100. What is an American? (4). (SS).
This lecture/discussion section course will study the diverse, conflicting
ways in which Americans have defined what it means to be American, in both
the past and the present. A rich tradition of debate over what values and
experiences make up our national identity informs most of the central political
and cultural conflicts in our history. This course will study both the contemporary
era of intense controversy over what it means to be American - what some
have called a "cultural civil war" - and periods of past conflicts
over questions of diversity and difference in American life. The course
will meet for two hours a week for lecture and two hours for discussion.
Students will be graded on the basis of classroom participation, midterm
and final examinations, and one term paper. Cost:3 WL:1 (Scobey)
170/Hist. 170/UC 170/WS 210. New Worlds: Colonialism
and Cultural Encounters. First-year students only. (4). (Introductory
Composition).
The subject of this course is early American history and culture - defined
broadly to encompass what is today Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean as
well as the United States. It assumes that North America was a "New
World" for not only the Europeans who conquered, explored, missionized,
and settled the region, but also for the Africans whom Europeans enslaved
and brought to the colonies by force and the Native Americans whose ancestors
had occupied the territory for thousands of years. Among the many stories
of contact and conflict between, among, and within groups that make up early
American history, this class focuses on those that speak most powerfully
to present-day struggles over gender, race, class, and religion. WL:1 (Karlsen)
Section 002 - Close Encounters: Gender, Sexuality, and the Making of the Nation. Struggles over sexuality have played an integral role in American life. In this seminar, we will consider how sexuality functioned in encounters between different communities before the Civil War. Using a variety of sources, ranging from captivity narratives to sentimental fiction, we will think about why and how such a seemingly 'private' topic has taken on such public force. Looking at encounters in early America, we will think about the ways that interactions of gender, race, class, ethnicity, and sexual orientation have combined to produce dynamic, sometimes explosive discussions of appropriate sexual practices and desires. We will also consider the role these discussions have played in defining American identity and nationhood. (Paris)
Section 003 - Spiritual Worlds: Religion, Race, and Gender in the Transformation of American Culture. Drawing on sources such as personal narratives, missionary accounts, sacred songs, trial records, and historical interpretations, this seminar will explore the spiritual worlds and religious practices of Native, African, and European Americans to roughly 1840. The role of religion in the conquest of new lands, women's struggles for spiritual autonomy and authority, and romantic appropriations of Native religions are among the several topics to be explored. We will be especially interested in those dramatic historical moments when the sacred worlds of different groups collided or when social and cultural tensions were expressed in spirit possessions, witchcraft accusations, religious revivals, pan-Indian movements, and slave revolts. (Karlsen)
Section 004 - Re-Writing the Conquest: Representations of the Caribbean in Travel and Other Narratives. Europeans and other travelers to the Americas left vivid accounts of the people and cultures they conquered and colonized. In this seminar, we will read and discuss travel narratives written about the Caribbean, from roughly the late 17th to the mid-19th centuries. Analyzing them as "tools of empire," as cultural productions that invented the Americas for Western audiences are encouraged expansionist desires, we will explore recurrent themes such as "cannibalism," romanticizations of slavery, eroticizations of "the other," rationalizations of violence. To examine the dynamics of race, gender, and power in these "colonial encounters," we will also read accounts left to us by those whose bodies, cultures, and land were colonized. (Lagos)
Section 005 - A Militant New World: War, Peace, and Trade on North America's Middle Ground. Recognizing with the historian Ian Steele that warfare deserves to be neither celebrated nor forgotten, this seminar will examine military, diplomatic, and economic interactions among Native American, European American, and African American populations in northwestern North America from approximately 1675 to 1840. We will analyze a range of primary and secondary sources, from fur traders' journals, treaties, and captivity narratives to archaeological records, recent Hollywood films, and museum exhibits. Course materials will address the impact of the violent intrusion of newcomers and how military goals and strategies, demographic change, marriage practices, disease, and other factors expanded and dramatically altered social and political relations in this region. (Parmenter)
Section 007 - Animal Encounters: America's New World of Natural Science. The "natural world" is more than a mere stage for human cultural contact. Humans bring culturally-specific ideas about "nature," "culture," plants, and animals to their efforts to subsist, and they modify environments as much as they adapt to them. In this seminar, we will investigate how the natural world became a medium for the interaction of European, African, and Native American cultures in the 18th and early 19th centuries and how scientific studies speak to cultural assumptions about race, gender, and class. Examining visual as well as written sources, we will also ask a range of specific questions, such as how the mastodon helped create the United States, how the opossum conjured images of women in the minds of European scientists, and why botanists were so obsessed by the sex lives of plants. (Cox)
206. Themes in American Culture. (3). (SS). May be repeated for
credit with permission of concentration advisor.
Section 001 - Work, Gender, and U.S. Politics in the Late 20th Century.
Students who come to UM will spend most of their lives working for wages
in some capacity. This course explores ideologies and cultural norms which
inform the type of work experiences available to people of different social
positions. Some aspects of work in the U.S. have changed dramatically in
recent years (removal of explicit color barriers) while others have remained
remarkably resistant to change (wage gaps). In order to explicate "work"
in the twentieth century U.S., this class will explore the relational nature
of differences in career and homemaking opportunities and prescriptions,
in career trajectories, and in social welfare entitlements and payouts.
Through thinking about the relational nature of differences among women
and men of various social/cultural locations, we will uncover and explore
recurring themes throughout the history of work in the U.S., the potency
of the wage, separate spheres, domesticity and republicanism, racism, class
solidarities and fragmentations, and more. WL:1 (Sampson)
240/WS 240. Introduction to Women's Studies. Open to all undergraduates.
(4). (HU). (This course meets the Race and Ethnicity Requirement).
See Women's Studies 240.