Introduction to American Studies: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

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In this course, we critically examine the idea of “America” and what it means to be an “American.”  Access to Americanness is shaped by factors such as class, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, mobility, and second chances —categories which themselves change in meaning over time. American Icons are objects, images, and symbols of identification, which represent the United States and are associated with the idea of America both at home and in the global world. The significance of American icons derives not solely from their own internal qualities, but often from the qualities and ambitions that they have come to represent for others. Through a critical examination of their creation, dissemination, and legacies, this course explores the variety of meanings that these figures and symbols have come to represent. Along with conventional, we will look for examples of icons that disrupt, and challenge traditional narratives.

Throughout the semester we will return again and again to some of the foundational questions:

• What does it mean to be an “American”?
• What are the central myths, promises, and ideas behind the United States?
• How do those icons represent ideas about freedom, individuality, democracy, mobility, second chances, masculinity and femininity, race and class?
• What is “American Exceptionalism,” and how do we explain its staying power in the American imagination?
• How have different people imagined what it means to be an American?
• How do these visions both reflect and help to shape the boundaries that define who belongs within the nation and who gets excluded?
• And given the nation’s historically shifting contours, the projection of US power in today’s world, and the global flows of people, money, ideas, cultural artifacts, and capital, where is “America” to be found today?

Students will interpret various artifacts: essays, literary texts, autobiographies, photographs, films, music, architecture, historical documents, legal texts, etc. The course intends to heighten the proficiency in English language academic skills as well as enhance critical thinking skills, providing richer, more complex and nuanced understanding of American culture.

• Пререквизиты

  Course expectations:

   

  1. Weekly Responses to Content = Responses to the weekly theme in a form of short written or multi-media feedback. The response will identify the main point(s) made by the author(s) of that week’s assigned material, briefly explaining what are the authors trying to say about America?
  2. Discussion Leader = Each student selects a week in which they wish to serve as the discussion leader for the seminar. Responsibilities include preparing a question or statement that may be used as a basis for class discussion, identifying key points made by the author(s), exploring why those points mattered at the time they were made and why we should think about them today, and organizing seminar time in such a way to encourage discussion.  For each meeting, each student will prepare a question or statement that may be used as a basis of discussion for the assigned work.
  3. Participation in the Discussion = Students participation and respectful attention to others’ participation are the bases of this seminar.