AMERICAN CIVILIZATION COURSES
Fall 2008
China in the American Imagination - 15665 - AMCV 0150H - S01
Instructor: Robert George Lee (P)
Since Columbus, China has held special place in the American imagination. Americans from different vantage points have imagined China as a source of wealth, labor, or souls to save, as a victim, a revolutionary model, factory and bank. Using literature, material culture, and film, we will seek to understand how different groups of Americans, including merchants, workers, women, African Americans and Chinese Americans, have contructed "China". Reserved for First Year students. Enrollment limited to 20. FYS DVPS
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
American Civilization Department
Course Attributes:
Diversity Perspectives, First Year Seminar
3:00 pm - 5:20 pm |
M |
TBA |
Race, Sex, and Biology: A Cultural History of Differences - 15660 - AMCV 0190F - S01
Instructors: Aiko Takeuchi (P)
Are your race, gender, and sexual orientation biologically pre-determined? This course traces the history and cultural implications of theories of racial and sexual differences. We examine three "scientific" theories -- Darwinism, eugenics, and genetics -- in popular culture, public policies and social movements, and consider how these social constructs both empowered and disempowered women, homosexuals, and racial minorities.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Extra Credit Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
American Civilization Department
8:30 am - 9:50 am |
MW |
TBA |
Broadcasting the Past: Television and History - 15663 - AMCV 0190G - S01
Instructor: Malgorzata Joanna Rymsza-Pawlowska (P)
Commerical television helps create popular conceptions of American history. This course examines how television programming influences our sense of national, local, and personal history. We consider the message and impact of programs such as Civil War, Roots, Frontier House, and The Wonder Years, performing critical analyses of television as a text, and exploring the guiding themes of American Studies.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Extra Credit Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
American Civilization Department
2:30 pm - 3:50 pm |
TR |
TBA |
Chinatown: Race, Power and the American City - 15664 - AMCV 0190H - S01
Instructor: Thomas Chen (P)
Everyone knows where the nearest Chinatown is, but there's much more to Chinatown than good, cheap food. What is a Chinatown, and why do they exist? This seminar uses novels, tourist guides, films, popular culture, and history studies to explore the contemporary configurations of Chinatowns across the U.S. Topics include racial discourse, labor migration, urban renewal/redevelopment, and community formation. Guest speakers and visits to Boston's Chinatown are planned.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Extra Credit Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
American Civilization Department
6:30 pm - 7:50 pm |
TR |
TBA |
Introduction to American Studies - 14447 - AMCV 1010 - S01
Instructors: Samuel Zipp, Elliott J. Gorn (P)
American Civilization 1010 introduces students to the study of American culture. During the semester, we will focus on select aspects of our national life- for example, a neighborhood, an ethnic group, an event - and examine them in depth through history, fiction, film, and other media. Using an interdisciplinary approach, we'll explore a range of American peoples, places, and experiences. Lectures and discussion sections.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
American Civilization Department
Course Attributes:
Diversity Perspectives, Liberal Learning
1:00 pm - 1:50 pm |
MWF |
TBA |
The Neoclassical Ideal in America, 1775-1840 - 15637 - AMCV 1250E - S01
Instructor: Robert P Emlen (P)
This course examines the art, architecture, and domestic furnishing of America in the early national period. It focuses on visual culture as a reflection of the new nation's self image as a democratic and enlightened society. Includes class visits to local burying grounds and museum collections, and a Saturday Boston field trip.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
American Civilization Department
10:30 am - 11:50 am |
TR |
TBA |
Instructor: Patrick M. Malone (P)
Examines the cultural significance of the automobile. Employs materials and methodologies from various disciplines to study this machine and the changes it has produced in our society and our landscape. Slide-illustrated lectures cover such topics as the assembly line, automobile design, roadside architecture, suburbs, auto advertisements, and the car in popular culture.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
American Civilization Department
2:00 pm - 2:50 pm |
MWF |
TBA |
Self/Identity in American Culture - 15639 - AMCV 1611I - S01
Instructor: Mari Jo Buhle (P)
Follows the history of the behavioral sciences-psychology, psychiatry, and psychoanalysis-in defining concepts of "self" and "identity" in the 20th century. Examines the relationship among scholarly formulations, popular culture, and politics. Comprises three "case studies": narcissism, multiple personalities, and gender dysphoria. Includes clinical training films, Hollywood films, first person narratives, and scholarship in behavioral sciences and history.
