Princeton University

  
FALL 2013

Judy Malloy, Anschutz Distinguished Fellow in American Studies
 

Software-generated social networking environments encompass historical platforms, such as BBS systems, and contemporary platforms, such as Twitter and Second Life. This seminar will focus on the history, theory, and contemporary practice of online cultural community and on the creation of social media-based content. Shared student experience with Internet-based social networking and authoring, as well as collaborative envisioning of future cultural uses of social media will be important components, and students will create and present online content. 
 

AMS 337/THR 334  Performance and Politics in the 1960s: Hippies and “Homos,” Black Arts and Broadway
Stacy Wolf, Program in Theater, Lewis Center for the Arts; Princeton Atelier
 

This course will explore U.S. performance in the 1960s, from Broadway to the avant-garde to community and political theaters, in the context of the decade’s social, cultural and intellectual politics. We’ll examine production practices and artists’ intentions, scripted and unscripted “texts,” and critical and public reception of these works. Our goal will be to construct a complex and nuanced “thick description” of performance and politics during this remarkable period, while also questioning the value and limitations of decade-oriented historiography.
 

Rabbi Lance Sussman, Department of Religion and Program in American Studies
 

This course will examine how secular law in the Colonies and the United States has shaped the American Jewish experience. Beginning with a survey of Halacha, (Jewish law) and both philosophical discussions and legal practices in Europe in the 17^th and 18^th centuries, the course will proceed chronologically, looking at the larger historical-legal contexts of church-state relations in a given period as well as the major cases, laws and controversies arising out of the Jewish experience in America.

 

Franklin Odo, Department of History and Program in American Studies
 

This seminar focuses on two major events in American history, the WWII incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans and the impact of the 1882 Chinese Exclusions Act, as well as Congressional apology or expression of regret for having enacted racially damaging legislation. We review the process of legislation, roles of executive and judicial branches, and immediate and long-term impacts on targeted populations. We trace development of successful redress efforts and meanings for American history and memory, especially through public history venues.

AMS 390        American Legal Thought
Hendrik Hartog, Department of History; Chair, Program in American Studies

This experimental course surveys American legal thought and the practices of American lawyers. Along the way, it questions the notion of distinctive “schools,” as well as the distinctive legality and the distinctive Americanness of legal thought. It offers an intellectual history of 20^th century American law, with emphasis on core controversies and debates.

ENG 410 / AMS 393 / THR 368 / JDS 410 Jewish Identity and Performance in the U.S.    
Jill S. Dolan, Department of English; Lewis Center for the Arts; Program in the Study of Gender and Sexuality

Stacy Wolf, Program in Theater, Lewis Center for the Arts; Princeton Atelier
                                                           

What does Jewishness mean in the U.S.? Is it ethnicity or religion? Identity or culture? Belief or practice? How do performance and theater answer or illuminate these questions? We’ll consider plays and performances, bodies and texts, performers and spectators, history, memory, and the present.

HIS 402 / AAS 402 / AMS 412  Princeton and Slavery
Martha A. Sandweiss, Department of History

 

Research seminar focused on Princeton University’s historical connections to the institution of slavery. The class will work toward creating a report that details the slave-holding practices of Princeton faculty and students, examines campus debates about slavery, and investigates whether money derived from slave labor contributed to the early growth of the school. 

THR 236/AMS 333   American Stages

Brian Herrera, Program in Theater

 

This course investigates the history of theater and performance in the United States during the past two centuries. Through archival excavations, bibliographic exercises, and close examinations of theatre history methodologies, and through a deep engagement with human and archival resources local to Princeton, this course undertakes an intensive introduction to the use of primary documents within both performance scholarship and performance practice (playwriting, directing, design, devised performance, etc.).

GSS 316 / THR 358 / AMS 366     Queer Boyhoods

Brian Herrera, Program in Theater
 

This course examines enactments of youthful masculinity in U.S. popular performance with a particular eye toward accounts of variant or queer boyhoods. As we scrutinize the regimentation and valorization of specific boyish behaviors, we will explore the cultural impact of non-normative youthful masculinities (i.e., sissies, tomboys, bois, punks, transguys, etc.) as we also assess the place of queer boyhoods in American life. Course readings will be historical, literary and theoretical, with play scripts, films, memoirs, and literature for young readers functioning as primary objects for the course’s analytic project.