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Course Listing for AMERICAN STUDIES - Spring 2021 (ALL: 02/08/2021 - 05/17/2021)
Class
No.		 Course ID Title Credits Type Instructor(s) Days:Times Location Permission
Required		 Dist Qtr
1006 AMST-203-01 Conflcts & Cultures Am Society 1.00 LEC Nebolon, Juliet TR: 1:30PM-2:45PM TBA HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 19 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person Course Length: 13 weeks
  NOTE: 10 seats reserved for first year students. 7 seats reserved for sophomores.
  Focusing on a key decade in American life—the 1890s, for example, or the 1850s—this course will examine the dynamics of race, class, gender, and ethnicity as forces that have shaped, and been shaped by, American culture. How did various groups define themselves at particular historical moments? How did they interact with each other and with American society? Why did some groups achieve hegemony and not others, and what were—and are—the implications of these dynamics for our understanding of American culture? By examining both interpretive and primary documents—novels, autobiographies, works of art, and popular culture—we will consider these and other questions concerning the production of American culture.
2448 AMST-210-01 Doing Culture 1.00 LEC Baldwin, Davarian TR: 10:50AM-12:05PM TBA HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 25 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person Course Length: 13 weeks
  Culture is not something we simply consume, inhabit or even create. Culture is serious business: pun both intended and upended. We have a dynamic relationship with the world around us and in this class we will use culture, both elite and popular, to help bridge the gap between what we do here in the “ivory tower” and how we live out there in the “real world,” hopefully changing both in the process. Here we will not take culture for granted but engage culture as a method, a tool by which to engage, analyze and critique both historical narratives and contemporary events. In this course, street life, advertisements, popular media, and clothing are interrogated as archives of dynamic meaning, arenas of social interaction, acts of personal pleasure, and sites of struggle. We will also explore what happens when a diversity of forces converge at the intersection of commerce and culture. Present day notions of popular culture, and topics such as authenticity and selling out, will be interrogated both socially and historically.
2449 AMST-254-01 Invisible Man & Black Mod Expr 1.00 LEC Baldwin, Davarian TR: 1:30PM-2:45PM TBA HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 25 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person Course Length: 13 weeks
  Also cross-referenced with ENGL
  This class interrogates the text and contexts of Ralph Ellison’s iconic novel Invisible Man. Specifically, bringing historical and cultural analysis to bear on a single work of fiction, this course surveys key themes in the Black modern experience from 1899 to 1950 including migration, urbanization, the black modern aesthetic, black radicalism, and black nationalism. Ultimately, Ellison crafted a text of profound social commentary through experimentation with archival evidence and literary form. This class reconstructs the intellectual, aesthetic, and historical production of an American classic.
2450 AMST-285-01 Born in Blood 1.00 LEC Gac, Scott MW: 2:40PM-3:55PM TBA HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 49 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person Course Length: 13 weeks
  NOTE: Seat reservations: 20 seats for first-year, 15 seats for sophomores.
  This course explores the formations and functions of violence in the United States from 1754 to 1900. It investigates government (federal, state, and local) and individuals-and the intersection of the government and the individual-regarding military bodies, access to weapons, and legal and extralegal violent activities. Using figures from the well-known (George Washington or Abraham Lincoln) to the lesser known (Hannah Dustan or Robert Smalls), the class questions the limits and boundaries of American violence according to race, class, and gender. In the end, students will debate whether violence belongs aside liberty, democracy, freedom, and equality in the pantheon of American political and cultural ideals.
1385 AMST-301-01 AmStud Seminar 1.00 SEM Gac, Scott M: 6:30PM-9:10PM TBA WEB  
  Enrollment limited to 15 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person Course Length: 13 weeks
  This course, required for American Studies majors and ordinarily taken in the sophomore or junior year, examines central methods in the field. Situated on a theme, such as race or popular culture, seminar participants engage in archival, spatial, public humanities, and transnational approaches to the American experience.
2451 AMST-303-01 Basketball & Global Culture(s) 1.00 SEM Marston, Steven MW: 1:15PM-2:30PM TBA HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 15 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person Course Length: 13 weeks
  This seminar follows basketball "around the world" in order to trace how culture moves. Beginning with the game's roots in the 19th-century U.S., students will analyze how basketball was subsequently shared, adopted, and adapted to a variety of settings on every continent of the globe. Throughout, attention will remain on politics: that is, basketball's role within larger struggles around power, identity, and (inter)nationalism. It will become clear that, far from "just a game," basketball is a key cultural practice through which people and groups have come to understand themselves for over a century.
