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Fall Semester 2002
AMS 891-001
The Kaleidoscopic
Republic: Historical
Approaches to Visual
Culture
Robert Bonner,
History
Monday, 7:10-10PM
105A Berkey Hall
Since its inception, American Studies has moved beyond an original concern
for central, consensual national myths and symbols and towards a more
self-conscious approach to the circumstances and significance of a dazzling
range of American texts and images. This course will survey recent
American Studies
scholarship devoted to the country’s rich visual culture, paying
particular attention to those works that use visual material to make larger
claims about historical developments.
In addition
to reading widely in urban studies, art history, sociology,
musicology,
and film studies, students enrolled in the course will be
expected
to consider how visual material might relate to their own more
specific fields of interest and research. Class presentations, discussion,
and a final major written project developed in close collaboration with
the instructor
will be the primary requirements for the course. Among the
authors we will consider are David Henkin, Albert Boime, Caroline Marvin,
Kirk Savage, Eric Lott, Alan Trachtenberg, and Larry May.
Contact instructor for more information
[email protected]
AMS-881-001
American Studies Theory, Methods, and Bibliography
Ann Larabee, American Thought and Language
Wednesday, 12:40-3:30 PM 240 AUD
This
course provides an introduction to graduate work in American Studies and a
broad understanding of theoretical concepts in defining the field for both
teaching and research. To make some sense of the very flexible, contested
meaning of "American Studies," we will discuss some key words that have been
recently used to describe its concerns: "crossroads," "memory," "identity,"
"empire," "globalization," "community," "border," "popular culture," and "environment."
We will also be looking more specifically at
the kinds
of scholarly works that have made up the corpus of American Studies over time,
including some recent texts by less well-known, younger scholars who challenge
various assumptions about canon, culture, and nationhood. However,
the course will not take a "classics" approach to introducing American Studies,
but will rather explore the place of these texts in dynamic environments,
such as professional journals and organizations, in classrooms and departments,
and in communities outside the university.
As an introduction
to research, the course will offer insights into
annotating
and editing a text, and provide training in finding relevant
sources
and developing a bibliography, focusing especially on the central journals
that help define the scholarly projects of American Studies. We will
spend two class periods in the computer lab, so that Internet access to these
journals, listservs, and other online projects, such as Crossroads in American
Studies, can be easily used for future professional activity, including locating
conferences and publishing opportunities. We will also be looking at the teaching
of American Studies, particularly in an international context, and using
syllabi to get an idea of how scholars put their ideas into practice in the
classroom. Recent professional issues, such as charges of plagiarism
and the censorship of professors, will also be
addressed. The two major assignments required in the course-an annotated
bibliography and a syllabus-are designed to integrate theory and practice,
as each participant puts her own developing understanding of American Studies
into a coherent, useful shape.
Spring Semester 2003
American Studies Course
AMERICAN STUDIES/ENGLISH 891
Special Topics in American Studies
Scott Michaelsen
Wed. 6-8:50 p.m.
Berkey 106A
Down
By Law: Critical Legal Studies in the U.S. and Beyond
It is
said that 'we' are a nation of laws, built on a foundation of law, and that
this is 'our' strength. The law is everywhere: it determines and limits the
possibilities of the economy, religion, education. It establishes identities:
racial and sexual identities, citizens and subjects, aliens and prisoners.
Is the law for all? What about those who seem relentless to be positioned
as down by law? Is legal reform progressive or counter-progressive?
Should one "believe" in the possibilities of law, or seek rather to subvert
and destroy it?
In this
graduate seminar, we will begin to read around the question of U.S.. law
and beyond. At the start of the semester, we will study philosophy and
theory of law, and the philosophy and theory of the two words most often discussed
in relation to law: politics and justice. Here, some of our basic readings
will include Aristotle, Plato, G.F.W. Hegel, H.L.A. Hart, Carl Schmitt,
Judith Butler, John Rawls, Carole Pateman, Charles Mills, Jacques Derrida.
Then
we will move onto particular instances of U.S. law. We will closely
read, for example, the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights,
and the 14th Amendment. We will closely read the most famous cases
in American legal history on question slavery and citizenship, 'separate
but equal,'accommodations, the rights of corporations, women's reproduction
and privacy, fourth amendment rights, affirmative action, gay and lesbian
civil rights.
Third,
we will read several examples of the American literature of law, or legal
fictions, including texts from Cooper, Melville, Faulkner, Derrick A. Bell,
Margaret Atwood, and John Okada.
Finally,
we will explore the question of U.S. law as it encounters, confronts, and
does battle with supranational and international legal entities, including
the United Nations, the World Court, the Rome Statute, and the like.
Here we will read a combination of documents and activist legal scholarship,
ending our semester with an emphasis on the future of American law.
Internal
Colonialism: Region, Nation, and Empire in the Midwest
AMS 891
Internal Colonialism: Region, Nation and Empire in the Midwest
Prof. Ned Watts
Course Description:
Usually,
when we think of imperialism, we think about other places. We think
about conquest, subalterity, slavery, class, race, gender, and how the same
machinations of dominion have affected each. However, the place where we
sithas had
a long history of entanglements with a long history of empires and
nations.
