American Studies - Fall 1999

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[AMST-001-01][AMST-100-01][AMST-108-01][AMST-114A-01]

American Studies 001: America and Americans

Instructor: Dana Frank

This course is an introduction to American Studies, exploring
questions of race, ethnicity, gender, class, and citizenship in the
formation of what we now call the United States. Beginning in the
early nineteenth century and moving up to the present, we will
explore some of the different ways in which people have come to be
Americans, whether through immigration, enslavement, or conquest.
Paying attention to dynamics of race, ethnicity, gender and class,
we will look at some of the terms on which different people have
participated as "Americans", and their struggles to achieve
equality and citizenship on their own terms. In the process, we
will engage in a dialogue about questions of national identity,
borders, and the dynamics through which our own identities,
cultures, and societies have been created and continue to grow.

Not a comprehensive survey, the course is structured around six
units, each of which serves as a case study while raising
theoretical questions that can be applied in a variety of contexts.
The course is in lecture format, with many films and guest
speakers. Attendance at ALL classes is required; students missing
more than two class sessions will be assumed to have dropped from
the course. Do not come to class late, leave early or talk during
class, or turn your paper in late. There will be an in class
midterm and final based on the readings and on the lectures, films,
and guest presentations, and a five-page paper. Section leaders
may also require additional small assignments.

We will have section discussion meetings that will meet once a week
at additional times. Attendance at sections is REQUIRED and will
be part of your evaluation. Feel free to form discussion groups of
your own beyond those formally structured by the course, as well.

The following books are required and are at the Bay Tree Bookstore,
as well as on overnight reserve in the McHenry Library:

Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom
Hasia Diner, Erin's Daughters in America
Americo Paredes, George Washington Gomez
Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony
Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James Houston, Farewell to Manzanar
Anne Moody, Coming of Age in Mississippi

Course Outline: SAMPLE ONLY, FROM PREVIOUS YEAR

Introduction to the Course

Lecture: Who is an "American"?

Freedom

Lecture: Slavery, Race, and Labor

Lecture: Slavery and Gender

Film: Sankofa

Lecture: Cultures of Resistance

Lecture: Irish Immigrants, Industrial Capitalism, and the White
Slides/Lecture: The Irish: Ethnic Stereotypes and Nativism

Lecture: Irish identities and White Ethnicity

Film: "l877: The Grand Army of Starvation"

Lecture: Occupied Mexico: Conquest

Lecture: Occupied Mexico: Immigration

Film: "Chulas Fronteras"

Guest Lecture: The Politics of Chicano Culture

MIDTERM

Film: The Place of Falling Waters

Lecture: Native American Tribal
Sovereignty
Silko, Ceremony

Lecture: Who is An "Indian"?

Guest Lecture: Contemporary Sovereignty Issues

Lecture: Internment of Japanese Americans:

Lecture: Internment

Guest Speakers: Internment

Film: "A Family Gathering"

Lecture: The Civil Rights Movement

Film: "Eyes on the Prize"

Lecture: Learning from the Civil Rights Movement

Film: "Eyes on the Prize"

Film: "The Times of Harvey Milk"

Conclusions

Review session for final

Final Exam

American Studies 100

Key Concepts in American Studies is open to new American Studies students, AS
majors preparing for senior theses, and other majors interested in improving
their writing skills.

The course focuses on intensive reading and analysis of a complex article each
week with staged writing responses to elicit the author's perspective and
argument as well as the student's interpretation and own argument. There is
extensive classroom discussion along with one-on-one tutoring for all AS 100
students. Drafts are returned promptly to ensure continual "feedback" and
constructive suggestions for further improvement.

The content of the course emphasizes current concepts and methodologies within
American Studies and other related interdisciplinary fields. Students need
not be familiar with these concepts before entering the class.

American Studies 108: Symbolic Analysis

Instructor: Michael Cowan

Symbols confront us every day: in advertisements, in films, in TV sit coms and
news shows, in politicians' speeches, in protest marchers' signs, in the
clothing we and our friends wear, in the rituals of classrooms and City
Council meetings. As anthropologists constantly remind us, a society must be
understood not only in terms of the behavior and experiences of its members
but in terms their use of symbols to interpret and represent these
experiences, and their use of symbols to gain, control, and defend resources
and power. Drawing on perspectives from cultural anthropology, sociology,
history, textual criticism, and popular culture studies, this course will
examine some of the major symbolic forms by means of which Americans have
represented themselves and the world and acted in and on that world. It will
give particular attention to the ways in which the meanings and social,
political, and psychological functions of such symbols and symbolic actions
have been transformed under the pressure of historical circumstances.

The course will operate on several levels. On one hand, we will examine both
the creation and use of a number of "national" symbols and rituals in official
and popular culture. We will also examine the symbolic forms used by specific
ethnic, class-specific, gender-specific, and other groups, with attention to
the ways in which social, ideological, and cultural differences, conflicts,
and accommodations have been expressed symbolically in American history and
contemporary life. For comparative purposes, the course will also look at a
few examples of symbolic forms and action in non-American settings.

The course reading and discussion will focus on a series of case studies of
specific symbols and rituals, and on various methods useful in analyzing and
interpreting these materials, and will also introduce students to a sampling
of the theoretically oriented literature on symbolic form and action. The
course will also involve mini-field trips in which members of the class,
divided into small groups, will explore actual uses of symbols on campus and
in the Santa Cruz area.

Texts.
The course will involve the reading of a small number of book-length texts,
materials in a Reader, and use of newspapers, popular periodicals, and of
immediately-at-hand "texts." A detailed list of readings will be available a
week before the course begins. Below are examples of texts from which reading
will be drawn:

John Kasson, Amusing the Millions: Coney Island at the Turn of the Century
Roland Marchand, Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity,
1920-1940
Mauricio Mazon, The Zoot-Suit Riots: The Psychology of Symbolic Annihilation
Marita Sturken, Cultural Memory and Identity Politics: The Vietnam War, AIDS,
and Technologies of Memory

Written Work.
Students will write three 2-page papers, based on the weekly reading and
assignments. They will also contribute to several small-group oral
presentations. Students will also write two longer papers--one 5-6 pages long
and one 8-10 pages long--in which they pursue topics of interest to them and
relevant to the course reading and themes.

American Studies 114A: Politics and American Culture

This course is open to all majors. We examine differing and often conflicting forms of citizenship and membership within the United States. Particular attention is paid to Native American Treaty claims, the Bill of Rights, movements to extend political participation across gender/class/racial lines, immigration and naturalization, and relations between religious and political affiliations.

Revised 8/3/04.