Core Course
201 Introduction to American Studies: American Places
William Gleason, Department of English
Ricardo Montez, Society of Fellows, Department of
English
An interdisciplinary introduction to the materials and methods of American Studies, focusing on the significance of place in U.S. history, society, and culture. We will look at place through several interpretive lenses, including social history, environmental studies, and cultural studies. For Fall 2009, the course will focus on four iconic cities: Los Angeles, New York, Detroit, and San Antonio. Specific topics may include: colonial contact zones; race and the built environment; migration and labor; music and citizenship. Texts and contexts will be equally wide-ranging, drawing on film, photography, architecture, history, music, and fiction.
Written assignments for this class include a take-home midterm, a final exercise, and a multi-stage, interdisciplinary writing project on an American place of your own choosing. Past project topics have ranged from African-American cemeteries and inner-city churches to Ebbets Field and Disney's Tomorrowland. This project, which represents a significant portion of the graded work for the course, helps develop research skills and methods of argumentation, while offering an opportunity to produce an original work of American Studies scholarship. With instructor approval, the writing project may also be designed as a Community Based Learning Initiative research paper.
