The specific availability for this course is not currently known. If you would like to know if this course will be offered during your session, please contact us.
This survey course will introduce students to the diversity and interdisciplinarity of American Cultural Studies. From the multiple perspectives of various disciplines such as history, sociology, political science, economics, literature, and media, we will look at three main areas of American culture, namely (im)migration, emancipation, and globalization. Guiding questions will be: What do terms such as America, American, and Americanization mean? How do people represent and define their relationship to America? How do these definitions change over time? Discussions of key terms such as gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, class, nation, and culture will serve as theoretical foundations for the analysis of selected issues, phenomena, and events in American culture. Special emphasis will be put on the role of gender in the American nation-building process.
The course will be organized as following:
I (Im)Migration: Colonial Settlements; Westward Movement, Manifest Destiny; Imperialism; Immigration History.
II Emancipation: Political Declaration of Independence; Women’s History in the US: From Pocahontas to Hillary Clinton; The Black Atlantic: From the Middle Passage to the Million-Man March; An Indian Manifesto: From the Noble Savage and Vanishing Indian to New Indian Leadership.
III Globalization: Americanization of the Holocaust, Popular Culture; Economy; 9/11 and the War on Terrorism.
A reader with all required readings will be available through the e-learning platform ILIAS at the beginning of the semester.
Download course description here in Acrobat PDF Format Adobe Acrobat Reader is needed to download this file
