01-02 LS&A Bulletin

Courses in American Culture (Division 315)

AMCULT 401. Race and Racialization in the Americas.: Amer. Cult. 212 or 213, and 312. (3).; This course examines race issues and racializing practices from a Pan-Latino and comparative context.
AMCULT 403 / PHIL 403 / RELIGION 403. American Philosophy.: One Philosophy Introduction. (3; 2 in the half-term).; Locke and our constitution, Edwards on free will, and reason and feeling in transcendentalism and Emerson. This background is then used to study the "uniquely" American philosophers: Peirce, James, Santayana, and Dewey.
AMCULT 410. Hispanics in the United States.: (3; 2 in the half-term). May be repeated for credit with permission.; This course examines the history, culture, and literature of Hispanics in the United States.
AMCULT 421 / SOC 423. Social Stratification.: (3; 2 in the half-term).; By stratification we mean inequality, as it manifests itself in different social classes, castes, race or ethnic groups, the sexes. That inequality lies not only in the differential wealth, power, and influence of these social groups, but also in their contrasting life experiences and perceptions. The readings include both classic and contemporary statements. The questions discussed include: Who gets what and why? What are the psychological consequences of mobility? How is inequality manifested in work organizations? Is the family cause or consequence of stratification?
AMCULT 422. Advanced Ojibwa.: (Courses in Ojibwa); Amer. Cult. 323 and permission of the American Culture Program Director. (3; 2 in the half-term).; Designed to advance understanding of connected discourse. Grammatical structures are studied in more detail. Some emphasis on recognition of forms from different dialects. Concentration on expanding vocabulary and recognizing the patterns of word formation of informants. Thrust is on study of actual text material.
AMCULT 423. Advanced Ojibwa.: (Courses in Ojibwa); Amer. Cult. 422 and permission of the American Culture Program Director. (3; 2 in the half-term).; Designed to advance understanding of connected discourse. Grammatical structures are studied in more detail. Some emphasis on recognition of forms from different dialects. Concentration on expanding vocabulary and recognizing the patterns of word formation of informants. Thrust is on study of actual text material.
AMCULT 432 / HISTART 420. National Identity in American Art.: Upperclass standing, and any prior coursework in history of art, American culture, or American history. (3).; This course examines a series of moments, from Colonial portraiture to Abstract Expressionism, which artists, critics, historians, or their public have claimed were uniquely American. By studying related issues in cultural, political, and social history, we examine how Americans have sought to define a national identity though art.
AMCULT 490 / FILMVID 451. American Film Genres.: Junior standing. (4). Laboratory fee required.; The development of American film genres as a popular art form, considered within the broad context of American cultural development since the late nineteenth century.
AMCULT 496. Social Science Approaches to American Culture.: (3-4; 3 in the half-term). Laboratory fee required. May be repeated for credit with permission of concentration advisor.; Topics in the social sciences focusing on American culture studies.
AMCULT 498. Humanities Approaches to American Culture.: (3-4; 3 in the half-term). May be repeated for credit with permission.; Topics in the humanities focusing on American culture studies.
AMCULT 499 / HISTART 499. The Arts in American Life.: Prior coursework in History of Art or American Culture or American history; and permission of instructor. (3). Rackham credit requires additional work. May be elected for credit twice.; An historical and critical survey of the relation of the visual arts to American literature, philosophy, and technology from the mid-eighteenth to the mid-twentieth century. Lectures and discussion.
AMCULT 504 / SOC 504. American Immigration: Sociological Perspectives.: Graduate standing. (3).; Both the study of immigration and the questions that study raises are at the very root of social science. In this course we survey the literature that gives evidence of the major concepts, questions, and approaches which sociologists have used to study immigration, as well as the interface between immigration, race, and ethnicity in America. In this seminar, we will seek to focus each session on a different topic, such as the origin of ethnic stratification, race, and racism; the contrasting theoretical explanations of assimilation and internal colonialism for the reality of group differences in social outcomes in America; the different levels of analysis, micro vs. macro approaches to immigration; the causes and consequences of the differential incorporation of immigrants in American society; political vs. economic immigrants as different social types; middleman minorities vs. the ethnic enclave vs. the ethnic economy as models of immigrant adaptation; women and migration; and social networks and gender as the link between micro and macro levels of analysis.
AMCULT 505. Seminar in Latino Studies: Multidisciplinary Approaches to Chicano Studies Research.: Graduate standing. (3).
AMCULT 510. Topics in Ethnic Studies.: Graduate standing. (3).
AMCULT 511. Tropicalizing the North: A Cultural Studies Approach to Latin(o) Popular Music in the United States.: Graduate standing. (3).
AMCULT 520. American Literature in the Academy.: Graduate standing. (3).; This course – designed as an inquiry into its topic, not the presentation of a set of claims – examines American literary studies as a disciplinary formation. We will consider its intellectual history, its institutional history, and its present situation.
AMCULT 533 / CAAS 533 / HISTORY 572. Black Civil Rights from 1900.: AAS 201 recommended. (3; 2 in the half-term).; Afroamerican history as reflected in political, economic, cultural, religious, and civil rights protest movements from the 1890's to the 1960's, with a brief introductory review of the post-Reconstruction period beginning with 1877.
AMCULT 536 / MUSICOL 556. Music of Asian Americans.: Graduate standing. (3).
