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Course Listing for AMERICAN STUDIES - Fall 2022 (ALL: 09/06/2022 - 12/21/2022)
Class
No.		 Course ID Title Credits Type Instructor(s) Days:Times Location Permission
Required		 Dist Qtr
3266 AMST-202-01 Early America 1.00 LEC Wickman, Thomas MWF: 10:00AM-10:50AM TBA HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 12 Waitlist available: Y Mode of Instruction: In Person  
    Cross-listing: HIST-201-01
  NOTE: 4 seats reserved for AMST majors, 4 seats for first years and 4 seats for sophomores.
  This course introduces students to major developments in the political, economic, and social history of North America from the sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. We will study indigenous sovereignty, encounters between Europeans and Native Americans, the founding of European colonies, the rise of the Atlantic slave trade, the Seven Years' War, the American Revolution, the spread of human enslavement, the War of 1812, Indian removal policy, U.S. wars with Native nations, westward expansion, the U.S.-Mexican War, abolitionism, and the Civil War. Students will be challenged to imagine American history within Atlantic and global contexts and to comprehend the expansiveness of Native American homelands and the shifting nature of North American borderlands.
2888 AMST-223-01 The Prison & Public Humanities 1.00 LEC Camp, Jordan TR: 9:25AM-10:40AM TBA HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 25 Waitlist available: Y Mode of Instruction: In Person  
  The United States has the world's largest prison population. This course interrogates the structures and processes that have led to this calamitous condition. It introduces students to public humanities approaches to understanding the problem of mass incarceration. It prepares students for engaged public intellectual work in oral history, journalism, and social justice advocacy, among other creative applications. Through readings, lectures, and original research, students will acquire an inventory of concepts, including: systemic racism, the carceral state, policing, and security. Throughout the course, we will ask: How have carceral resolutions of social and economic crisis been legitimated? How have public humanities scholars challenged dominant definitions of mass incarceration? Together, we will explore the dimensions of the problem and what ethical and political alternatives might be possible.
3421 AMST-260-01 Civil Rights to BLM 1.00 LEC Greenberg, Cheryl TR: 2:55PM-4:10PM TBA HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 25 Waitlist available: Y Mode of Instruction: In Person  
  Also cross-referenced with MNOR Cross-listing: HRST-260-01, HIST-260-01
  Have we entered a new civil rights era? What are this new movement's goals? Who are these new activists and what political beliefs motivate them? How did we get here? This seminar tries to answer these questions by looking backward. Both the strategies and the political analyses of the Movement for Black Lives are rooted in the successes - and failures - of the civil rights movements of the past. We will study the twentieth century's "Long Civil Rights Movement" and consider both continuities and breaks between past and present struggles for racial justice. This course is not open to those who took a similar course at the 300 level.
3301 AMST-285-01 Born in Blood 1.00 LEC Gac, Scott MW: 2:55PM-4:10PM TBA HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 49 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person  
    Cross-listing: HIST-285-01
  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.
3355 AMST-332-01 Critical Studies in Higher Ed 1.00 SEM Baldwin, Davarian TR: 1:30PM-2:45PM TBA HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 25 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person  
  Also cross-referenced with EDUC
  Upon graduation you will be forever tied to Trinity College. Yet, during your time here, you have little opportunity to learn about higher education itself. This course will change that. While colleges and universities are often understood as "ivory towers," insulated from the "real world," institutions of higher education actually sit at the center of today's politics and economy. How did we get here? With a focus on Trinity, this class explores the impact of higher education on communities both on and off campus. Together we question whether higher education, in its current form, was inevitable. We also explore whether other paths are possible. Key themes include: land acknowledgments, academic freedom, the knowledge economy, sexual assault, student debt, academic labor, campus policing, and community engagement.
