First-Year Courses in American CultureConsult the new Course Guide at: http://www.lsa.umich.edu/lsa/cg_subjectlist/0,2030,8,00.html?show=20&termArray=f_04_1510&cgtype=ug This page was created at 12:58 PM on Wed, May 5, 2004. Fall Academic Term, 2004 (September 7 - December 23)AMCULT 102. First Year Seminar in American Studies.Section 001 — Women's History/Women's Words. Meets with HISTORY 196.001 & WOMENSTD 151.002.Instructor(s): Carroll Smith-Rosenberg (csmithro@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: Only first-year students, including those with sophomore standing, may pre-register for First-Year Seminars. All others need permission of instructor. (3). (SS). May not be repeated for credit. Laboratory fee required. First-Year Seminar Credits: (3). Lab Fee: Laboratory fee required. Course Homepage: No homepage submitted.
AMCULT 102. First Year Seminar in American Studies.Section 003 — American Indian History of the Great Lakes and Prairie West. Meets with HISTORY 196.004.Instructor(s): Michael Witgen (mwitgen@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: Only first-year students, including those with sophomore standing, may pre-register for First-Year Seminars. All others need permission of instructor. (3). (SS). May not be repeated for credit. Laboratory fee required. First-Year Seminar Credits: (3). Lab Fee: Laboratory fee required. Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. France, England, the U.S., and Canada have laid claim to the Great Lakes and prairie west from the era of colonization in North America until the present day, but in reality this was an indigenous space until the 19th century. This course will examine how American Indian history in these regions has been understood, and produced, by both Native and non-Native peoples, and we will explore how this history contributed to the development of modern North America. This course is designed to introduce students to the Ethnohistorical approach to Native history, which combines the methodologies of anthropology, history, ethnic studies and postcolonial studies. Students will read and interpret a variety of textual documents ranging from the journals of Jesuit missionaries, to Native oral histories and origin stories, maps, narratives of exploration and discovery, treaties, works of fiction, and relevant secondary materials. Grades will be determined by active participation in lecture and discussion sections, reading response essays, two exams, and an individual research project with parts due throughout the semester.
AMCULT 103. First Year Seminar in American Studies.Section 001 — Red Scare: Politics and Culture in the Age of McCarthyism.Instructor(s): Alan M Wald (awald@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: Only first-year students, including those with sophomore standing, may pre-register for First-Year Seminars. All others need permission of instructor. (3). (HU). May not be repeated for credit. Laboratory fee required. First-Year Seminar Credits: (3). Lab Fee: Laboratory fee required. Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. This is a first year seminar that will meet twice a week to consider the complex political, ethical, historical, and aesthetic issues that characterize the era of the anti-Communist witch-hunt in the United States of the late 1940s and early 1950s. At that time there was a nation-wide "Red Scare" that was addressed by the controversial tactics of "McCarthyism." Writers, intellectuals, teachers, scholars, trade unionists, and many others were called upon to identify alleged subversives and to "name names" of radical friends, relatives, neighbors, and co-workers, often under the threat of imprisonment and blacklisting.
AMCULT 205. American Cultures.
Section 001 — Narrating Spaces of American Identity.Instructor(s): Magdalena Zaborowska (mzaborow@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (HU). May not be repeated for credit. Laboratory fee required. Credits: (3). Lab Fee: Laboratory fee required. Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. This course meets twice a week, including one two-hour lecture/discussion class and one hour-long discussion section in smaller groups. Taking an interdisciplinary Humanities approach, and using concepts of space to organize our ideas, we will study historic and cultural contexts that shape, locate, and define "what is an American." Through lectures, discussions, individual work and group projects, students will learn to relate narrative texts and architectural forms to better understand how different media can represent, interrogate, and complicate concepts of national identity. While reading novels and viewing major icons of American architecture on slides and in film, we will pay close attention to the ways in which texts and architecture — or books and buildings — record and interpret various stages in the formation of Americanness, from the Puritan notions of representational self to the postmodern ones of splintered and fragmented subject. We will examine ways in which notions of private and public space are shaped by such aspects of identity as gender, race, sexuality, class, ethnicity, and nationhood; we will also explore select historic moments in which one's sex, skin color, class or ethnicity determined who did or did not belong in the idealized American social space. Throughout the course, we will thus trace a fascinating dialogue between actual and imagined places, forms, and structures — and between narrative and visual forms. Requirements: regular attendance, active and intelligent participation in lectures and discussion sessions and in individual and group class projects, as well as willingness to be challenged by new concepts and ideas. Readings must be always completed in full before each lecture session. There will be several pop quizzes on the reading assignments and individual and group projects involving visual and spatial components. You will produce short weekly written responses to the readings and in-class assignments in discussion sections. There will be a comprehensive midterm exam and a final take-home exam. You are expected to be a scholar in this class, that is, a lot of your work, thinking, and preparation for our meetings will happen outside of the classroom, on your own reading, writing, and processing time.
