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.

The emergence of the United States as a global superpower after World War II prompted Western European directors to capture this rise through films.  This course examines how filmmakers across the Atlantic interpreted and critiqued US policies and American values in films released from 1945 to 1980.  After an introduction to understanding film form (cinematography, editing, etc.), we will undertake a critical examination of films covering the legacy of WWII, the Cold War, the anti-war movement, American isolationism, and mainstream drug-use.  To culminate, we will contrast those visions with several US-directed shots in foreign countries as we move out to look in.  We will study nine films including The Third Man, Little Shop of Horrors, Atlantic City, and Lost in Translation.  There will be two short papers, a student presentation, and one in-class exam.   Prerequisite:  English 2 or the equivalent.

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.

What is Asian America? Where did the term come from? What is Asian America's relationship to America? Who is considered an Asian American? Who gets to decide? What is Asian American history, identity, culture, and politics? This multidisciplinary course explores the definition of Asian America, its history, and some of its contemporary issues. We will examine the reasons for why Asians are in America; the role of Asian Americans in the development of American society; their responses to America?s reception of them; their relationship to American foreign policy regarding Asia; their position in the context of American race relations; current Asian immigration and settlement; the process of developing Asian American identities and cultures; the status of contemporary Asian American communities; and some critical Asian American issues. Though Asian Americans have a long history in America and also are one of the fastest growing racial minority groups in the country, why do Asians in America continue to be perceived as "foreigners," "aliens," and the inassimilable ?yellow peril?? Then again, why do these ?potentially dangerous aliens? continue to be held up as the ?model minority? to the rest of society? What can we learn about America itself by studying the Asian experience within it?

Interdisciplinary introduction to African American dance for the  concert stage in its aesthetic and historical context from the 17th  century to the 21st century, with major focus on developments,  dancers, and choreographers of 20th century United States. Influence  of biological determinism, medical history, race, and racism on the  opportunities for dancers and public reception of dance.  Influence of African American concert dance and artists-as-activists  on social-political trends. Influence of contemporary issues of biological  determinism, race, and racism on the context of contemporary dance.  Choreographers and companies include Dunham, Ailey, Jones, Dance  Theater of Harlem. Discussion and video viewing are major elements of many class sessions.     

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 multi-disciplinary and interdisciplinary course studies the American Sixties through film, literature, music, and nonfiction writing, including memoir, manifesto, letters and journalism. Although called the Sixties, this time of civil dissent, unrest, war and change properly encompasses a wider era, from 1954 and Brown v. Board of Education to 1975 and the end of the Vietnam War, and this interval will form the period of our study.

Texts will include: Eldridge Cleaver, Soul On Ice; Ken Kesey, On Flew Overthe Cuckoo’s Nest; Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem; Frank Chin,Chicken Coop Chinaman; Robert Stone, Dog Soldiers; Alice Walker, Meridian;Marge Piercy, Small Changes; Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior; AlixKates Shulman, Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen; Andrew Holleran, Dancer From the Dance; Norman Mailer, The Armies of the Night; Michael Herr, Dispatches.

Films will include: Sweet Sweetback’s Baad Asssss Song, dir. Mario Van Peebles; Putney Swope, dir. Robert Downey; Giant, dir. George Stevens; Easy Rider, dir. Dennis Hopper; Hair, dir. Milos Forman; The Times of Harvey Milk, dir. Robert Epstein; Annie Hall, dir. Woody Allen; Eyes on the Prize,dir. Henry Hampton.

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 file a corrected copy of your SSP at 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.

Continuation of year-long course begun in Fall, 2008

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 leave a final hard-copy in the American Studies office.

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

Analysis of the production, dissemination, and consumption of the most important forms of popular music--mambo, boogaloo, salsa, conjunto, corrido, banda, contemporary rock, and rap--listened to and danced by U.S. Latinos from World War I to the present. Readings, films, and recordings examine the historical and social contexts from which these musical forms have emerged, highlighting the intricate relationship between popular music, migration, and the formation of social and cultural identities.

The course offers an overview of the main topics of sociolinguistics and the sociology of language, with an emphasis on power and identity formation. It explores the relationship between ideologies of language and language learning, discourses of immigration and belonging, and the actual lived experiences of individual language learners. We will discuss how questions of educational access, economic stability, and social membership are all influenced by a range of social, political, and historical factors.  We will examine, in particular, the situation of Brazilian and Hispanic immigrants who attend bilingual education programs in the United States. The lectures will also address topics and notions such as speech community, dialect, code, variation, pidgins and creoles, bilingualism, multilingualism, language maintenance, and language shift.

Examination of racial and health disparities. The nature of racial and ethnic categories, data issues, current health status of various populations, and approaches to resolving disparities including the concept and practice of cultural competence.

Educational institutions as social systems and the various external and internal social forces that shape them. Representative ethnographic studies of schooling with an emphasis on ethnicity, class, and gender as organizing categories of student experience and school social organization.

History of education in the United States as a struggle over access and control. Relation to class reproduction, social mobility, the maintenance of and resistance to racial boundaries and gender issues, emphasizing the struggles of disempowered groups to gain access to schooling in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Entrepreneurship is defined as the organization, management and assumption of risk of an enterprise. This course will include both for-profit and nonprofit ventures.  We will explore how entrepreneurs use these enterprises to accomplish diverse goals such as building wealth, achieving personal autonomy, and/or providing social benefits.  We will also examine how entrepreneurs create a culture within the organization and among their communities, customers, and suppliers, which will involve issues of ethics, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and power relationships.

 Entrepreneurs use the process of innovation to build organizations that create new value through the way each addresses its particular goals.  These organizations may introduce new proprietary products or services to a market. They may develop new channels through which to distribute their products or services. They may tackle a particular social problem, with a new and creative approach that demonstrates great promise. Their success is measured by how the stakeholders’ value of the enterprise increases.

 American entrepreneurship has been differentiated and characterized by individuals from diverse economic backgrounds who have applied their intellectual talent to create innovative businesses and great fortunes, as well as nonprofit organizations that provide civic and social benefits.  This type of business entrepreneurship is especially well developed in Massachusetts among the start-up companies developing products and services that exploit technological innovations. There is also a long and distinguished history of social entrepreneurship in the Commonwealth.

Advanced seminar in the relation among memory, forgetting, and trauma. Focus on North American slavery, the Holocaust, and South African apartheid. Read and view critical and theoretical work, fiction, nonfiction, visual arts, and film including: Art Spiegelman's Maus, Charlotte Delbo's Auschwitz and After, Frederick Douglass' My Bondage and My Freedom, Toni Morrison's Beloved, James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time, Steve Biko's I Write What I Like, the documentary film Paragraph 175, and the work of William Kentridge and Kara Walker.

Social and economic organization of the mass media of communication. Effects on content. Themes of mass culture. Social composition of the audience. Effects of the media on the audience. Topics such as television, films, the press, books, magazines, and advertising.