Moreover, "region" represents a fragment or a component of a nation
or empire, or maybe it represents the conditions of a former, absorbed,
colony. Understanding place requires a well-informed study of the local within
the context of larger, external forces affecting it. Local, Regional,
National, and Global cultural forces are inextricably interlinked. Our
residence here is the result of a complex matrix of historical and cultural
influences and presences. In fact, the theorization and study of place and
community identity development is an area of increasing interest within the
field of American studies. In this seminar, we will move from theorizations
of empire,
colony, and nation down to the nuts and bolts of these processes at
work
in the place where we live.
This
is a two-fold course. On one level, we will be engaging the concept of
Regionalism through a number of historical, cultural, and theoretical
perspectives based around the concept of the "Midwest." On the other, it
is also a
writing course. The main theme of the writing element of the course
will be to work toward that paradoxical praxis in scholarly writing:
addressing a specific and narrow subject while basing your argument in a
broad and
well-informed disciplinary context.
Books:
Jordan, New World Regionalism
Gray, The Yankee West
Ayers, et al, All Over the Map
Shortridge, The Middle West
Wilson, The New Regionalism
Cayton and Gray, The American Midwest
Blank, Sowing the American Dream
White, The Middle Ground
Murphy, A Gathering of Rivers
Plus,
readings from Bill Ashcroft, Alan Lawson, Helen Tiffin, Benedict
Anderson,
Stephanie Foote, Katherine Morrissey, Edward Said, Renata Rosaldo,
Edward Hechter, and the instructor.
Spring Semester 2002
American Studies Courses
AMS 891-002
Duck and Cover, Rock and Roll: America's Cold War Culture
Kimberly
Little, American Thought & Language
Mondays, 4:10-7:00pm, 314 Morrill Hall
This course will examine the themes that dominated American society
and the world during the Cold War, under the cloud of the ever-present
nuclear threat and the conflict between capitalism and communism, the United
States and the Soviet Union. We'll consider the rise of the nuclear
family, consumer culture, suburbs and postmodern architecture, and the
prominence of youth. We'll study the impact of Cold War life on art,
film, television, and several genres of music as well as the sciences.
We'll explore how Americans exported culture and used it as a tool of foreign
policy. Scholars whose work we'll read include Paul Boyer and Elaine
Tyler May, but we'll also spend considerable time exploring primary sources,
including visual and sound texts as well as traditional written documents.
Students will be responsible for writing regular, informal responses to
their readings, for making one class presentation, and for producing one
longer paper.
Students
who are interested in the inclusion of a particular aspect of Cold War
culture should let the instructor know of their interest no later than November
26 to ensure its inclusion in the course ([email protected]).
AMS 891-003
Region and Nation in American Studies
Edward S. Watts, American Thought & Language
Tuesdays, 4:10-7:00pm, 210b Berkey Hall
One of the main hurdles in the development of professional-level scholarly
work in American Studies is the construction of a topic that is neither
too narrow nor too broad. One must take into account how to find the proper
audience and venue for your work, the types of resources to which you may
need access, and the time and tasks needed to pull it all together into
a format appropriate to your field. One of the first areas in which most
graduate students present their research is the conference paper/article/book
chapter format; that is, a brief and concentrated, yet accessible, discussion
of a specific aspect of, usually, a larger project or research focus.
One of the best ways to begin narrowing your work to a manageable range
is to address the specific manifestations of your larger interest in a
specific place. In this course, we will help you explore the ways in which
your own research interests might be applied locally by seeing how other
scholars have successfully blended larger theoretical and methodological
demands with their local and regional manifestations. While we will be
addressing subjects relevant to the American Midwest, our discussion will
engage the national and global aspects of differing element of Midwestern
history, culture, and experience. Seeing as we all live here, the Midwest,
after all, is the one thing we in Michigan all have in common. However,
our residence here is the result of a complex matrix of historical and
cultural influences and presences. In fact, the theorization and study
place and community identity development is an area of increasing interest
within the field of American studies. To engage some of these, here is a
list of possible research topics for this course:
Region and Race(s)
Region and Demographics
Regional Literature and Culture
Regions, Frontiers, and Borders
Region, Nation, and Empire
Regionalism, Provincialism. Sectionalism, and Colonialism
Region and Gender
Region and Politics
Region and Economics
Region and History
Region and Dialect
The course will begin with larger re-theorizations of regions in America,
move to specific studies in Midwestern regionalism, and end wit the presentation
and discussion of student’s topics. The course includes study of figures
such as James Shortridge, Richard Dornan, Gerald Vizenor, Nicole Etcheson,
Frieda Knobloch, James Cronin, John Mack Faragher, Susan Grey, and others.
Arts & Letters
English
(Link to English course page)
History
(Link to History course page)
Other
Departments and Programs:
American Indian
Studies
Anthropology
Chicano/Latino
Studies
Geography
Communications
Comparative
Literature
Journalism
Political Science
Sociology
Telecommunications