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Unless otherwise stated, the permission required for the repetition for credit of specifically designated courses is that of the student's concentration or BGS advisor.
102. First Year Seminar
in American Studies. Only first-year students, including those with sophomore standing, may pre-register for First-Year
Seminars. All others need permission of instructor. (3). (SS).
Section 001 – Politics and Culture of Race in Post-1945
United States. This course will examine how changing ideas
of race and race relations have affected life in the United States
over the past fifty years. Students will consider a wide range
of texts – from government reports and historical analyses
to novels, movies, and popular music – to understand the
role that debates over the meaning of race have played in recent
political, cultural, and social movements. (Countryman)
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Times, Location, and Availability
201. American Values.
(4). (HU).
This course will explore the riot of ideals, aspirations, conflicts, visions, and material realities that have defined American culture.
It will draw on a range of sources – including fiction, music, movies, architecture, and images in art – to reconstruct a history
of ways in which Americans have imagined their nation. And, while this is not a history course, we will read a lot of history to
follow the life of the American imagined community from the struggles
to make sense of industrial growth, national expansion, and urbanization
in the late 19th century to the current struggle to understand an increasingly multi-ethnic population, an increasingly service
oriented economy, and a growing distrust of government with the
history of ideas about what "America" should mean. We
will think about American culture as it is manifest in ideas about
patriotism and war, race and national progress, the power of the
local and the claims of the nation, as well as the idea of separate
spheres as a solution to the moral problems of industrial capitalism.
Cost:3 WL:1
(Cándida Smith)
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Times, Location, and Availability
204. Themes in American
Culture. (3). (HU). Laboratory fee ($10) required.
May be repeated for credit with permission of concentration advisor.
Section 001 – Social Constructions of Whiteness in American Culture.
The past five years have seen a virtual explosion of scholarship
grappling with the meaning of "whiteness" in American
culture. This course is designed to introduce students to this
new and exciting scholarship. Topics include: whiteness and class;
white supremacy; white ethnicities; whiteness and masculinity;
whiteness and femininity; racial cross-dressing; immigration and race; white music; whiteness and post-colonial discourse. Discussion
will focus on representative texts from American popular culture, including: film (Deliverance, White Men Can't Jump);
TV ("Roseanne"); white music (rock and country); and performance art (Elvis impersonators, "White Trash Girl").
This is an anti-racist approach to "whiteness studies."
(Brent)
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Times, Location, and Availability
212. Introduction to
Latino Studies – Social Science. (3). (SS). (R&E).
This course is designed as a broad overview of the major topics, themes, and methodologies in social science research in Latino
Studies. The goal is to introduce students to the diverse experiences
of different Latino groups – primarily Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans – in order to highlight similarities as well as differences
in their historical and contemporary positions in the United States.
(Almaguer)
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Times, Location, and Availability
214. Introduction to
Asian American Studies – Social Science. (3). (SS).
(R&E).
Introduction to Asian American Studies will examine the nature
of American culture and society through a specific study of one
racial/ethnic group, Asian Americans. The Asian American experience
reveals the dynamics of race relations and economic stratification
in the U.S.A. as well as the continuing process of defining America
and American. This course provides an introductory study of the
experience of Asian immigrants and their citizen descendants in the United States from the mid-nineteenth century to the present.
The groups covered include Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Pacific Islander, South Asian, and Southeast Asian Americans as
well as the heterogeneity within the various ethnic communities, such as gender, class, generation, and region. Topics for discussion
will include international/domestic relations, immigration policy, ethnic literary expressions. The format of this introductory course
is largely lecture with an emphasis on encouraging and incorporating
student discussion and dialogue especially in applying their knowledge
gained from this course to an analysis of contemporary American
society. (Nomura)
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Times, Location, and Availability
217. Introduction to
Native American Studies – Humanities. (3). (HU).
(R&E).
This course will introduce the colonization and representation
of the "Indian" within America's "discovery"
and "victory" culture. To provide alternative (resisting)
histories to Manifest Destiny, we will rely on historical and contemporary writings of Native Americans. In addition to literary
materials, popular films and native personal narratives will guide
our discussion of the courses primary question, "Who owns the stories of Native America?" Students are not expected
to have any previous knowledge of native histories or cultures.
