Undergraduate Course Directory

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Courses by Subject Area

Click on the links below for a list of courses in that subject area. You may then click “View Classes” to see scheduled classes for individual courses.

1002. Sing and Shout! The History of America in Song

Also offered as: MUSI 1002

3.00 credits

Prerequisites: None.

Grading Basis: Graded

Develop an understanding of American people, history and culture through the study and singing of American folk songs. CA 1. CA 4.

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1201. Introduction to American Studies

Also offered as: ENGL 1201, HIST 1503

3.00 credits

Prerequisites: None.

Grading Basis: Graded

What is an American? A multi-disciplinary inquiry into the diversity of American societies and cultures. CA 4.

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1700. Honors Core: American Landscapes

3.00 credits

Prerequisites: Open to freshmen and sophomores in the Honors Program.

Grading Basis: Honors Credit

Real and imagined landscapes in the Americas as seen through the history of the land and its uses and through changing representations of those landscapes in art, literature, science, and popular culture. CA 1. TOI-2. TOI-4.

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2200. Literature and Culture of North America before 1800

Also offered as: ENGL 2200

3.00 credits

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011.

Grading Basis: Graded

An examination of the early written and oral culture of the area that eventually became the United States. CA 1.

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2201. Introduction to Asian American Studies

Also offered as: AAAS 2201

3.00 credits

Prerequisites: None.

Grading Basis: Graded

A multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary introduction to major themes in Asian American Studies. Concepts of identity and community, migration and labor histories, Asians and the law, representations of Asians in visual and popular culture, gender issues, interracial and interethnic relations, and human rights. CA 1. CA 4.

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2204. Jewish Culture in American Film

Also offered as: CLCS 2204, HEJS 2204

3.00 credits

Prerequisites: None.

Grading Basis: Graded

Representations of the diversity of Jewish culture (historical, religious, secular) in American film. Introduction to film analysis and interpretation. CA 1. CA 4.

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2207. Empire and U.S. Culture

Also offered as: ENGL 2207, HIST 2207

3.00 credits

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011.

Grading Basis: Graded

How the frontier and overseas ambitions have shaped U.S. institutions and culture. The impact of U.S. expansion on people outside its borders. These topics are explored through literary narratives and historical documents. CA 1. CA 4.

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2274W. Disability in American Literature and Culture

Also offered as: ENGL 2274W

3.00 credits

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011.

Grading Basis: Graded

An interdisciplinary examination of the symbolic roles of disability and the social implications of those roles. CA 1. CA 4.

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2276. American Utopias and Dystopias

Also offered as: ENGL 2276

3.00 credits

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011.

Grading Basis: Graded

Interdisciplinary approaches to American utopian and dystopian literature of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. CA 1.

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2276W. American Utopias and Dystopias

Also offered as: ENGL 2276W

3.00 credits

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011.

Grading Basis: Graded

Interdisciplinary approaches to American utopian and dystopian literature of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. CA 1.

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2400. City and Community in Film

Also offered as: URBN 2400

3.00 credits

Prerequisites: None.

Grading Basis: Graded

Aesthetics, history, and contemporary relevance of American films that feature the urban, suburban, and/or small town landscape as a major "character" shaping plot and story. Films read closely as texts that make meaning through a range of tools, including narrative, mise-en-scene, editing, camera work, and genre conventions. CA 1.

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2550. Crime, Policing, and Punishment in the United States

Also offered as: HIST 2550

3.00 credits

Prerequisites: None.

Grading Basis: Graded

A survey of political, legal, and cultural development of the American criminal justice system and its social impact from the early republic to the present. Formerly offered as AMST/HIST 2810. CA 1.

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2993. International Study

1.00 - 9.00 credits | May be repeated for a total of 12 credits.

Prerequisites: Department consent.

Grading Basis: Graded

Special topics taken in an international study program. Consent of department head required, normally to be granted prior to the student's departure.

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3042. Baseball and Society: Politics, Economics, Race and Gender

Also offered as: AFRA 3042, HDFS 3042, WGSS 3042

3.00 credits

Prerequisites: Open to juniors or higher.

Grading Basis: Graded

Baseball in historical, political, sociological, and economic contexts. Topics may include: impact on individuals and families; racial discrimination and integration; labor relations; urbanization; roles of women; treatment of gay athletes; and implications of performance-enhancing drugs.

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3082. Critical Race Theory as Political Theory

Also offered as: POLS 3082

3.00 credits

Prerequisites: Open to juniors or higher. Recommended preparation: POLS 1002.

Grading Basis: Graded

Interdisciplinary scholarship on racial identity, legal decisions, and political action from the perspective of political science and political theory. Topics include interactions between states and social movements, the intersections of race, class, gender, and membership, and the problems with both post-racialism and identity politics.

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3265W. American Studies Methods

Also offered as: ENGL 3265W

3.00 credits | May be repeated for credit.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011; open to juniors or higher.

Grading Basis: Graded

Interdisciplinary research and writing centered on a specific topic in U.S. culture. An introduction and overview of research methods in American Studies.

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3267W. Race and the Scientific Imagination

Also offered as: ENGL 3267W

3.00 credits

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011.

Grading Basis: Graded

How racism has been both reproduced and contradicted in the scientific imagination. Scientific texts and imaginative literature that explore the reparation of past harms and imagine new futures. CA 1. CA 4.