2476 AMST-307-01 Early American Women's Lit 1.00 SEM Wyss, Hilary TR: 2:00PM-3:40PM TBA HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 15 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person Course Length: 13 weeks
  Also cross-referenced with WMGS Cross-listing: ENGL-307-01
  Although early American literature often revolves around "Founding Fathers," in this course we will examine the writing of women. Writing poetry, journals, novels, travel diaries and letters, colonial women had a lot to say about their world and were extraordinarily creative in finding ways to say it-even when the society they lived in suggested it was "improper" for them to write. Along with elite white women, Native Americans, free African Americans, slaves, and indentured servants all wrote as well. As we explore this writing, we will think about what the texts these women produced tell us about the early American experience-how people thought of their place in the world, and what role women imagined for themselves in this newly developing society. This is a research-intensive seminar. For English majors, this course satisfies the requirement of a course emphasizing literature written between 1700-1900.
2551 AMST-319-01 Understandings of Puerto Rico 1.00 LEC Guzman, Amanda MW: 11:30AM-12:45PM TBA SOC  
  Enrollment limited to 19 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person Course Length: 13 weeks
    Cross-listing: ANTH-319-01
  Coined "a forgotten spot in the Caribbean" by Hamilton composer Lin-Manuel Miranda, the U.S. commonwealth of Puerto Rico has been the subject of renewed national attention in the wake of the devastating 2017 Hurricane Maria. This course interrogates Puerto Rican culture on its own terms - shifting from traditional definitions of the island's identity formation to contemporary critiques centering marginalized communities. Students will work hands-on with a diverse range of material and immaterial cultural productions originating from the island and stateside diaspora communities. Students will analyze how Puerto Rican culture has been represented in museum institutions and by popular media. The course culminates with students proposing original curation designs based on their new, critical understandings of the island's cultural legacy.
2705 AMST-320-01 Place in the Native Northeast 1.00 SEM Wickman, Thomas W: 2:00PM-5:15PM TBA HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 4 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person Course Length: 10 weeks
    Cross-listing: HIST-311-01
  The coasts, rivers, fields, hills, villages, and cities of present-day Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia have been home for indigenous families, communities, and nations through numerous environmental, political, and economic transformations. Students will learn about the ways that Native nations of the Northeast, from Pequots to Mi'kmaqs, have adapted, recreated, and reaffirmed a deep connectedness to their homelands and territories, from the fifteenth century to the present. Fields trips to local sites and archives will facilitate original historical research. Primary sources to be assigned include autobiographies, travel narratives, war histories, maps, Native American stories, and dictionaries of indigenous place names, and secondary source readings will cover major themes in Native American studies, with special emphasis on sense of place.
2514 AMST-340-01 Sports and American Society 1.00 SEM Marston, Steven MW: 11:30AM-12:45PM TBA HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 15 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person Course Length: 13 weeks
  This seminar addresses sports as a central thread in the American cultural fabric of the 19th and 20th centuries. Emphasis is placed on the sports/society intersection, with particular attention to issues of identity, capitalism, power, ethics, and globalization. Analysis is guided by a variety of cultural “texts,” from films and magazine articles to the great spectacles (Olympics, World Cup, etc.) through which sports have exerted global reach. Discussion and debate is encouraged throughout; students must grapple with the political issues that have, from the beginning to the present, pervaded the sports world
2548 AMST-344-01 America's Most Wanted 1.00 SEM Greenberg, Cheryl W: 1:15PM-3:55PM TBA HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 15 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person Course Length: 13 weeks
    Cross-listing: HIST-344-01
  Americans are fascinated by crime. We read detective fiction, watch police dramas, and hold murder mystery dinners. When the crimes are real, we debate guilt or innocence, punishment or rehabilitation, death penalty or life in prison at our dinner tables. Why this fascination, and what does it tell us about our culture and our concerns? In this course we examine several actual crimes and try to understand what made these crimes, and not others, so riveting. What drew us in? What kept us there? Along the way we will also discuss changing police and penal practices, how attitudes about race, class, religion, and gender play into public fixations on particular crimes, and how and why those attitudes shifted over time.
1175 AMST-399-01 Independent Study 1.00 - 2.00 IND Staff, Trinity TBA TBA Y  
  Enrollment limited to 15 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person Course Length: 13 weeks
  Submission of the special registration form, available in the Registrar's Office, and the approval of the instructor are required for enrollment.