Course expectations include attendance, midterm, final, and a
journal. (Bell)
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Times, Location, and Availability
240/WS 240. Introduction
to Women's Studies. (4). (HU). (R&E).
See Women's Studies 240.
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Times, Location, and Availability
301. Topics in American
Culture. (1-3). (Excl). May be repeated for credit
with permission.
Section 001 – Hollywood Film Industry and American National Identities.
(3 credits). In this course, we will study how an idealized
model of American national identity got established, questioned
by the Hollywood film industry between (roughly) 1930 and 1980.
The Hollywood studio film was distinguished by its ability to
project images of normative Americans and to undercut those notions;
in Hollywood, threats and alternatives to that identity were constructed, undermined, and remade – sometimes in the very same film. We'll
witness how films like Stagecoach, Scarface, It's a Wonderful
Life, Shadow of a Doubt postulate models of Americans and/or the threat to it; then we'll see how more recent films like The
Godfather, Chinatown, and Unforgiven extend this
process by challenging the rules by which these genres work. We'll
also witness Hollywood's treatment of such issues as race, immigration, sexuality, and the family and test the Hollywood version against
acts of literary imagination, historical analysis, sociological
inquiry. Requirements: journals; one paper; midterm and final.
(Freedman)
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Times, Location, and Availability
304/Soc. 304. American
Immigration. (3). (SS).
See Sociology 304 (Harris-Reid)
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Times, Location, and Availability
309. Learning through
Community Practice. Permission of instructor. (1-4).
(Excl). (EXPERIENTIAL).
Section 001 – Empowering Families and Communities. (4 credits).
For Fall Term, 1998, this course is offered jointly with Psychology
319 and 320. (Mattis)
Section 002 – Practicum in the Latino/a Community. (3-4
credits, to be arranged with the instructor). For Fall Term, 1998, this course is offered jointly with Psychology
305.003. (Jose-Kampfner)
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Times, Location, and Availability
311. Topics in Ethnic
Studies. (3). (HU). May be repeated for credit with
permission of advisor.
Section 001 – Dances of Latinas/Latinos. This course will
examine contemporary dance and performance art as a transformative
form beyond the body. Through an analysis of selected choreography
and performance, we will establish a dialogue that recreates the
historical-political-cultural background and context of works
about Puerto Rico, New York, and Latino America. The choreography
presented will focus on factors such as race, class, gender, and sexuality. We will examine choreography and other artistic collaborative
efforts (i.e., music/composers, installation, performer, literature, and visual art) within the issues of cultural identity
and how this affects process, movement, and the dance aesthetics.
Students are required to participate through movement, discussion, observation, analysis, and performance. Other requirements include:
related readings of text and articles, journal entries, one critical
essay, written critiques, and complete participation in discussions, workshops and attendance to performances. This course is part
of the Theme Semester sponsored by the Institute for Research
on Women and Gender. Taught by Puerto Rican Choreographer/Performance
Artist/Assistant Professor of Dance. (Velez Aguayo)
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Times, Location, and Availability
313/Anthro. 314. Cuba
and its Diaspora. (4). (Excl).
See Anthropology 314. (Behar)
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Times, Location, and Availability
324/Engl. 381. Asian
American Literature. (3). (HU). May be repeated for
a total of six credits.
See English 381. (Sumida)
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Times, Location, and Availability
335. Arts and Culture
in American Life. (3). (HU).
This course should give students a broad vocabulary with which
to explore the ways in which arts and culture constitute and reflect
American life; give them a rich collection of fiction, film, public
art, architecture, poetry, music, and material culture to grapple
with; and give them a good deal of practice in the work of unpacking the stories in and the stories behind this kind of cultural production.
Using a variety of readings, songs, photographs, paintings, newspaper
accounts, artists' renderings of events in American culture, and the development of the technologies, sounds, and images which
are crucial to the histories of arts and culture in the United
States will give students some kaleidoscopic visions to read, talk about, and think through different kinds of representation
and narrative forms of arts and culture. WL:1
(Hass)
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Times, Location, and Availability
342/Hist. 368/WS 360.