AMCULT 214(214/215). Introduction to Asian/Pacific American Studies.
Asian American StudiesSection 001.Instructor(s): Phillip D Akutsu (akutsu@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: (4). (ID). (R&E). May not be repeated for credit. Laboratory fee required.
Credits: (4). Lab Fee: Laboratory fee required. Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. This course examines the long and diverse history and experiences of Asian Americans in the United States. Migrqating first from Asia in the late-1700s, Asian Americans provide a critical contribution to U.S. history, culture, and society. Despite this fact, Asian Americans continue to be seen as "foreigners" in the U.S. This course will review and analyze the Asian American experience in the U.S. from the mid-19th century to the present. Course content will cover Asian American contributions to historical, political, and sociocultural developments in the U.S.
AMCULT 217. Introduction to Native American Studies — Humanities.
Native American StudiesSection 001.Instructor(s): Betty L Bell (blbell@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (HU). (R&E). May not be repeated for credit. Laboratory fee required.
Credits: (3). Lab Fee: Laboratory fee required. Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. This is an introduction to the historical and literary cultures of Native America. We will
We will rely, when possible, on the words of Native Americans to discuss "contact" between tribal peoples and EuroAmericans and the resulting "adaptations" in tribal culture and identity. In addition to literature, we will rely on film, documentary and popular, for the representation of native experience and to chart images of the American Indian. Students are not expected to have knowledge of native history or literature; the course is designed to provide an introduction to both. An advanced course, ENGLISH 382, will be taught in Winter Term. There will be two lecture sessions and one discussion section per week. Students will be required to keep a journal of their readings, to participate in discussion groups, and take a midterm and final.
AMCULT 231. Visual & Material Culture Studies.
Section 001.Instructor(s): Kristin Anne HassPrerequisites & Distribution: (3). (HU). May not be repeated for credit. Credits: (3). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. We are living in a material and, an increasingly, visual world. Every image you see and every object you touch is shot-through with powerful cultural ideologies — ideas about power and gender and race and class and place and nation shape our visual and material world. In this course we will dive into the work of thinking about the images and objects in our daily lives as puzzles full of meanings for us to explore and unpack. In this course students will be asked to think about how photographs, maps, paintings, graffiti, architecture, fashions, monuments, billboards, museums, movies, and more — as fundamental elements of our visual and material world — construct and convey meaning. Students will be asked to think about ubiquitous visual and material signs as sites of essential forms of cultural knowledge. They will be asked to develop analytic tools for understanding these signs and to create, in response, some signs of their own. Drawing on scholarship in Visual Culture, Material Culture, Architecture, American Studies, Anthropology, Contemporary Art Criticism, Feminist Criticism, and more course readings will include Nicholas Mirzoeff's Visual Culture Reader, Lucy Lippard's The Lure of the Local: Sense of Place in a Multi-Centered Society, bell hooks' Black Looks: Race and Representation, Andrew Ross' The Celebration Chronicles, Paul Groth's Understanding Ordinary Landscapes, and Witlod Rybczynski's Looking Around: A Journey Through Architecture. Course Requirements: Students will be asked to write two papers and to produce, regardless of skill or background, two visual responses to the course material. These visual responses might include a photo essay, a short video, a series of drawings, a collection of blueprints, etc. Course grades will be based on papers, visual responses, and class participation.
AMCULT 240 / WOMENSTD 240. Introduction to Women's Studies.
Instructor(s): Elizabeth R Wingrove (ewingrov@umich.edu)Prerequisites & Distribution: (4). (HU). (R&E). May not be repeated for credit.
Credits: (4; 3 in the half-term). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted.
AMCULT 262 / RELIGION 267. Introductory Study of Native Religious Traditions.
Native American StudiesInstructor(s): Andrea SmithPrerequisites & Distribution: (3). (HU). May not be repeated for credit. Credits: (3). Course Homepage: No homepage submitted. While there is widespread interest among many non-Natives about the religious traditions of indigenous people, Native communities are becoming increasingly hostile toward non-Natives who seek knowledge about Native spirituality. This course will introduce students to the issues and controversies surrounding the study of Native religious traditions and will prepare them for further study of Native religions in a manner that is sensitive to the needs and concerns of Native communities. Issues to be covered include the relationship between the Christianization and colonization of Native communities, spiritual appropriation, spirituality and political activism, Native religions and public policy, and contemporary debates surrounding Native religious identity. This course will provide a foundation for students who wish to pursue in depth studies of indigenous religious traditions.
Consult the new Course Guide at: http://www.lsa.umich.edu/lsa/cg_subjectlist/0,2030,8,00.html?show=20&termArray=f_04_1510&cgtype=ug This page was created at 12:58 PM on Wed, May 5, 2004.
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