AMCULT 599. Methods in American Culture.: Graduate Standing in American Culture. (1-3).; This course, offered with the assistance of the Library Reference staff, deals with library resources and provides training in research methods and information management. Students are introduced to the wide variety of methods by which research may be conducted in this electronic age. This offering culminates in the preparation of an extensive annotated bibliography.
AMCULT 601. Topics in American Studies.: Graduate Standing. (1-3).
AMCULT 612 / HISTORY 602. Latino Historiography.: Graduate standing. (3).
AMCULT 614 / HISTORY 624. Asian American History.: Graduate Standing. (3).; Through extensive readings in Asian American history, this course surveys scholarship dating from the origins of ethnic studies in the 1960s to the present. Our discussions will focus on the following questions: How does the study of Asian Americans challenges historians to rethink issues of race, class, and gender? Why and how did the original vision of Asian American Studies emphasize social history and community studies? What have Asian American historians learned from interdisciplinary approaches? How have literary theory and cultural studies influenced recent and current work? What is the future direction of the field?
AMCULT 616 / HISTORY 612. Native American History.: Graduate Standing. (3).; Students in this course explore major themes in American Indian historiography including policy, gender, economy, and culture in an effort to understand past themes and future directions of American Indian history.
AMCULT 618 / ANTHRCUL 621. Rural American Culture.: Graduate standing. (2).
AMCULT 625 / COMM 625. Critical-Cultural Studies in Mass Media. Graduate standing.: Graduate standing. (3).
AMCULT 642 / WOMENSTD 642. Gender and American Families.: Graduate standing. (3).; Seminar focusing on interdisciplinary analysis of gender in American families. Attention to literary representations of gender and families, historical exploration of changing gender and family norms, and/or sociological and psychological studies of men's and women's experiences in American families.
AMCULT 685 / HISTORY 685. Studies in American Intellectual History.: Graduate standing; upperclassmen with permission of instructor. (3).; This class will introduce students to central issues in the field of the United States intellectual history since the 1860s. Intellectual history is the study of what people believed they knew, how they theorized their relations to each other and to the world, and what the effects of such conceptualizations were on social action. Texts selected include primary and secondary sources and trace debates arising from new theories of evolution, social relations, and psychology. Assigned readings will address some of the international contexts of U.S. intellectual life, as well as the role of scientific theory in conceptualizing race, gender, religion, and other differential attributes.
AMCULT 686 / HISTORY 686. Studies in American Cultural History.: (3; 2 in the half-term).; This seminar will address issues critical to the use of popular culture materials in historical interpretation. We will attempt to balance readings of important classic texts and emerging literature with interpretative work using primary sources from both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
AMCULT 697. Approaches to American Culture.: Graduate standing; upperclassmen with permission of instructor. (3).; Concentrates on a variety of ways of studying American society and its culture and provides an introduction to the conceptual frameworks and intellectual history of American Studies.
AMCULT 698. American Culture in Comparative Perspectives. Permission of instructor or adviser.: Graduate standing; upperclassmen with permission of instructor. (3).
AMCULT 699. Periods in American Culture: Literary.: Graduate standing. (3). May be repeated for credit.; This interdisciplinary readings course is designed especially for students seeking to deepen their theoretical understanding of a topic (varies by instructor and term offered) in American Culture
AMCULT 778 / HISTORY 778. Seminar in American Intellectual History.: History 685 or 686, and Graduate standing. (3; 2 in the half-term).
AMCULT 850. Advanced Graduate Seminar in Primary Research.: Graduate standing. (1-3).; Should be taken as early as possible in the student's dissertation work. Student's may enroll in it at any point after advancement to candidacy, although it will ordinarily be taken immediately after the field examinations have been completed. This course will be designed to support students in getting their dissertations under way. However, some students may frame a dissertation topic early and wish to begin working on it before taking the field examinations; therefore, the course will ensure that it is also useful to students who are further along with their work. The class will include basic questions about research methods, collective critique of work in draft, discussion of ethics of scholarship and academic life, practical information about submitting papers for conferences and articles for publication, and visits from Program faculty from a variety of fields to discuss professional issues.
AMCULT 899. Special Research.: Graduate standing. (1-6). (INDEPENDENT).
AMCULT 990. Dissertation/Precandidate.: Graduate Standing. Election for dissertation work by doctoral student not yet admitted as a Candidate. (1-8; 1-4 in the half-term). (INDEPENDENT). May be repeated for credit.; Election for dissertation work by doctoral student not yet admitted as a Candidate.
AMCULT 993. Graduate Student Instructor Training Program.: GSTA award. Graduate Standing. (1-3).; A seminar for all beginning graduate student instructors, consisting of a two day orientation before the term starts and periodic workshops/meetings during the Fall Term. Beginning graduate student instructors are required to register for this class.
AMCULT 995. Dissertation/Candidate.: Graduate Standing. Graduate School authorization for admission as a doctoral Candidate. (8; 4 in the half-term). (INDEPENDENT). May be repeated for credit.; Graduate School authorization for admission as a doctoral Candidate. N.B. The defense of the dissertation (the final oral examination) must be held under a full term Candidacy enrollment period.

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