History of the Family in the U.S. (4). (SS).
See History 368. (Morantz-Sanchez)
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Times, Location, and Availability
350. Approaches to American
Culture. Amer. Cult. 201, junior standing, or concentration
in American Culture. (3). (Excl).
Section 001 – Twentieth Century Radical Movements: Culture and Commitment. This is a required seminar for juniors concentrating
in American Culture that will meet weekly to examine various methods
of addressing "commitment" in mid-20th century U.S.
culture. The term "commitment" refers to the relationship
of intellectuals, writers, and other cultural workers to issues
of oppression and social transformation, such as racism, international
war, class inequality, sexism, and academic freedom. Among the
approaches of inquiry to be engaged are oral history, narrative
historical scholarship, cultural studies methodology, documentary
materials, film, fiction, and autobiography. A range of perspectives
will be included, and seminar members will be able to collectively
plan some of the sessions. A few of the texts that we might employ
are George Lipsitz, Rainbow at Midnight; Michael Denning, The Cultural Front; Robin Kelley, Race Rebels;
Paula Rabinowitz, Labor and Desire; Irving Howe, A
Margin of Hope; Victor Navasky, Naming Names; Chester
Himes, The Lonely Crusade; and Tess Slesinger, The
Unpossessed. Requirements include full participation, a diagnostic
essay and a substantial research paper, presentation of material
to the seminar, and possibly a short final exam. (Wald)
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Times, Location, and Availability
351. Race and American
Cinema. (4). (HU). Laboratory fee ($35) required.
This course focuses on an analysis of the representation of racial
and ethnic groups in Hollywood cinema, followed by a study of
films that members of those groups have made about themselves.
We will study how Hollywood developed certain stereotypes or reacted
against them. We will also look at films from recent independent
cinema to see how these films have followed the established pattern
of images or, on the contrary, have intended to represent their
own communities. Films viewed are examples from Classical American
cinema of the '40s and '70s to the present, mostly fictional representations, using some appropriate documentaries. We will discuss representation
of African/Asian/Native Americans, and Latinas/os, looking at
both content and form, use of cinematographic language and construction
of meaning, from an eclectic choice of theoretical positions.
Films are the main texts, with insight from readings. The course
has two lectures, two film showings, and a small discussion group
per week. A journal of film criticism, a term paper/project, a
midterm, and a class presentation are required. Film attendance
required TTh 7-9 p.m.
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Times, Location, and Availability
360/Great Books 350/Hist.
350. Great Books of the Founding Fathers. Open to
sophomores, juniors, and seniors. (3). (Excl).
See Great Books 350. (Thornton)
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Times, Location, and Availability
374/Hist. 374. The Politics and Culture of the "Sixties." (3). (SS).
Classic Rock, Motown, Hippies, Freedom Rides, Draft Card and Bra Burnings, the Vietnam Syndrome, and the Great Society. The
"Sixties" have a mythic quality in our political and cultural life. The current debate over the 1960's and the history
of that decade mirror the very essence of American culture. This
is the decade of peace, optimism, cultural turbulence, despair, war and frustration. It was a time when basic assumptions and institutions were challenged. This course will explore the nature
of American society through a look at the social movements of the 1960's. Specifically, we will examine the relationship between
political and cultural change during the 1960's. How did movements
for political and social change affect the nation's popular culture?
Were cultural and demographic changes at the root of the decade's
political upheavals? We will also examine how resistance to political
and cultural change during the 1960's have influenced the conservative
political and cultural movements that have flourished in the years
since. TTh 8:30 – 10 (Matthew Countryman)
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Times, Location, and Availability
383. Junior Honors Reading
and Thesis. Junior standing and grade point average
of at least 3.0. (3). (Excl). (INDEPENDENT).
Reading of selected works on American Culture. Conferences, written
reports, and term papers.
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Times, Location, and Availability
388. Field Study. Sophomore
standing. (1-4). (Excl). Offered mandatory credit/no credit. (EXPERIENTIAL).
May be repeated for credit with permission.
