- Carolivia Herron, AMS 295: Star
Trek and the Epic Other.
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Star Trek episodes imagine
a future that presents the working out of epic themes that characterize
the earth in general and the United States in particular. "Star
Trek and the Epic Other" will focus on the specific theme
of the "other" in the epic consciousness of the United
States. What does Star Trek imagine that we do with people who
are different? What are the similarities between the United Federation
of Planets and the United States of America? Why are the Borg
the greatest fear of the Federation, and how does that fear connect
with contemporary concerns of US Americans? How are contemporary
expressive forms such as rap / hip hop connected with perceptions
of the epic other? We will view and discuss one episode at each
of our six meetings. Three episodes will be taken from The Original
Series and one each from The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine,
and Voyager. There will be a significant online component to
the course. Readings will be available online. Class discussion
should "spill over" onto our internet discussion group
and examinations will be taken online outside of class. Additional
viewing can be set up outside of class if students wish. Students
are required to complete a website project for the 2-credit section
of this course. Prerequisite: None. 1 or 2 credits.
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- Craig Howe, ANT 295: Tribal Landscapes
and Identities.
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This course explores
the relationships between tribal communities and their culturally
specific, historically based, and mythically charged landscapes.
Research teams will examine these relationships through time,
from tribal origins to recent ruptures in these sacred ecologies
brought about by non-tribal members. Method of instruction is
inquiry-based. Lectures are minimized. Attendance and participation
is required. Research teams share their work during in-class
presentations and discussions. Grading is based on several short
papers, in-class assignments (some of which require reading aloud
in small groups), and class presentations. Prerequisite: None.
2 credits.
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- Jerry W. Ward, ENG 295: Experiments
in Reading: Ellison, Faulkner, Wright, and Oral History.
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The aim of this seminar
is to explore critical consequences of innovation in reading
texts, especially those we deem literary. During the first week,
we will explore the idea of an "implied contract" that
might exist between a writer's judgments about literature and
culture and that writer's actual production of literature, a
"contract" that novelists who are also critics make
with their audiences. The more successfully we can identify such
tacit contracts as mixtures of expectations, values and conventions,
the deeper will be our understanding of problems involved in
the construction of literary meaning. After reading selected
essays from Shadow and Act (1964), we will consider whether
Invisible Man (1952) does what Ralph Ellison thought literature
should do. Our second exercise involves reading William Faulkner's
"Dry September" and Richard Wright's "Long Black
Song" along with selected transcripts from the Delta Oral
History Project (1995-98). Our purpose is to consider how links
between the cultural remembering which occurs in oral history
and the transformation of cultural memory in self-conscious literature
might disrupt conventional acts of reading. Students are required
to complete a paper (8-10 pages) for the 2-credit section of
this course. Prerequisite: None. 1 or 2 credits.
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- Judith Huacuja Pearson, ART 295.01:
Chicano Cultural Citizenship.
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This introductory course
will examine the development of Chicano and Mexican American
artistic and historical identity. Focusing on murals, posters,
and performance art, the course will explore how artists have
used the power of cultural forms to engage community, to cohere
a sense of identity, and to emphasize self-empowerment. The class
will examine four Chicano artistic groups located in New York,
Colorado, New Mexico and California who combine artistic with
educational and political actions. The course will provide an
historical account of the groups’ art, with an analysis
of artistic practices as they impart minority districts. The
groups often negotiated identity across ethnic, gender and class
lines, contributing to new models of cultural citizenship that
can inform a broad range of American studies including art history
and Ethnic studies. Prerequisite: None. Students are required
to complete a paper for the 2-credit section of this course.
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- Susan Power, AMS 295.01: Ghosts
in America: The Spectral Landscape of American Fiction.
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This course focuses
on the use of spectral characters in American Fiction from sources
as diverse as James (Turn of the Screw), Chang (Hunger), Erdrich
(Tracks), Morrison (Beloved), among others. We will read excerpts
from novels and short stories to explore the various cultural
assumptions at work in the authors’ depiction of spirits:
for example, ghosts as literary strategy (“magical realism”),
or as a reflection of the author’s own experience and belief
system. Prerequisite: None. Students are required to complete
a paper for the 2-credit section of this course.
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- Andre Alexis Robinson, AMS 295.01:
Marginal Landscapes: Filming Race, Class and Gender in America.
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Focusing on themes of
marginality and isolation, this short course explores the impact
of diversity on a central theme in American Studies. The course
takes the novel approach of interrogating the myth of American
Exceptionalism through the works of three contemporary German
film makers--Wim Wenders (PARIS, TEXAS and THE END OF VIOLENCE),
Percy Adlon (BAGDAD CAFE and SALMONBERRIES), and Ulrich Edel
(LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN). By analyzing the imagined America of
these German directors, students will be challenged to discern
what is truly unique about the American identity. Prerequisite:
None. 1 or 2 credits. Students are required to complete a paper
for the 2-credit section of this course.
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- Paul Ortiz, HIS 295.04 (also American
Studies): The African American Freedom Struggle in the Age of
Jim Crow.
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The goal of this seminar is
to examine the black freedom struggle during the first decades
of legal segregation and disfranchisement after the end of Reconstruction.
We will grapple with three major problems: what were the wellsprings
of black resistance movements to segregation? Secondly, what
were the most important black community instutitions during the
late 19th and 20th centuries? Finally, why did legal segregation
and the institutions of Jim Crow flourish to the exclusion of
other models of race relations? Throughout, we will grapple with
the conflict between African American visions of democracy and
the regimented path of economic development taken by the architects
of the industrial South. Students will be challenged to develop
more sophisticated analytical frameworks for understanding African
American history as well as the history of race relations in
the modern world. We will place a heavy emphasis on studying
primary sources generated by African Americans: oral histories
and memoirs of slave experiences; letters, petitions, diaries
and family photographs from the period of study will supplement
secondary literature. Prerequisite: None. 2 credits.