0.000 OR 1.000 Credit Hours
0.000 OR 1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
American Civilization Department
2:00 pm - 2:50 pm |
MWF |
TBA |
Henry James Goes to the Movies - 15661 - AMCV 1612G - S01
Instructors: Beverly Haviland (P)
This course will focus on some of the novels and stories by James that have been made more than once into films or tv shows - Washington Square, The Turn of the Screw, The Portrait of a Lady, and The Golden Bowl - and study the narrative and visual choices as interpretations of James's texts. Critical readings on the art of fiction and the art of film will also be introduced.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
American Civilization Department
9:00 am - 10:20 am |
TR |
TBA |
Hawthorne and Thoreau: Culture and Nature in America - 15662 - AMCV 1612H - S01
Instructgor: Barton L. St. Armand (P)
Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry David Thoreau are selected as representative of the dialectic between the concept of American as "Nature's Nation" and as a site of continuing cultural conflict. We will also explore the resonances of this opposition in later works by such authors as James, Muir, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Abbey and Bob Dylan, as well as some of its repercussions in the realms of painting and music. Includes lectures, discussions, and student reports.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
American Civilization Department
1:00 pm - 2:20 pm |
TR |
TBA |
Women on the Move: Gender, Sexuality and Migration - 15915 - AMCV 1612I - S01
Instructor: Rhacel Salazar Parreñas (P)
This course looks at the experiences of migrant women through the lens of gender and sexuality. It addresses the constitution of gender and sexuality in the process of women's migration, analyzes the ways that society disciplines migrant women via the control of their gender and sexuality, and lastly identifies the ways that women utilize gender and sexuality to negotiate the various structural inequalities they confront in the process of migration. This course situates our discussion of gender and sexuality in the institutions of the state, labor market, family and community.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
American Civilization Department
8:30 am - 9:50 am |
MW |
TBA |
Race and Psychoanalysis - 15642 - AMCV 1902R - S01
Instructor: Beverly Haviland (P)
A study of the evolving discourses of race emerging in and reflected by psychoanalysis since its founding by Freud, who fled the Nazis in 1938. Readings will include work by Frantz Fanon, by a variety of contemporary theorists, and literary texts and films.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
American Civilization Department
4:00 pm - 6:20 pm |
R |
TBA |
Nature and the Beats: Kerouac, Ginsberg, Snyder and Abbey - 15668 - AMCV 1903N - S01
Instructor: Barton L. St. Armand (P)
The emergence of Beat literature has usually been seen as largely an urban phenomenon, but some of the Beats were intimately involved in responses to the land and the landscape, not only in the United States, but in Mexico, Japan and India. This course will take Keroac's The Dharma Bums as its leading text and explore nature in the poetry, novels, travel writing, and essays of Ginsberg, Snyder, and Abbey. Lectures, discussions and class reports. Entry to the class is dependent on writing a personal essay justifying interest in the subject matter.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
American Civilization Department
3:00 pm - 5:20 pm |
F |
TBA |
Jewish Americans: Film and Comics - 15666 - AMCV 1903O - S01
Instructor: Paul Buhle (P)
This seminar will examine the rise of Jewish themes and personnel in the Hollywood film, comic strips and comic books. We will study the ways in which the role of Jewish Americans have shaped popular art forms and developed new understandings of art. Students will participate in the creation of an exhibit at the John Nicholas Brown Center on the theme of "Jews and American Comics."