Field experience in organizations, institutions, and service agencies
under such University of Michigan programs as the Washington and New York Internship Program and Project Community. Students must
make individual arrangements with these programs.
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Times, Location, and Availability
389. Reading Course in
American Culture. Permission of instructor. (1-4).
(Excl). (INDEPENDENT). May be repeated for credit with permission.
An independent study course available to undergraduates who are
interested in designing a reading list for the purpose of exploring
new areas in the field of American studies. Each student makes
individual arrangements with a faculty member in the student's
area of interest.
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Times, Location, and Availability
399(UC 299). Race, Racism, and Ethnicity. (4). (SS). (R&E).
This course will use historical and theoretical approaches toward
understanding racism and its dynamics of power, domination, subordination, and resistance. The syllabus and lectures will be interdisciplinary, building partly upon imaginative literature, personal narratives, and other texts in the voices of these various groups: Native
Americans, African Americans, Latina/o peoples, Asian/Pacific
Americans, and European Americans. Readings, lectures, and discussion
will profile the groups and interpret histories of their interactions
as well as analyze diversity within each. We will study how domination
and resistance – and their costs – are experiences common to these
groups but from different positions and through specific mechanisms
varying from group to group. Two weekly hours in lecture plus
one two-hour discussion sections are required, as are two papers
of 10-12 pages each and weekly responses to assigned readings.
(Sumida)
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Times, Location, and Availability
406/Engl. 384/CAAS 384.
Topics in Caribbean Literature. (3). (Excl). May
be repeated for a total of six credits.
See English 384. (Gikandi)
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Times, Location, and Availability
410. Hispanics in the
United States. (3). (Excl). May be repeated for credit
with permission.
Section 001 – Women in Prison: Gender and Crime Among Blacks and Latinas. In this course you will learn about women in prison.
This course will focus on the oppression that these women experience
before, during, and after incarceration. Interviews will be scheduled
with women at the prison which will be the basis for a final paper.
The approach for these papers will utilize the Human Science perspective.
As we study the experiences of these women as they participate
in their existence we will use abstract categories and scientific
constructs to analyze their experiences. Requirements: (a) midterm
and final paper; (b) class participation; (c) reaction papers;
(d) class presentation. WL:1
(José-Kampfner)
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Times, Location, and Availability
489. Senior Essay. Senior
concentrators and Amer. Cult. 350. (3). (Excl). (INDEPENDENT).
This course is designed for concentrators who desire a more directed
research experience with individual faculty at the end of their
undergraduate career. It allows a senior concentrator in American
Culture the opportunity to write a research paper under the direction
of a particular faculty member.
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Times, Location, and Availability
493. Honors Readings
and Thesis. Senior standing and a grade point average
of at least 3.5 in Honors concentration. (1-3). (Excl). (INDEPENDENT).
May be repeated for a total of six credits.
Independent interdisciplinary study supervised by two or more
tutors leading to an original paper. This is a two-term course
with three hours of credit each term; a grade is not posted until the end of the second term.
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Times, Location, and Availability
496. Social Science Approaches
to American Culture. (3). (Excl). May be repeated
for credit with permission of concentration advisor.
Section 001 – Ethnic Entrepreneurship as Urban History. This
course chronicles ethnic entrepreneurship in the urban community.
African American entrepreneurship is the primary focus with attention
to Latino, Asian, and European immigrant groups as well. This
seminar course will: explore the concept of entrepreneur; give
an overview of minority entrepreneurs beginning from America's
earliest entrepreneurs to the present; explore models that seek
to explain minority entrepreneurship; study history of government
policies and programs related to minority entrepreneurship; and look at traditional and emerging minority businesses and their
communities. Requirements: readings, weekly e-mail journal, midterm
papers, final paper/project. The course pack is available from
Michigan Documents. This course has an optional oral history component
by permission of instructor for an additional two credit hours.