1400 AMST-425-01 Museums,Vis Cult&Crit Theory 1.00 SEM Miller, Karen R: 6:30PM-9:10PM TBA  
  Enrollment limited to 7 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person Course Length: 13 weeks
    Cross-listing: AMST-825-01
  This course aims to examine the issues brought up in key theoretical readings by applying their insights to case studies, particularly cases of museum exhibitions and programs. Issues to be addressed include: reproduction and spectacle; gender and display; ethnicity, 'primitivism,' and race; and sexuality, sexual practice, and censorship. Case studies will vary each year and will range from exhibitions focusing on consumption, to ethnicity and race (such as the Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Pequot Museum), and sexuality (The Museum of Sex; the Robert Mapplethorpe exhibitions). Each class will combine theoretical readings with considerations of museum practice. By the end of the semester, students shall be able to analyze exhibitions using both the tools of postmodern theory and practical observation and history. This course fulfills the public humanities approach. This course meets the Public Humanities method requirement.
2659 AMST-440-90 Autistic Blackness 1.00 SEM Paulin, Diana T: 6:15PM-9:30PM N/A HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 8 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: Remote Course Length: 13 weeks
    Cross-listing: AMST-840-90
  How might autism and blackness be read alongside each other in a way that matters? By examining how the histories, lived experiences, and representations of autism and blackness intersect, it is possible to move beyond narrow understandings of both and create space for more diverse ways of being in our communities and in our world. What does it mean to recognize that autism is part of the neurodiversity of blackness historically and contemporaneously? What sort of creativity and meaning does the nonlabeled black autists presence add to our understanding blackness? We will examine this topic through an interdisciplinary lens that explores theoretical and historical perspectives of blackness, autism, and neurodiversity/neurodivergence, as well as primary sites of inquiry, including life writing, film, digital media, and performance/
1176 AMST-466-01 Teaching Assistantship 0.50 - 1.00 IND TBA TBA TBA Y  
  Enrollment limited to 15 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person Course Length: 13 weeks
  Submission of the special registration form, available in the Registrar’s Office, and the approval of the instructor are required for enrollment.
1177 AMST-490-01 Research Assistantship 1.00 IND TBA TBA TBA Y HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 15 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person Course Length: 13 weeks
2261 AMST-496-01 US Empire Asia/PacificWars 1.00 SEM Nebolon, Juliet W: 1:15PM-3:55PM TBA GLB2  
  Enrollment limited to 15 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person Course Length: 13 weeks
  Also cross-referenced with INTS Cross-listing: AMST-896-01
  U.S. military involvement in Asia and the Pacific Islands has impacted the experiences of Asian and Pacific Islander communities and their diaspora since the late nineteenth century. In this seminar, students study the history of the Asia/Pacific wars and investigate the consequences of U.S. militarism, empire, and settler colonialism in Asia and the Pacific Islands via individual research projects. Together we will examine historical narratives, government documents, and cultural texts (films, literature, musicals) to understand how U.S. wars in the Asia/Pacific region have informed notions of race, indigeneity, gender, and empire both at home and abroad. The course brings together scholarship from the fields of American Studies, Asian American Studies, Pacific Indigenous Studies, and East Asian Studies.
1138 AMST-499-01 Senior Thesis Part 2 2.00 IND TBA TBA TBA Y HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 15 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person Course Length: 13 weeks
  Submission of the special registration form, available in the Registrar's Office, and the approval of the thesis adviser and the director, are required for each semester of this year-long thesis. (The two course credits are considered pending in Part I of the thesis; they will be awarded with the completion of Part II.)
1399 AMST-825-01 Museums,Vis Cult&Crit Theory 1.00 SEM Miller, Karen R: 6:30PM-9:10PM TBA  
  Enrollment limited to 8 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person Course Length: 13 weeks
    Cross-listing: AMST-425-01
  This course aims to examine the issues brought up in key theoretical readings by applying their insights to case studies, particularly cases of museum exhibitions and programs. Issues to be addressed include: reproduction and spectacle; gender and display; ethnicity, 'primitivism,' and race; and sexuality, sexual practice, and censorship. Case studies will vary each year and will range from exhibitions focusing on consumption, to ethnicity and race (such as the Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Pequot Museum), and sexuality (The Museum of Sex; the Robert Mapplethorpe exhibitions). Each class will combine theoretical readings with considerations of museum practice. By the end of the semester, students shall be able to analyze exhibitions using both the tools of postmodern theory and practical observation and history. This course fulfills the public humanities approach. This course meets the Public Humanities method requirement.