2641 AMST-357-01 Race and Urban Space 1.00 LEC Baldwin, Davarian TR: 10:50AM-12:05PM TBA HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 25 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person  
    Cross-listing: URST-357-01
  Scholars and now even the larger public have conceded that race is a social construct. However, many are just beginning to fully explore how the specific dimensions and use of space is mediated by the politics of racial difference and racial identification. Therefore, this course seeks to explore how racism and race relations shape urban spatial relations, city politics, and the built environment and how the historical development of cities has shaped racial identity as lived experience. Covering the 20th century, the course examines three critical junctures: Ghettoization (1890s-1940s); Metropolitan Formation (1940s-1990s); and Neo-Liberal Gentrification (present).
3441 AMST-360-01 Walden 1.00 SEM Hager, Christopher MW: 11:30AM-12:45PM TBA Y HUM3  
  Enrollment limited to 10 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person  
  Also cross-referenced with WELL Cross-listing: ENGL-360-01
  Henry David Thoreau is popularly regarded as a pioneer of social distancing, but his work speaks to contemporary life in other ways, too. He followed his conscience into conflict with federal law. He studied the natural world so fastidiously that scientists use his journals to document global warming. He made flawed but uncommonly earnest efforts to understand North America's indigenous history. This course takes WALDEN as the starting point for an intellectual exploration ranging from Thoreau's medieval Japanese precursor Kamo No Chomei to debates still raging about him today. Students will get to follow-or carve out for themselves-one of many paths of inquiry Thoreau's work inspires, including Ecology & Climate, Ethics & Political Resistance, Transcendentalism & Eastern Philosophy, or Indigeneity & Deep History.
3374 AMST-371-01 Excavating Island Futures 1.00 SEM Guzman, Amanda MW: 1:30PM-2:45PM TBA GLB5  
  Enrollment limited to 19 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person  
    Cross-listing: ANTH-371-01
  Moving beyond popular tropes of archaeology as an Indiana Jones adventure and of the Caribbean as a tourist playground, this course explores the material realities of archaeological practice in the study of past island culture and society. Through a multi-site case-study approach, the course considers uncertain future dynamics entangling economic and climate precarity, and questions of colonial debts and sovereignty with methods of cultural management and historical preservation. We will critically trace the historical legacies of archaeological excavation in and theoretical framings about the Caribbean. We will examine how archaeology has and continues to powerfully impact contemporary art. Students will learn to identify and analyze a wide range of Caribbean artifact types and assemblages across diverse temporal and geographic contexts.
1418 AMST-399-01 Independent Study 1.00 - 2.00 IND TBA TBA TBA Y HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 15 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person  
  Submission of the special registration form, available in the Registrar's Office, and the approval of the instructor are required for enrollment.
3361 AMST-432-01 Toni Morrison's BELOVED 1.00 SEM Paulin, Diana T: 6:30PM-9:00PM TBA Y HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 15 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person  
    Cross-listing: AMST-832-01, ENGL-832-01
  This seminar interrogates the text and contexts of Toni Morrison's powerful and challenging novel, Beloved, bringing historical, theoretical, and cultural analysis to bear on a single work of fiction. We will consider how Morrison crafted a story about the horrors of slavery, as well as the value of excavating stories deemed unspeakable or illegible. This course surveys critical responses to Morrison's work and considers how contemporary theories of racial formation and embodied blackness inform the novel. We will also address the novel's representation of themes that speak to Black racial formations not only in the wake of slavery, but also in the context of contemporary topics such as migration, trauma and healing, neurodiversity, radical self-love, and Afro-environmentalism.
3302 AMST-454-01 Civil War and Reconstruction 1.00 SEM Gac, Scott M: 6:30PM-9:10PM TBA HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 6 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person  
    Cross-listing: AMST-854-01, HIST-354-01
  This course examines not only the military dimensions of the war years but also such topics as politics in the Union and the Confederacy, the presidential leadership of Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, women in the Union and Confederate war efforts, and the struggle over emancipation. The latter part of the course considers post-war political, social, and economic developments, including nearly four million African Americans' transition from slavery to freedom, the conflict over how to reconstruct the former Confederate states, the establishment of bi-racial governments in those states, and the eventual overthrow of Reconstruction by conservative white "Redeemers." Lectures and discussions.
