materials will be drawn from history, sociology, law, fiction, poetry, essays, TV and films. By the end of the course, students will have developed a basic knowledge of the public events, artistic achievements, and cultural life of the Americas in the 1990s. |
3 |
MW 5:35-6:55p RAB 208 (C/D) |
Backes |
|
050:313:01 |
America as a Business Culture This course will examine the social, cultural and political underpinnings of economic constructs such as money, the market, and consumption. Some of the issues that will be explored are debt in America, as illustrated by the high amounts of credit card debt many Americans have and the increasing numbers of Americans declaring bankruptcy. We will also delve into the political economy of higher education, identifying the factors that contribute to the continuing rise of tuitions, why colleges and universities engage in what is referred to as an “arms race,” and what is meant by the commodification of education. We will also analyze the culture of Wall Street, and the changing landscape of retirement in America. Cross listed with: 01:014:301:07
|
3 |
MTh 9:15-10:35a HCK 205 (C/D) |
Prisock |
|
050:316:01 |
21st Century Writing This course will explore new genres of writing and some popular updates of familiar genres, such as the memoir, the novel, and the short story. In particular, we will examine blogs, read a graphic novel, examine some outsider perspectives on 9-11 and subsequent events, and finish the semester with a unit on zombies in popular literature and film. There will be individual reports on YouTube videos and group discussions. Satisfies Core Curriculum Goal: CC/AHp |
3 |
MW 2:15-3:35p HSB 204 |
Moomjy |
|
050:321:01 |
American Conservatism This class will explore the conservative tradition in U.S. politics and culture, from the American Revolution to the present day. We will investigate the major impulses and ideas associated with the political right and discuss how conservatism has been manifested in American politics, government, literature, and culture. Specific topics to be considered include: the contested meanings of the American founding, the ideology of the antebellum South, religion in American culture, free markets and anti-communism, and the New Right as a political movement. We will study partisans of the right but also complicated and ambiguous figures—individuals who cannot be claimed exclusively by any one particular “side.” Readings include historical accounts, political writings, social commentary, and fiction. |
3 |
TTh 3:55-5:15p FNH 101 (C/D) |
Decker |
|
050:324:01 |
Wayward Americans Explore various groups of “wayward” Americans. Or, to put it another way, we will examine our understandings of what it means to be “normal,” with particular focus on physical, mental, and behavioral norms. Some questions we will consider are: “How do we determine who or what is normal? Has the definition of normal remained consistent over time and place? How is normalcy measured? And by whom? How important is context – geographic location, social and cultural background, age, gender, race, ethnicity, and religion – when determining normalcy? By examining various groups that have been described as: different; weird; deviant; abnormal; beyond the pale; on the fringe – including the “feeble-minded,” religious fanatics, criminals, and “sexual deviants” – we will seek to understand the historical, sociological, and psychological frameworks that have rendered these groups outside of mainstream American society. |
3 |
M 7:15-10:05p HSB 206 (C/D) |
Zemla |
|
050:344:01 |
Islam in/and America Examines the history and presence of Islam in the United States, and the construction and evolution of U.S. Muslim identity, community, and culture. In our contemporary moment, “Islam” is perhaps the most misunderstood term in the national lexicon, and stands at the heart of numerous cultural and political debates about “who we are” as a nation. Islam’s presence in the Americas stretches back four centuries, to when over one third of African slaves forcibly transported here were Muslim. At the start of the 20th century, the religion forcefully re-emerged amongst Black American communities in urban centers in the North such as Chicago and Detroit. Examines the diverse historical presence of Muslims in the United States, alongside representations and stereotypes of Islam and Muslims in media and popular culture. Representations of Black American Muslims and U.S. Muslim women. Eligible for CCRES Minor |
3 |
T 2:15-3:35p HCK 205 Th 2:15-3:35p HCK 119 (C/D) |
Chan-Malik |
|
050:355:01 |
Museums, Monuments, and American Culture This course examines the role that museums and monuments, as well as historic sites, tours, and other public forms of commemoration, have in American culture. It will focus on how acts of memorialization produce public and collective memories, and the politics that surround how the past is remembered. At a moment when Americans debate whether monuments to slaveowners and Confederate generals should remain standing, how public institutions can be made more inclusive to different groups and histories, and what roles museums should have in the twenty first century, so too will the course wrestle with these pressing contemporary concerns. In addition, we will also explore the complicated dynamics between education and entertainment; celebration and criticism; and vernacular and official forms of commemoration. |
3 |
2:15-3:35P RAB 206 (C/D) |
Urban |
|
050:389:01 |
Junior Seminar: Digital Humanities This course will explore the emergent field of the digital humanities, and how identities, ideas, and communication are mediated through digital technologies and mediums. Topics considered may include the meaning of community and civil society in a virtual or cyber age; how digital technologies contribute to the production and reproduction of information; the research uses of digital archives, databases, and cyber ethnography; and, the tension between human existence as a physical, embodied set of practices, and human existence as a set of digital connections and experiences. Satisfies Core Goals: WcD, WcR (t, u, v) |
3 |
W 3:55-6:55p RAB 018 (C/D) |
Urban |
|
050:389:02 |
Junior Seminar: Prisons in American Culture This seminar will offer a socio-cultural overview of the development of the U.S. prison system and the meanings and representations of incarceration in American society. The seminar will place particular emphasis on the past few decades of mass incarceration. Topics will include historical links between slavery, Jim Crow segregation and imprisonment, Attica and prison uprisings, contemporary racial profiling and hyper-incarceration of black populations, Guantánamo Bay and military prisons, media and public culture representations of prison life, memoirs written by current and former prisoners, the criminalization of radical social movements, the influence of prison aesthetics on a range of cultural practices, and “crimmigration,” the convergence of criminal law and immigration law. Satisfies Core Goals: WcD, WcR (t, u, v) |
3 |
Th 2:15-5:15p HCK 132 (C/D) |
Fleetwood |
|
050:491:U1 |
Independent Study/Project in American Culture |
BA |
BA |
Urban |
|
050:495:01 |
Honors in American Studies |
BA |
BA |
Masur |
Satellite Campuses:
|
050:302:WM |
Fantasy, Animation and Sci-Fi |
3 |
M 6:00-7:20pm Western Monmouth |
McElhinney |
|
050:303:A1 |
Decades: 1970’s |
3 |
Th 4:20-5:40pm Atlantic Cape |
McElhinney |
|
050:303:F1 |
Decades: 1990’s |
3 |
T 6:00-8:40pm Middlesex CC |
Backes |
|
050:303:WM |
Decades: 1990’s |
3 |
M 7:20-8:40pm Western Monmouth |
McElhinney |
|
050:307:A1 |
Decades: 1960’s |
3 |
W 12:00-2:40pm Atlantic Cape |
DeConcini |
|
050:314:R1 |
Tech and Culture |
3 |
Th 6:00-8:40p Raritan Valley CC |
Moomjy |
|
050:317:A1 |
Law & American Culture |
3 |
T 3:00-5:40p Atlantic Cape |
Furman |