2660 AMST-840-90 Autistic Blackness 1.00 SEM Paulin, Diana T: 6:15PM-9:30PM N/A HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 8 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: Remote Course Length: 13 weeks
    Cross-listing: AMST-440-90
  How might autism and blackness be read alongside each other in a way that matters? By examining how the histories, lived experiences, and representations of autism and blackness intersect, it is possible to move beyond narrow understandings of both and create space for more diverse ways of being in our communities and in our world. What does it mean to recognize that autism is part of the neurodiversity of blackness historically and contemporaneously? What sort of creativity and meaning does the nonlabeled black autists presence add to our understanding blackness? We will examine this topic through an interdisciplinary lens that explores theoretical and historical perspectives of blackness, autism, and neurodiversity/neurodivergence, as well as primary sites of inquiry, including life writing, film, digital media, and performance/
2516 AMST-874-01 Race & Realism: African-Am Lit 1.00 SEM Mrozowski, Daniel T: 6:15PM-9:30PM TBA HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 15 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person Course Length: 13 weeks
    Cross-listing: ENGL-874-01, ENGL-474-01
  Coming of age in the ruins of Reconstruction, the encroachment of Jim Crow laws, and waves of great migration, African American writers of the early 20th century shaped American literature in powerful and often-forgotten ways. Their texts, published in the decades before the Harlem Renaissance, offer an opportunity to consider how people produce literature under the pressures of structural racism; how art might respond to the terrorism of state sanctioned violence; how genres might stretch to articulate the psychological complexities of social and self identities; and how writers appeal to audiences, construct communities, forge friendships, and speak truth to power, despite institutional ambivalence and resistance to their voices. Course readings will come from Charles Chesnutt, Pauline Hopkins, Alice Dunbar Nelson, WEB Du Bois and others. For English majors, this course satisfies the requirement of a course emphasizing literature written post-1900.
1285 AMST-894-01 Museums and Communities Intern 1.00 IND Staff, Trinity TBA TBA  
  Enrollment limited to 15 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person Course Length: 13 weeks
  Matriculated American studies students have the opportunity to engage in an academic internship at an area museum or archive for credit toward the American studies degree. Interested students should contact the Office of Graduate Studies for more information.
2262 AMST-896-01 US Empire Asia/PacificWars 1.00 SEM Nebolon, Juliet W: 1:15PM-3:55PM TBA GLB2  
  Enrollment limited to 15 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person Course Length: 13 weeks
    Cross-listing: AMST-496-01
  U.S. military involvement in Asia and the Pacific Islands has impacted the experiences of Asian and Pacific Islander communities and their diaspora since the late nineteenth century. In this seminar, students study the history of the Asia/Pacific wars and investigate the consequences of U.S. militarism, empire, and settler colonialism in Asia and the Pacific Islands via individual research projects. Together we will examine historical narratives, government documents, and cultural texts (films, literature, musicals) to understand how U.S. wars in the Asia/Pacific region have informed notions of race, indigeneity, gender, and empire both at home and abroad. The course brings together scholarship from the fields of American Studies, Asian American Studies, Pacific Indigenous Studies, and East Asian Studies.
1286 AMST-940-01 Independent Study 1.00 IND TBA TBA TBA Y  
  Enrollment limited to 15 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person Course Length: 13 weeks
  Selected topics in special areas are available by arrangement with the instructor and written approval of the graduate adviser and program director. Contact the Office of Graduate Studies for the special approval form.
1153 AMST-953-01 Research Project 1.00 IND Staff, Trinity TBA TBA Y  
  Enrollment limited to 15 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person Course Length: 13 weeks
  Under the guidance of a faculty member, graduate students may do an independent research project on a topic in American studies. Written approval of the graduate adviser and the program director are required. Contact the Office of Graduate Studies for the special approval form.
1154 AMST-954-01 Thesis Part I 1.00 IND Staff, Trinity TBA TBA Y  
  Enrollment limited to 15 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person Course Length: 13 weeks
  (The two course credits are considered pending in Part I of the thesis; they will be awarded with the completion of Part II.)
1156 AMST-955-01 Thesis Part II 1.00 IND Staff, Trinity TBA TBA Y  
  Enrollment limited to 15 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person Course Length: 13 weeks
  (Continuation of American Studies 954.)
1262 AMST-956-01 Thesis 2.00 IND Staff, Trinity TBA TBA Y  
  Enrollment limited to 15 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person Course Length: 13 weeks
  (Completion of two course credits in one semester).