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- Bernard Jackson, PHI 295.01: Swimming
Against the Tide of the Mainstream: the 'Crits', Critical Race
Theory, and Dworkin.
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Modern philosophers
have been especially concerned to endorse the rule of law. They
see it as essential for the preservation of the central value
of modern society: individual liberty. Restraining power by law
makes it possible for all to enjoy equal and extensive individual
liberty. Even though figures in the history of modern philosophy
(e.g., Hobbes, Austin) have found fault with this idea(l), the
strongest challenge to the rule of law may come from a relatively
recent movement in legal thinking, Critical Legal Studies. Its
proponents--often called "crits"--argue that contemporary
society is riddled by illegitimate hierarchies of power. Such
hierarchies are illegitimate if that power cannot be justified,
that is, if it is a matter of might, not right. One important
offshoot of CLS is called "Critical Race Theory". It
examines the role of law in both combating and perpetuating the
oppression of African Americans by racism, and it holds that
some legal reforms ostensibly aimed at combating racism have
actually helped perpetuate it. The objective of the present course
is three-fold. Assigned readings will explore and critically
analyze legal doctrines which have perpetuated the above-mentioned
legal reforms discussed by critical race theorists, as well as
the relationship between the crits and these theorists. Our final
objective is an examination and analysis of criticisms of these
two movements' doctrines, with special emphasis on those leveled
by Ronald Dworkin. This class should be of special interest to
advanced philosophy, sociology, anthropology, economics, history
and political science majors. Prerequisite: None. 1 or 2 credits.
Students are required to complete a paper for the 2-credit section
of this course.
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- Donna Akiba Harper, ENG 295: Voices
and Techniques in the Works of Langston Hughes.
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Become acquainted with the multiple
voices, several genres, and usual techniques of Langston Hughes
(1902-1967). After rising to fame during the Harlem Renaissance,
Hughes remained a popular and prolific writer, known as the "Dean
of African American Literature." Using The Langston Hughes
Reader (1958), students will sample all genres. Then using
The Return of Simple (1994), students will expand their
familiarity with Hughes' greatest fictional creation. Prerequisites:
English 107 or English 115 or English 118 or equivalent. 2 credits.
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- Karen deLeon Jones, REL 295: Cultural
Exchange: Religious/Ethnic Minorities in 16th Century France
and Italy.
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This course will explore
the ensemble of religious traditions present in sixteenth century
France and Italy. The main premise under consideration is whether
and how the spread of Humanism, that preached religious pluralism,
influenced the perception of new or non-Christian religious movements
as well as interfaith dialogue. The course will also explore
the different development of the Humanist legacy in France and
Italy, along with the different conditions of minority religious
groups in each country. Students are required to complete a paper
for the 2-credit section of this course. Prerequisite: none.
1 or 2 credits.
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- LeAnne Howe, AMS 275: Writing America.
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An advanced non-fiction writing
seminar focusing on issues in contemporary American culture.
Students will be expected to produce several varieties of non-fiction
writing, including but not limited to the essay, cultural reportage,
witness, autobiography. This fall the class will include a special
focus on the treatment of Native Americans and Native American
culture in newspapers, journals, magazines and other forms of
popular culture. Prerequisites: none. 4+2 credits.
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- LeAnne Howe, AMS 295: Special Topic:
Native American Literature and Culture.
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A general introduction to Native
American literature and culture using selections of fiction,
poetry, and historical essays by Native American writers. Prerequisites:
American Studies 130 or Anthropology 104 or permission of instructor.
4+2 credits.
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- Charles M. Payne, SOC 295: Special
Topic: The Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi.
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An interdisciplinary
analysis of the civil rights movement in Mississippi. Discussions
will include the movement's intellectual and organizational antecedents,
the evolution of tactics and ideology, grassroots organizing,
social composition and radicalization. The sociology of knowledge
provides a theoretical frame for the course. That is, we assume
that "history" is socially constructed and then we
ask what role social factors play in molding what we think of
as the "history" of the movement. Substantial reading
load. In addition, students are expected to see a film each week,
outside of class time. The two-credit option will require a paper
in addition to the final exam required of both sections. Prerequisites:
none. 1 or 2 credits.
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- Vince Gotera, ENG 195: Introductory
Special Topic: Asian American Literature.
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During this course students
will study fiction, poetry, drama, and memoirs written by Asian
American writers, from Sui Sin Far (born in 1867) to Li-Young
Lee. The culmination of the mini-course will be Maxine Hong Kingston's
classic Woman Warrior -- half novel, half memoir -- a
book which remains controversial, stirring up arguments about
the "real" and the "fake" in Asian American
culture. Prerequisites: none. 1 or 2 credits.
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- Teresa Barnes, GWS 195: Introductory
Special Topic: Independence and Misogyny: Challenges for African
Women in Southern Africa.
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This course will try to familiarize
students with some of the current issues facing African women
in two Southern African countries: Zimbabwe and South Africa.
In both countries women face a dual legacy of traditional gender
inequality and a new political equality. How are these tensions
being worked out on a day to day level? After general descriptions
and short comparisons of these two neighboring countries, we
will look at issues of tradition, inequality and independence.
How have women's organizations been handling these issues? What
legislative programs have been implemented? How have the lives
of women changed under the new political dispensations? What
is the anatomy of gender inequality and how is it being challenged?
Prerequisites: none. 1 or 2 credits.
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