American Studies Program
Interdisciplinary Clusters in
American Studies
Representation and Performance in the Arts and Humanities
This five course interdisciplinary cluster critically examines the representation and expression of race, sex, class, gender, cultural identity and politics within the visual, literary, performing and applied arts in the United States.
The distribution across disciplines including art history, film studies, literary studies, creative writing, dance, drama and studio arts, should be determined according to the student's interest but in consultation with their cluster advisor. The distribution should have a coherent analytical focus and should be comparative.
Students must take five courses and the courses must be distributed across at least three disciplines. Students may petition to have one applied arts course count toward the cluster if the creative work undertaken is deemed appropriate by the cluster advisor and the director of American Studies. For specific questions regarding this cluster, please see Adriana Zavala or Christina Sharpe.
Requirements for the Representation and Performance in the Arts and Humanities cluster
| AMER 83 | On the Road in America |
| AMER101 | Native American Fine Art: Beauty and Meaning |
| AMER 184 | Viewing African American Dance |
| ANTH 17 | Latino Music, Migration and Identity |
| ANTH 163/AMER180 | Latinos in the Conematic Imagination |
| CD167 | Children and the Mass Media |
| DR 43 | Gay and Lesbian Theater and Film |
| DR 48 | African American Theater and Film |
| DR 49/DR 149 | Asian American Stage and Screen |
| DR/DNC 93/AMER194-03 | Performing American Identities 1830's to the present |
| DR94-04/AMER0194-06 | Performing America, Exploring Identity |
| ENG 37 | 20th Century African American Literature |
| ENG 63 | American Fiction 1900 -1950 |
| ENG 64 | American Fiction 1950 - present |
| ENG 80 | Hitchcock: Cinema, Gender, Ideology |
| ENG 91-02 | Writing in the Beat Generation |
| ENG 92-02 | American Modernism |
| ENG 153 | American Realism |
| ENG 154 | American Indian Writers |
| ENG 155 | American Women Writers |
| ENG 160 | Environmental Justice and US Literature |
| ENG 161 | Memory for Forgetting |
| ENG 164 | Representing the Jew |
| ENG 191 | Literature and Law |
| ENG 192-03 | Cultures of Vision: 19th Century American Literature |
| FAH 61 | American Art 1776 to 1900 |
| FAH 73/0173 | Blackness: Digesting Difference in African America |
| FAH 91 | American Architecture |
| FAH92/ AMER 194 | The Latina/o Body in Visual Culture |
| FAH 95 | Boston Architecture and Urbanism |
| FAH 280 | Latin American Art in Exhibition (permission required-advanced majors only) |
| JS 65 | Introduction to Yiddish Culture |
| MUS 39 (formerly MUS11) | History of African American Music |
| MUS 41 (formerly MUS12) | History of Blues |
| MUS 44 | History of Rock and Roll |
| MUS 42 | History of Jazz |
| MUS 97 | Queer Pop |
| MUS 185 | Studies in Women and Music: Black Divas |
| MUS 190 | Hip Hop |
| MUS 192 | Studies in Jazz |
| MUS 197-02 | American Music |
| SOC 40 | Media & Society |
| SPN 92 | US Mexican Borderlands |
| SPN 192 | Chicano Cultures, Communities and Identities |