American Studies Courses

In 1903, the famous African American scholar and activist W.E.B. DuBois said, "The problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color line." Many people today believe that race will continue to be "the" issue of the 21st century. In this course, we will examine the meanings of race in modern America, analyze the root causes and consequences of racist ideologies, and discuss current and future activist approaches to the issues raised by racist theories and practices. Our study will be multicultural in focus, with attention being given to Asian American, Native American, African American, European American, and Latino/a perspectives. Questions we will ask will include: How is race defined in the USA? Who defines it? How is it experienced? Who experiences it? What is its role in our lives as individuals, members of groups and of society at large? The course will be interdisciplinary, emphasizing in particular social science and arts/humanities approaches; and active student participation will be an important component.

This multi-disciplinary and interdisciplinary course studies the 20th-century United States through two of its most compelling narrative forms: the road tale and the buddy tale. We will consider this most popular form of epic movement across multiple forms and significations, including: citizenship, and disenfranchisement; political entitlement and oppression; "discovery" and self-discovery; emancipation and enslavement; captivity and assimilation; resistance and resignation; self-improvement and the pursuit of the American Dream. Throughout the course we will focus on the similarities and differences between male and female road travel and "buddy" adventures.

ON THE ROAD IN AMERICA will include such films and texts as: The Searchers (1957); Easy Rider (1969); Thelma and Louise (1991); Smoke Signals (1999); and the Living End (1993); Jack Kerouac, On the Road (1957); Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971); Louise Erdrich, Love Medicine (1984); Chuang Hua, Crossings (1968); Ishmael Reed, Flight to Canada (1976); and Edwidge Danticat, Breath Eyes Memory (1994).

AMER 0083-01/WS 0196 is a cross-listed course and will count as an elective course in either American Studies or Women's Studies. This course offers an introduction to studies in both of these programs.

From the end of the American Civil War to the present, the emergence of baseball in the US reflected the evolution of urbanization, immigration, race, the labor movement, entrepreneurial capitalism, crime, and legal precedents that reached the Supreme Court. Baseball has been a mirror of the times; that reflection continued through the 2oth century in the Progressive Age, World War I, the Roaring Twenties, the Depression, World War II, the coming of Jackie Robinson and Roberto Clemente, the shifting and expansion of franchises. In 1953, exactly fifty years after the formation of Organized Baseball into two leagues with eight teams in each, the geographic and demographic revolution began that took major league baseball from coast to coast. Eventually, this led to the elimination of the Reserve Clause, the beginning of free agency, and the thirty professional teams today that represent "The National Pastime." We will examine baseball both inside and outside the lines: how it was played, who played it, and the place of this children's game in the American psyche. Finally, we will also survey the 160-year history of the US as the background for the forces that created this quintessential American game.

Students who wish to do internships under American Studies should enroll in AMER 0099 for their internship for course credit. Normally, these internships are for American Studies majors. Internships are available in a wide range of public and private organizations and institutions (e.g., media, museums, social service agencies). In most cases, the student will make the arrangements with the organization so that one person will be supervising the student and overseeing the internship work. It is expected that the student will be working a minimum of 12 hours per week. The supervised fieldwork will provide the student with the opportunity to better understand the work environment and issues facing the particular organization. The student should meet approximately three times with the Director of American Studies (or another Tufts faculty member) to discuss the fieldwork, goals, and effectiveness of the organization. (E-mailing the director or faculty member several times during the semester is an acceptable alternative to meeting in person.) If a student wishes to receive a letter grade instead of Pass/Fail, he/she must keep a journal, and write a 10-page paper which will be submitted for a grade to the Tufts faculty member overseeing the internship.

This course is designed for students interested in exploring active citizenship in a Boston urban community setting and who wish to deepen their involvement with the community through public service and community advocacy. Each student will intern in a community organization throughout the academic year. Course materials will focus on: 1) the history and contemporary issues of the community, e.g., new immigrant experiences and rights, sustainable development, etc.; 2) the role of the ?outsider with something to offer a community;? and 3) improving skills for building coalition within a community. Speakers from the community and the university will discuss how they create vision and sustain commitment to community work. Boston?s Chinatown is the site for participation. 2 credits upon of completion of this year-long course, including all meetings, classes, and service commitments.

In this course you will learn how to apply business skills to the solution of public problems.  You will learn how to: find new solutions; communicate effectively with clients and funders; build a strong organization; turn idealism into action; and develop a business plan to address a public problem of your choosing. The course will feature case studies and meetings with prominent social entrepreneurs who will offer their perspectives on how to create  revolutionary change.

War is unique, in that it provokes the Americans to ask fundamental questions about their nation’s existential values: what are the Americans defending?; what are they defending against?; in what respects are the Americans vulnerable?  This course will explore how major American authors from the twentieth and early twenty-first century worked out their answers to these questions.  Our emphasis will be placed mainly on some representative literary texts (mostly novels and poetry); we will explore to what extent, if any, war as the subject-matter compelled these authors to bend and renovate familiar rules governing the literary genres within which they worked.  But, we will also freely range over other genres and media such as cinema, political speeches, moral philosophy, cultural criticism, and government reports, in an effort to situate war literature in the total context of the nation’s cultural response to the external enemy, national emergency, and extreme violence.  Readings will include the novels by Hemingway, Trumbo, Heller, Johnson; speeches by Wilson, FDR, Eisenhower, LBJ, G. W. Bush; essays by Bourne, Niebuhr, and Walzer; journalism by Hersey, Liebling, Halberstam, and Herr, and excerpts from standard historiography.

