American Studies is the interdisciplinary study of American culture; its founding assumption is that the United States has a unique and recognizable culture that merits serious and sustained examination. American Studies is a comparatively young discipline, having emerged as a separate field of study only in the twentieth century (at much the same time the United States itself emerged as a world power). While the earliest incarnations of American Studies sought to establish a clear, single answer to the question "What is American?" (and so emphasized the "unum" in the U.S. motto, "e pluribus unum"), recent years have seen a growing emphasis on the diverse range and variety of American experience (its "pluribus"). Yet even in its indebtedness to older European, Native American, African, and Asian traditions, American culture retains a character that is distinctively its own. And just as the culture of the United States incorporates practices from around the globe, so American Studies delves into a rich variety of fields—political science, anthropology, history, literature, religious studies, music, sociology, art history, economics, philosophy—in exploring American culture.
Concentrators in American Studies are encouraged to set their own agenda for study, deciding largely for themselves how to strike a balance among the various disciplines in the humanities, arts, and social sciences, but meeting the requirements for the concentration demands some foresight from the first or second year student. Concentrators must take upper-level courses in American literature and American history. The departments of English and History both have prerequisites for these courses that are normally completed in the first year. American Studies 201, the writing-intensive Introduction to American Studies, is required of all concentrators and has its own prerequisites: students must have had both a 100-level History course and a 100-level English course in order to take the class. Thus, the student who has any interest in American Studies would be well-advised to take these courses in her or his first year at Hamilton.
Students hoping to concentrate in American Studies and study off-campus in their junior year should carefully plan their course of study. It is possible to concentrate in American Studies and study away, but students must think ahead.
Thanks to its borrowings from various disciplines, American Studies is an excellent concentration for students eager to experience all that a liberal arts education can offer. They will read widely and think creatively about American traditions, history, and character. American students will gain a new appreciation of their own culture and heritage, both its strengths and its weaknesses; international students who have chosen to study in America will have their experience enhanced by intense study of the United States.
125F Introduction to the History and Theory of New Media.
What are new media and what makes them “new?” How do new media compare with, transform or remediate earlier media practices and forms? In this course we will examine new media, specifically the emergence of digital visual media after World War II, in terms of the history of their production, reception and circulation. We will cover the central issues and debates raised by new media through close study of key texts in new media studies and of varied examples of new media, from early hypermedia experiments and hypertext literature to digital cinema, video games and online social networks. Open to first-year students and sophomores only.
(Same as and Cinema and New Media Studies 125.)
Maximum enrollment, 20.
Anable.
[201F]
Introduction to American Studies.
An interdisciplinary introduction to culture and society in the United States, from the colonial era through the 21st century, as revealed in literary, cinematic and historical texts. Offered in alternate years.
(Writing-intensive.)
Prerequisite, a 100-level course in American Studies, English, or History. Next offered in 2010.
Maximum enrollment, 20.
[202]
Introduction to Asian-American Studies.
An introduction to Asian-American studies, an interdisciplinary field of inquiry that deals with the history, experiences and cultural production of Americans of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, South Asian, Filipino and Southeast Asian ancestry. Topics addressed include the history of Asian immigration to the United States; popular and self-representation of Asians in various cultural media; questions of race and ethnicity; and the category of gender as it is inflected along racial and class lines. Counts toward the concentrations in American studies or Asian studies. Not open to seniors.
Maximum enrollment, 16.
[268F]
Latino Literature: The Diversity of Identities and Experience.
Explores issues, themes and social positions common to U.S. Latino and Latina literature. We will also consider the great diversity within that shared literary rubric. As a class, we will reflect on and connect personal experiences, assumptions, and thoughts to the larger social conversations and relevant social, historical, and political contexts in which Latino literature and identity are situated. Involves writing, close readings, literary analysis and participation in class discussion (post-1900). Prerequisite, one 100-level course in English or equivalent.
(Same as English 268.)
315S The Technological Sublime.
Traces the shift from the natural to the technological sublime through a variety of visual imagery from the early modern period including landscape paintings, images of factories and mechanisms of all sorts. Readings place the technological sublime as a critical element in American consciousness and ideology-building. Additional study of contemporary visual media demonstrates how the technological sublime continues to shape our view of new innovations, influencing everything from art photography and painting to advertising, popular and documentary film, and the imagery of nano-technology.
(Writing-intensive.)
Prerequisite, one course in Art History.
(Same as Art History 315.)
Maximum enrollment, 20.
Rosolowski.
325S Media Theory and Visual Culture.
We are bombarded with images, in myriad forms, on a daily basis. How do we interpret and analyze them? What is the relationship between an online advertisement for a movie and the movie itself, between a television program and a video game? This seminar will provide an overview of contemporary media theory as it relates to visual culture in the twenty-first century. Readings will include seminal works in psychoanalytic theory, cultural studies, semiotics, postmodern theory, new media studies, and visual studies.
(Same as and Cinema and New Media Studies 325 and Communication 325.)
Maximum enrollment, 12.
Anable.
350S Gender and Cyberculture.
This course explores critical approaches to media through the intersection of gender and the technological imaginary. We will study how the production, use, and circulation of digital media affect notions of representation, identity, the body, and consciousness. Students will engage in close visual and textual analysis of the ways writers, artists, and theorists have conceived these issues.
(Same as Cinema and New Media Studies 350.)
Maximum enrollment, 20.
Anable.
[377S]
Ethnic Autobiography: Negotiating the Self.
Explores autobiography and the philosophies of identity implicit in autobiographies by ethnic authors. Since readers often read fictionalized texts by ethnic authors as autobiographical we will also look at some quasi-autobiographical texts. Possible readings include Wright’s Black Boy, Nabokov’s Speak, Memory, Kingston’s Woman Warrior, Rodriguez’s Hunger of Memory, Cisneros’s House on Mango Street, Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (post-1900).
(Writing-intensive.)
Prerequisite, one 200-level course in literature.
(Same as English 377.)
Maximum enrollment, 20.
380S Ut Pictura Poesis: Contemporary Graphic Narrative.
Study of the graphic narrative as a hybrid literary medium particularly conducive to memoir and social commentary. Readings in the history of comics and in theories of life writing will accompany close analysis of texts by artist/authors such as Lynda Barry, Alison Bechdel, Daniel Clowes, Harvey Pekar, Joe Sacco, Art Spiegelman and Chris Ware. Prerequisite, one 200-level course in literature, American studies, art, art history or history.
(Same as English 380.)
Kodat.
420S Seminar in American Studies: American Folk Revivals.
Study of the various folk revivals that marked 20th century U.S. cultural life, from the publication of the first song collections of Lila W. Edmonds and Cecil B. Sharp to the Washington Square scene in New York's Greenwich Village. Grounded in the study of the music and its circulation, the course will also examine the impact of these revivals on dance, film, literature and politics. Offered in alternate years. Prerequisite, two courses in English, history or music (in any combination), or consent of instructors. (Same as Music 420).
Maximum enrollment, 12.
Hamessley and Kodat.
550F,S Honors Thesis.
Independent study required for honors candidates, culminating in a thesis. Registration only by express approval of the program chair. The Program.