1451 AMST-466-01 Teaching Assistantship 0.50 - 1.00 IND TBA TBA TBA Y HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 15 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person  
  Submission of the special registration form, available online, and the approval of the instructor are required for enrollment. Guidelines are available in the College Bulletin. (0.5 - 1 course credit)
1545 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  
1419 AMST-498-01 Senior Thesis Part 1 2.00 IND TBA TBA TBA Y HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 15 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person  
  NOTE: Requires completion of the Special Registration Form, available in the Office of the Registrar.
  NOTE: 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 enrollment. The registration form is 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.)
  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 enrollment. The registration form is 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.)
3387 AMST-801-01 Approaches to American Studies 1.00 LEC Miller, Karen R: 6:30PM-9:00PM TBA HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 15 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person  
  This seminar, which is required of all American Studies graduate students, examines a variety of approaches to the field. Readings may include several “classic” texts of 18th- and 19th-century American culture and several key works of American studies scholarship from the formative period of the field after World War II, as well as more recent contributions to the study of the United States. Topics will include changing ideas about the content, production, and consumption of American culture; patterns of ethnic identification and definition; the construction of categories like “race” and “gender”; and the bearing of class, race, gender, and sexuality on individuals’ participation in American society and culture. Undergraduates who wish to enroll in this course must obtain permission of their adviser and the instructor.
3440 AMST-832-01 Toni Morrison's BELOVED 1.00 SEM Paulin, Diana T: 6:30PM-9:00PM TBA HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 15 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person  
    Cross-listing: ENGL-832-01, AMST-432-01
  This seminar interrogates the text and contexts of Toni Morrison's powerful and challenging novel, Beloved, bringing historical, theoretical, and cultural analysis to bear on a single work of fiction. We will consider how Morrison crafted a story about the horrors of slavery, as well as the value of excavating stories deemed unspeakable or illegible. This course surveys critical responses to Morrison's work and considers how contemporary theories of racial formation and embodied blackness inform the novel. We will also address the novel's representation of themes that speak to Black racial formations not only in the wake of slavery, but also in the context of contemporary topics such as migration, trauma and healing, neurodiversity, radical self-love, and Afro-environmentalism.
3304 AMST-854-01 Civil War and Reconstruction 1.00 SEM Gac, Scott M: 6:30PM-9:10PM TBA HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 3 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person  
    Cross-listing: HIST-354-01, AMST-454-01
  This course examines not only the military dimensions of the war years but also such topics as politics in the Union and the Confederacy, the presidential leadership of Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, women in the Union and Confederate war efforts, and the struggle over emancipation. The latter part of the course considers post-war political, social, and economic developments, including nearly four million African Americans' transition from slavery to freedom, the conflict over how to reconstruct the former Confederate states, the establishment of bi-racial governments in those states, and the eventual overthrow of Reconstruction by conservative white "Redeemers." Lectures and discussions.
1570 AMST-894-01 Museums and Communities Intern 1.00 IND TBA TBA TBA HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 15 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person  
  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.
1443 AMST-940-01 Independent Study 1.00 IND TBA TBA TBA Y HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 15 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person  
  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.
1439 AMST-953-01 Research Project 1.00 IND TBA TBA TBA Y HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 15 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person  
  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.
1440 AMST-954-01 Thesis Part I 1.00 IND TBA TBA TBA Y HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 15 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person  
  (The two course credits are considered pending in Part I of the thesis; they will be awarded with the completion of Part II.)
1442 AMST-955-01 Thesis Part II 1.00 IND TBA TBA TBA Y HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 15 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person  
  (Continuation of American Studies 954.)
1441 AMST-956-01 Thesis 2.00 IND TBA TBA TBA Y HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 15 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person  
  (Completion of two course credits in one semester).