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Courses

AMS 1000: The American Dream (3 cr.)
This course introduces the methods, materials, and theoretical approaches used in the interdisciplinary study of American society and culture.  Through close reading of selected texts (novels, films, essays), the class will analyze the ideals and myths about America.  Writers studied include John Winthrop, Thomas Jefferson, Alexis de Tocqueville, Henry Adams, Margaret Fuller, Mark Twain, F.  Scott Fitzgerald, and Martin Luther King, Jr.  The films of directors such as John Ford, Frank Capra, and Francis Ford Coppola will be examined.  (Fall '07)

AMS 1050: American Voices: The Search For Identity (3 cr.)
This introductory-level course examines the quest for soul, character and personality in American writing, film, and visual art.  Individuals whose lives and works are examined include Benjamin Franklin, Walt Whitman, Ralph Ellison, Ansel Adams, Thomas Merton, Alfred Kazin, Oliver Sacks, and Dorothy Day.  Films include Citizen Kane and Zelig.  (Fall '08)

AMS 2021: American Places I: Cities On A Hill (3 cr.)
This interdisciplinary course examines the society, politics, and culture of particular American places: Salem, Massachusetts; Washington, D.C; and Los Angeles, California.  Our texts include novels, films, stories, historical works, journalism, and social commentary.  No prerequisites.  (Fall '07)

AMS 2022: American Places II: Frontier Nation (3 cr.)
This course continues the interdisciplinary study of cultural geography introduced in American Places I.  It explores literature, film, histories, and critical writing on Thomas Jefferson's Virginia; Texas; and Cyberspace.  No prerequisites.  (Spring '08)

AMS 2040: The American Hero in Text and Image (3 cr.)
This course will examine the concept of the ideal American in its various cultural representations, what these representations express about the ideological climate that produced them, and how our continuing reexamination of these images and ideals shape our understanding of our place in American society.  (Spring '09)

AMS 2080: Film in American Society
This course examines the history and cultural significance of film in American society.  (Spring '08)

AMS 3029: American Studies Seminar: The 1950s and 1960s in America (3 cr.)
An interdisciplinary study of American society and culture during two decades of revolutionary change.  Topics to be covered include the Civil Rights movement, the American experience in Vietnam, consumer culture and suburbia, women's liberation, and youth culture and rock "n" roll. 
(Fall '08)

AMS 3113: American Studies Seminar: American Assassins: Political Murder in the United States (3 cr.)
This seminar examines political murder in the United States from the assassination of President Lincoln to the Unabomber killings.  We investigate the motivations of American political killers, their justifications of their actions, governmental and corporate responses to them, and the growth of a popular "conspiracy industry."  Sources will include historical and interpretive readings, fiction, film and music.  (Fall '07)

AMS 3123: American Studies Seminar: The Mississippi: Site, Scene, Symbol (3 cr.)
This seminar will take an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the social, political, and natural history, literature, music, visual art, and architecture of the Mississippi River and its environs.  The river will be considered in all its aspects, from the physical and geographical through the social, political, and economic to the symbolic and spiritual.  (Spring '09)

Related Courses

Art History
ARH 2013/2014: American Art I & II
ARH 1021: Colonial American Art and Life
ARH 3029/5029: Hudson River Painters

English
ENG 2050/51/52: American Literature I, II, III
ENG 3050: American Poetry
ENG 3057/5057: Hawthorne, Melville, Poe
ENG 3101: Images of New York City in Literature and Film

History
HIS 1011/12: Development of America I & II
HIS 2005: Recent American History
HIS 2024: American Economic History
HIS 2036: History of New York City
HIS 2012: American Sports History
HIS 2009: The American Civil War
HIS 2060: Reconstruction and the New South 
HIS 3001: California and the American West
HIS 3014: African-American History
HIS 3037: Immigrant Experience in America
HIS 3011/5011: The American Revolution
HIS 3075/5075: American Ideas: 19th Century
HIS 3067: Topics in American Sports History
HIS 3072: The American Transcendentalists
HIS 3080: The American Century
HIS 3086:  Early America 

Music
MUH 2016: History of Jazz
MUH 3005: Music in American Culture
MUMG 2021: Pop Songs and the Music Business

Philosophy
PHL 2050: American Philosophy 

Political Science
POS 1031: Introduction to American Government
POS 2013: Women and Politics
POS 2031: Presidential Elections
POS 2038: American Presidency
POS 3012: Politics of the Environment
POS 3067: Power, Politics and Passion: Women and the 21st
 Century
POS 3070: State and Local Government
POS 3080: Select Public Policy Issues
POS 3081: The Public Policy of Science and Technology
POS 3093: The United States as a Pacific Power

Sociology
SOC 2011:Wealth and Power in America
SOC 2015; Women and Work
SOC 2017: Sports and Society
SOC 3050/5050: Mass Media and Society

World Religions
WREL 1017: Modern American Religions
WREL 2021: African-American Religion
WREL 3025/5025: Religion in America