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.

Black Feminist Theories will trace black feminisms and proto feminisms from the mid nineteenth-century to the present—with the focus largely on the last 40 years. We will attend to the links between race, place, history, blackness, sexuality, and gender. Focusing on black women’s political struggles in the Americas (largely the US, but also perhaps the Caribbean and Canada), we will consider: The significance of (transatlantic) slavery to contemporary black experiences.  The ways that black women have been subject to and resisted racism, sexism, homophobia, and economic oppression.  The transnational and “intersectional” dimensions of black feminism. And the ways that black expressive cultures—visual art, literature, poetry, film, etc.—challenge dominant constructions of black femininity and black masculinity.  Readings, viewings, and listenings may include: Anna Julia Cooper, Harriet Jacobs, Barbara Smith, Audre Lorde, Angela Davis, Nina Simone, P. Gabrielle Foreman, Abby Lincoln, Michelle Cliff, Chisholm ’72: Unbought & Unbossed, and Dionne Brand among other writers, artists, and theorists.

This course fulfills the post-1860 requirement.

This community-based research seminar integrates academic and experiential learning in an ongoing (since 2001) project documenting the history and development of Cambridge and Somerville’s Latino communities. In Fall 2010 student research will collaborate with and contribute to a project coordinated by the Somerville Community Corporation (SCC) examining how the expansion of Green Line into Somerville might impact the neighborhoods adjacent to the new transit stops; Urban Borderlands student research will focus specifi cally on the potential impact of the new transit system on immigrant businesses, churches, community centers, organizations
and other institutions located in the Union Square neighborhood and adjacent portions of East Somerville. Students working independently or collaboratively will conduct and transcribe interviews with relevant individuals, and collect and interpret related forms of documentation (e.g. photographs, maps). Students will synthesize their findings orally in a community-based event at the end of the
semester; their writt en reports and accompanying documentation will be added to the growing Urban Borderlands oral history archives at Tufts Digital Collections and Archives. This course counts towards the Hispanic Cultures and Diaspora Culture Option.

Western Appropriation and the Reclamation of Native Voices in Museums.

Since the late 19th century, mainstream museums in the United States have assumed the right to preserve Native American collections,  and to use their  spaces as public arenas to interpret Native cultures and cultural artifacts. Although they have contributed to the preservation of a precious legacy, they have, until the late 20th century, essentially silenced indigenous voices.  Through an  evaluation of  the perspectives of Western museum professionals, including archaeologists, anthropologists and art historians, we will assess the attitudes and assumptions that have sanctioned this non-native representation and empowered others to speak for Native Americans. We will study the conceptual ideas and techniques used to portray indigenous peoples in exhibitions from the late 19th to the 21st century, concluding with the strong reclamation of  native voices  in tribal, mainstream and a native-led National Museum of the American Indian.   From past to present, the voices of indigenous peoples will serve to de-center this study, as they have challenged and now actively seek public arenas to speak for and represent themselves. The class will focus on the representation of Native Americans but students may choose to  assess  exhibitions and issues related to other indigenous people whose representation has/had  been appropriated. Using an evaluation tool developed by the class, students will be expected to select an exhibition that interprets a Native American or another non-Western community of their choice and formally present their findings to the class.

This class will be organized around thematic investigations of the political policies and socioeconomic processes that contain and inform urban schooling.  Students will explore a political economy of schooling related primarily to race and class, with opportunities to explore gender, language, and so on. Specifically, we will examine the ways in which policies and practices, such as the racialization of welfare and the legalization of Whiteness, inform school policies and practices, including funding, governance, and so on. Students will engage an interdisciplinary body of scholarship framed by Critical Race Theory.

This course considers the epistemological impact of slavery on
nineteenth-century American literature. Surveying a broad range of texts, beginning with the poetry of Phillis Wheatley and concluding with D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation, we will examine how the "peculiar institution" not only helped to initiate and revitalize various American literary genres, but also how its aesthetic and cultural influence extended well beyond the Civil War. Of particular interest will be those stakes involved in continuing to define an African American (literary) consciousness through "black" racial identity.

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.

A survey of the major teachings and practices of the various expressions of religion in contemporary America. Attention is given to Judaism, Catholicism, the various denominations of Protestantism, and the so-called new religions, with a view to the appreciation of the religious character of the average community.

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, December 2, 2010. Your final manuscript should be free of misspellings and/or typographical errors. The oral defense of your SSP should be completed no later than Friday, December 10, 2010. You must submit an electronic copy of your SSP to the American Studies Office no later than December 21, 2010, 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 2011, the completed thesis manuscript should be submitted to readers by Friday, April 15, 2011. The oral defense should be arranged by the student and his or her committee to take place no later than Thursday, April 28, 2011 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