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3271. Immigration and Transborder Politics

Also offered as: LLAS 3271, POLS 3834

3.00 credits

Prerequisites: Open to juniors or higher.

Grading Basis: Graded

U.S. immigration policy, trans-border politics, and the impact diasporas and ethnic lobbies have on U.S. foreign policy, with emphasis on Latino diasporas.

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3281. Internship

1.00 - 6.00 credits | May be repeated for a total of 8 credits.

Prerequisites: Open to juniors or higher.

Grading Basis: Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory

No more than eight credits may be earned in a single placement, and no more than three credits may be counted towards completion of requirements for the American Studies major. Students taking this course will be assigned a grade of S (satisfactory) or U (unsatisfactory). May be repeated for credit.

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3440. Visual Culture of the United States, 19th Century

Also offered as: ARTH 3440

3.00 credits

Prerequisites: Open to sophomores or higher.

Grading Basis: Graded

An exploration of how visual culture in the long 19th century contributed to the formation of the United States.

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3440W. Visual Culture of the United States, 19th Century

Also offered as: ARTH 3440W

3.00 credits

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011; open to juniors or higher.

Grading Basis: Graded

An exploration of how visual culture in the long 19th century contributed to the formation of the United States.

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3502. Colonial America: Native Americans, Slaves, and Settlers, 1492-1760

Also offered as: HIST 3502

3.00 credits

Prerequisites: None.

Grading Basis: Graded

The legacy of Columbus, creative survival of native Americans in the face of disease and warfare, religious utopianism and the profit motive in colonization. The growth of a distinctive Anglo-American political culture, gender and family relations, and the entrenchment of a racial caste system.

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3502W. Colonial America: Native Americans, Slaves, and Settlers, 1492-1760

Also offered as: HIST 3502W

3.00 credits

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011; open to juniors or higher.

Grading Basis: Graded

The legacy of Columbus, creative survival of native Americans in the face of disease and warfare, religious utopianism and the profit motive in colonization. The growth of a distinctive Anglo-American political culture, gender and family relations, and the entrenchment of a racial caste system.

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3531. Japanese Americans and World War II

Also offered as: AAAS 3531, HIST 3531

3.00 credits

Prerequisites: None.

Grading Basis: Graded

The events leading to martial law and executive order 9066, the wartime experience of Japanese Americans, and national consequences. CA 1. CA 4.

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3542E. New England Environmental History

Also offered as: HIST 3542E

3.00 credits

Prerequisites: Recommended preparation: ENGL 1010 or 1011 or 2011 or 3800.

Grading Basis: Graded

Interdisciplinary history of New England's terrestrial and marine environmental change. Links among land, sea, and human natural resource use and management, including precontact patterns, colonial impacts, agricultural decline, industrial pollution, overfishing, re-forestation, and the rise of eco-tourism.

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3544. Atlantic Voyages: European Maritime Expansion, 1400-1650

Also offered as: HIST 3544, MAST 3544

3.00 credits

Prerequisites: None.

Grading Basis: Graded

Late medieval and early modern European expansion into the Atlantic and Indian oceans, with particular attention to European, Asian, African, and American contexts within which that expansion took place. Topics include the transatlantic slave trade; technology adoption and adaptation; convergence of trade, racial ideology, imperial expansion, and imperial identity construction; piracy and settlement; historiographical legacies and later imperialism; and decolonization of contemporary understandings.

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3568. Hip Hop, Politics and Youth Culture in America

Also offered as: AFRA 3568, HIST 3568, MUSI 3568

3.00 credits

Prerequisites: None.

Grading Basis: Graded

History of hip-hop, its musical antecedents and its role in popular culture. Race, class, and gender are examined as well as hip-hop's role in popular political discourse.

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3570. History and Theory of Digital Art

Also offered as: ARTH 3570, DMD 3570

3.00 credits

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011; open to sophomores or higher.

Grading Basis: Graded

Investigates forms of digital and Internet art and the mostly forgotten histories of the technologies behind them. Forms and themes to be explored include games/gaming, surveillance art, cyberfeminism, data visualization, and crowdsourced art. CA 1. CA 4.

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3699. Independent Study

1.00 - 6.00 credits | May be repeated for credit.

Prerequisites: Open to juniors or higher.

Grading Basis: Graded

Supervised reading and writing on a subject of special interest to the student. May be repeated for credit with a change of topic.

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3807. Constitutional Rights and Liberties

Also offered as: HRTS 3807, POLS 3807

3.00 credits

Prerequisites: Open to juniors or higher.

Grading Basis: Graded

The role of the Supreme Court in interpreting the Bill of Rights. Topics include freedoms of speech and religion, criminal due process, and equal protection.

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3822. Law and Popular Culture

Also offered as: POLS 3822

3.00 credits

Prerequisites: Open to juniors or higher.

Grading Basis: Graded

Exploration of themes in the study of law and courts by contrasting scholarly work against representations of such themes in movies, televisions, and other media of popular culture.

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3822W. Law and Popular Culture

Also offered as: POLS 3822W

3.00 credits

Prerequisites: ENGL 1007 or 1010 or 1011 or 2011; open to juniors or higher.

Grading Basis: Graded

Exploration of themes in the study of law and courts by contrasting scholarly work against representations of such themes in movies, televisions, and other media of popular culture.

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4897. Honors Thesis

1.00 - 3.00 credits

Prerequisites: Open to juniors or higher.

Grading Basis: Honors Credit

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