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
American Civilization Department
3:00 pm - 5:20 pm |
M |
TBA |
Please, Please Me - 15667 - AMCV 1903P - S01
Instructor: Ralph E. Rodriguez (P)
This seminar will investigate theories of pleasure and its representation in a range of fictional texts. What is it that makes a text pleasing and for whom? How do we talk about pleasure and explain it to others? I am especially interested in the representation of pleasure from the 1970s on.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
American Civilization Department
4:00 pm - 6:20 pm |
R |
TBA |
Introduction to Interdisciplinary Methods - 11234 - AMCV 2010 - S01
Instructor: Robert George Lee (P)
Introduction to interdisciplinary studies required of all first-year graduate students in American civilization. Graduate students from other departments may enroll with permission of the instructor.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Graduate School College
American Civilization Department
3:00 pm - 5:20 pm |
W |
TBA |
American Studies: Method and Theory - 11239 - AMCV 2520 - S01
Instructor: Susan Smulyan (P)
Examines the methodological and theoretical underpinnings of current and past American studies scholarship. Enrollment limited to graduate students with preference given to American Civilization graduate students.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Graduate School College
American Civilization Department
6:30 pm - 7:50 pm |
TR |
TBA |
Introduction to Public Humanities - 15643 - AMCV 2650 - S01
Instructor: Steven D. Lubar (P)
This class, a foundational course for the MA in Public Humanities with preference given to American Civilization graduate students, will address the theoretical bases of the public humanities, including topics of history and memory, museums and memorials, the roles of expertise and experience, community cultural development, and material culture.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Graduate School College
American Civilization Department
3:00 pm - 5:20 pm |
W |
TBA |
Practicum in Public Humanities - 15854 - AMCV 2670 - S01
Instructors: Anne M. Valk, Steven D. Lubar (P)
Practicums in public humanities provide practical, hands-on training that is essential for careers in museums, historic preservation, and cultural agenices. Students will work with faculty to find appropriate placements and negotiate a semester's or summer work, in general a specific project. Available only to students in the Public Humanities M.A. program.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Graduate School College
American Civilization Department
Arranged |
TBA |
TBA |
Public Humanities Institutions: A Systems Perspective - 15868 - AMCV 2690 - S01
Instructor: TBA (P)
What does it take to run a public humanities institution? This course explores the "behind the exhibits" systems of planning, administration, governance, revenue generation, finance and marketing. Throughout the course, students will explore the challenges/tensions that develop between fulfilling the mission and developing sustainable organizations.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Graduate School College
American Civilization Department
12:30 pm - 3:50 pm |
M |
TBA |
SPRING 2009
| Course ID - Sec | Short Title | Primary |
| Instructor | ||
| AMCV1610G S01 | Asian American History | Robert George Lee |
| AMCV1550 S01 | Methods in Public Humanities | Steven Lubar |
| AMCV1611A S01 | 20thC US Immigrant Ethnic Lit | Richard Alan Meckel |
| AMCV1612F S01 | Female Maladies Wmen + Illness | Mari Jo Buhle |
| AMCV1611V S01 | Color Me Cool | Ralph Rodriguez |
| AMCV1700D S01 | The Teen Age: In Cold War Amer | Richard Alan Meckel |
| AMCV2500 S01 | Museum Intrprtatn of Amer Exp | Patrick Malone |
| AMCV1611L S01 | The Sixties Without Apology | Paul Buhle |
| AMCV0190J S01 | Old Salts + Sacred Cod: NE Env | Jonathan Olly |
| AMCV1903M S01 | People in Everyday Life | Lynn Davidman |
| AMCV2220B S01 | Culture, Politics + Metro Env. | Samuel Zipp |
| AMCV1610G S02 | Asian American History | Robert George Lee |
| AMCV1612E S01 | Narratives of 9/11 | Beverly Haviland |
| AMCV0190I S01 | Black Women's History, Memory | Miel Wilson |
| AMCV0150G S01 | Women / Writing / Power | Beverly Haviland |
| AMCV1611J S01 | Mixed Race/Interacial Relatns | Matthew Garcia |