“In God we Trust,” “One Nation Under God,” “God Bless America,”: phrases like these alert us to the on-going influence of religion on American public life.  This course explores the role of religion in shaping American civic engagement and political activity from the seventeenth century to the present, aiming to put contemporary events in broader historical context.  Key topics and themes include: the relationship between church and state in the colonial period; faith and the founders; religion and social activism in the antebellum era (especially anti-slavery and women’s rights); religion, race and Civil Rights; religious “outsiders” and American politics (particularly Mormons, Catholics, and Muslims); spirituality and social protest in the 20th century (pacifism; feminism; and economic reform); the rise of the religious right; religion and American politics post-9/11; and the current presidential election.

This course is designed to examine the implicit foundations of national whiteness in the US. Particular attention will be given to the theoretical, philosophical, and ideological studies of the 'non-minority'. Through an in-depth examination of literary, scientific, and visual texts, students will explore the disbursement of the 'minority' and the 'non-minority' figure within the socio-political framework of the U.S. We will investigate the meanings of an American histology of race by examining late 19th century and early 20th century definitions of 'whiteness' and 'otherness'.

Students wishing to do an independent study project related to their cluster topic before initiating their SSP/HT must find an adviser and sign up for AMER 193. No more than one Independent Study course can count towards the cluster.

 “For we must consider that we shall be as a City upon a hill.” Governor John Winthrop, 1630. “Today the eyes of all people are truly upon us-and our governments, on every level, national, state, and local, must be as a city upon a hill—constructed and inhabited by men aware of their grave, trust and their great responsibility.” President-elect John F. Kennedy, 1960. Let us resolve that we did act worthy of ourselves, that we did protect and pass on lovingly that shining city on a hill.” President-elect Ronald Reagan, 1980.
“We will save America; we will save the world.” President-elect Barack Obama, 2008.

We will study the American origin and development of the literary genres of poetry, history, sermon, captivity narrative, autobiography, drama, and novel. Readings will include Native American Indian myths, Anne Bradstreet, The Tenth Muse, William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, John Cotton, The Way of Life, Mary Rowlandson,  The Sovereignty and Goodness of God, Benjamin Franklin,  Autobiography and Poor Richard’s Almanac, Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Phyllis Wheatley, Poems on Various Subjects, Hannah Foster, The Coquette, Royall Tyler, The Contrast, Charles Brockden Brown, Edgar Huntley.

We will place these texts in the context of early American culture, including the displacement of native peoples, the puritans as immigrants, the beginnings of slavery, the longing for and yet never-to-be-realized American dream of a glorious future, gender relations, the growth of democracy, and the ever-present tension between individualism and community.

Participants will be invited (but not required) to go on two field trips, one to the Founders Trail in Boston, the other to Plymouth Plantation.
A journal will be required. No exams. Graduate students will be invited to participate in a separate section which will include additional readings.

An exploration of the images and identity politics of Americans presented on popular stages through written analysis of theatrical and critical texts from 1830’s to the present.  This course examines American identity from the earliest theatrical and visual constructions of racial, gendered, cultural and national representations in American theatre by considering what it means to be an American.  This exploration of American identity from the perspective of playwrights, critics, scholars and artists from various underrepresented communities includes but is not limited to: Women, African Americans, Asian Americans, Latino Americans, Native Americans, Immigrant populations, and LGBT. 

The course examines how cultural meanings given to the category "beat" function as strategies for the marginalization or dismissal of the writers and texts of this movement. Through study of the literature, painting, and music of the Beat generation, we will consider rhetorical figures and discourses used to effect social and political dissent in the beat subculture and in mainstream U.S. communities, in particular those of addiction and madness, which slide and vary according to the race, gender, class, and sexual orientation of the trope's user, as LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka has framed it. We will focus on ways in which these elements played out to bring into being the politics and countercultural liberations of the 1960s.

The Senior Special Project (SSP) will include a preparation of an analytic essay, a research paper, or a project such as an oral history, a life story, a film, or a play. The SSP may also be based, in part, on a documented internship, or on leading an Exploration. The SSP should utilize more than one disciplinary approach and should seek to develop connections and integration among the disciplines employed. Detailed information is available in the American Studies office.

The completed project should be given to your readers no later than Thursday, April 23, 2009. Your final manuscript should be free of misspellings and/or typographical errors. The oral defense of your SSP should be completed no later than May 1, 2009. You must submit an electronic copy of your SSP to the American Studies Office no later than May 7, 2009, one day before the end of final exams. It is your responsibility to meet these deadlines, which will allow for relatively minor revisions, if necessary.

This Senior Seminar, which provides support and guidance for seniors in the process of completing their Honors Thesis, is open only to American Studies majors with permission to continue their Senior Honors Thesis research into the spring. Participation in the seminar is required for all American Studies seniors undertaking the Senior Honors Thesis. For seniors expecting to graduate in May 2009, the completed thesis manuscript should be submitted to readers by Friday, April 10, 2009. The oral defense should be arranged by the student and his or her committee to take place no later than Thursday, April 30, 2009, at which time it will most likely be graded. The final Honors Thesis manuscript should be free of errors. Remember, it is the student's responsibility to meet these deadlines and to file a copy with Digital Collections & Archives in Tisch Library and email a final hard-copy to the American Studies office.

Note to Seniors: please remember to fill out the American Studies Grade Sheet