(Brown)
Section 002 – The Years of the Toad: Arts and Culture during the McCarthy Period. The Fifties are usually presented as a rich period of growth, tranquility, and prosperity in the United States. This seminar will focus on the effects of the Cold War in the cultural mentality of the Fifties. We will analyze how the House UnAmerican Activities Committee created a climate of fear, insecurity, paranoia, and persecution which influenced the development of cultural manifestations during those years. We will study and discuss the Hollywood Ten and their work, the repercussions of the Red Scare and the successive blacklisting in movies, visual arts, music, theatre, and popular culture. We will specifically analyze some of these films, plays, and novels, read the memoirs of the participants, and discuss historical perspectives on the period, produced then and now. The seminar will have a weekly discussion meeting, complemented by film screenings and readings. Students will conduct individual research projects, compile a bibliography, and present their findings in a final paper. (De la Vega-Hurtado)
Section 003 – Oral History, Life Stories and Changing Cultures.
Limitedto seniors; (graduate students in AC, History, Sociology
may elect AC 699.007 via override at AC Office, G410 Mason) This
course offers an introduction to the biographical approach which
is usually termed "oral history" by historians and "life
history" by social scientists. It will explore the potential
of this approach for research in the context of changing cultures
in different parts of the world. We shall consider the interviewing
process, the nature of memory, the relationship between psychoanalysis
and autobiographical work, and the different forms of interpretation
from the reconstructive to the linguistic and narrative. We shall
also look at different forms of presentation including television.
While the course is essentially conceptual, we shall discuss some
basic methodological problems in designing and carrying out projects, and also the ethical issues which they can raise. The course will
be taught through discussion seminars. Students will be expected
to carry out interviewing of their own and to incorporate this
experience in the final paper by which the course will be assessed.
(Thompson)
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Times, Location, and Availability
498. Humanities Approaches
to American Culture. (3). (Excl). May be repeated
for credit with permission.
Section 001 – Hawthorne, Melville, James. For Fall Term, 1998, this course is jointly offered with English
482.001. (McIntosh)
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Times, Location, and Availability
Courses in Ojibwa
A full sequence of Ojibwa cannot be guaranteed. Students must consult with the American Culture Program Office before undertaking Ojibwa to satisfy the College language requirement.
222. Elementary Ojibwa.
Non-LS&A students must have permission of the
American Culture Program Director. (3). (LR).
This course is designed to give the conversational and cultural
skills necessary to enable students to use Ojibwa in real life
situations. The teaching methods are entirely inductive, and the
role of writing is downplayed. There is considerable emphasis
on teaching culturally appropriate behavior, and the simple conversational
patterns of greetings, leave takings, introductions, table talk, etc. Cost:2
WL:1 (McCue)
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Times, Location, and Availability
223. Elementary Ojibwa.
Amer. Cult. 222 and permission of the American Culture
Program Director. (3). (LR).
See Ojibwa 222. (McCue)
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Times, Location, and Availability
322. Intermediate Ojibwa.
Amer. Cult. 223 and permission of the American Culture
Program Director. (3). (LR).
This course is designed to improve the basic conversational skills
of the student who knows some Ojibwa. The emphasis in class is
on increasing the range of situations in which the student can
use Ojibwa in real life. Some emphasis is placed on teaching the
students to be able to learn more Ojibwa outside of the classroom, by talking and using the language with native speakers. Cost:2
WL:1 (McCue)
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Times, Location, and Availability
323. Intermediate Ojibwa.
Amer. Cult. 322 and permission of the American Culture
Program Director. (3). (LR).
See Ojibwa 322. (McCue)
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Times, Location, and Availability
422. Advanced Ojibwa.
Amer. Cult. 323 and permission of the American Culture
Program Director. (3). (Excl).
This course is aimed at giving students with conversational ability
in Ojibwa the opportunity to both improve their speaking and listening
skills and to introduce them to Ojibwa literature, and the various
dialects represented in the literature. Students will work with the original, unedited texts, as well as with edited, re-transcribed
materials, and thus learn about the problems of working in a language
without a standard writing system that is widely accepted. Cost:2 WL:1
(McCue)
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Times, Location, and Availability
423. Advanced Ojibwa.
Amer. Cult. 422 and permission of the American Culture
Program Director. (3). (Excl).
See Ojibwa 422. (McCue)
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Times, Location, and Availability
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