Introduction to American Studies

 

Professor:

Peter L'Official

 

Course Number:

AS 101

CRN Number:

10170

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    10:10 AM - 11:30 AM Olin 202

 

Distributional Area:

MBV Meaning, Being, Value D+J Difference and Justice

 

Crosslists: Environmental & Urban Studies; Environmental Studies; Historical Studies; Literature

American studies, as some have observed, is not defined by what it chooses to include, but by what it refuses to exclude. This course introduces students to the capacious multidisciplinary field of American studies. An inter-discipline that, at its birth in the mid-twentieth century, united literary and historical studies at its core in an attempt to define what, among its many myths and symbols, constituted “American civilization,” American studies now is in close dialogue with ethnic studies, environmental and urban studies, Native American and Indigenous studies, queer studies, disability studies, critical geography, sociology, media studies, labor studies, art history, and more, while strengthening its links to questions of politics and social justice. Scholars in American studies read and interpret a broad range of artifacts (essays, literary texts, photographs, film, music, architecture, visual art, historical documents, and legal texts) in order to think critically about “America” and who and what makes it—in a hemispheric, transnational, and global sense. In this course, “The Discovery of What it Means to Be an American” describes both a piercing 1961 James Baldwin essay, as well as it does our process of tracing lines of connection across historical moments and media in order to understand the aftereffects of enslavement, genocide, colonization, war, and migration as they have shaped U.S. history and culture, at home and abroad. Issues of race, gender, sexuality, and socioeconomic difference will be discussed at length. This course is open both to intended American and Indigenous Studies Program majors and to others interested in developing skills in close-reading, critical analysis, and cultural criticism.

 

The Haunting of America:  History, Ghosts and the Undead

 

Professor:

Donna Grover

 

Course Number:

AS 200

CRN Number:

10663

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    3:30 PM - 4:50 PM Olin 202

 

Distributional Area:

HA Historical Analysis D+J Difference and Justice

America’s gendered and racialized politics of empire have produced spectral spaces throughout its national narratives. Like a haunted house, America holds onto certain terrors and traumas long after the original events and people have gone. Through history, literature, and film, this course examines such spaces and the ghosts and undead swirling in public memory at the edges of our supposed reality. We will consider how ghosts both distract from and center historical accounts, including:  the haunted Gettysburg battlefield and the history of the Civil War; the yoga and magic workshops of Salem, Massachusetts, and the Puritan witch craze; and contemporary racial unrest and the ghosts of enslaved and murdered Native Americans and Africans. American hauntings are experienced as personal and multi-generational. In William Faulkner's Light in August, it is the dead “that do the damage.” We will study this phenomenon in works by Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Brockden Brown, Shirley Jackson, Jordan Peele, Victor La Salle and others.

 

Introduction to Indigenous Research Methodologies: Theory and Practice

 

Professor:

Luis Chavez

 

Course Number:

AS 202

CRN Number:

10171

Class cap:

18

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    1:30 PM - 2:50 PM Olin 101

 

Distributional Area:

MBV Meaning, Being, Value D+J Difference and Justice

 

Crosslists: Africana Studies; Anthropology; Historical Studies; Human Rights; Literature; Study of Religions

This course introduces the mechanisms of research through Indigenous studies and communities, providing students with an overview of Indigenous theories and methods that can be applied to their academic inquiry practices. We will explore the increasingly complex issues surrounding settler colonialism and critically examine topics and themes relevant to Indigenous studies, such as self-determination, sovereignty, colonialism, and decolonization. This course will equip students with the tools to engage and analyze research with, and by, Indigenous communities and scholarship, leading to a final project that effectively communicates their findings. By thinking of Indigenous research methods and methodologies as both practice and knowledge creation we will discuss key concepts that researchers should incorporate. Readings for this course will focus on recent case studies illustrating Indigenous approaches to disciplines such as anthropology, the arts, history, life and human sciences, statistics, education, and literature. Each student will develop a final project that applies assigned readings to the student’s interests and area of specialty. This course is part of the Rethinking Place: Bard-on-Mahicantuck Initiative. (The course does not fulfill the methodology requirement for Anthropology.)

 

American Dreams

 

Professor:

Hua Hsu

 

Course Number:

AS 313

CRN Number:

10173

Class cap:

15

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue      3:10 PM - 5:30 PM Olin 303

 

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis D+J Difference and Justice

 

Crosslists: Literature

Throughout much of the twentieth century, the promise of American life was that anyone could participate in something called the American Dream. For some, it was a steady faith in achievement and opportunity; others chased the possibility of infinite prosperity, or the chance to sever ties with the past and wholly reinvent oneself. What was this dream? What creative visions did it authorize, and how does it continue to reverberate through American culture, even as many have given up on it? How did this civic religion bridge the political divide, a form of exceptionalism embraced by conservatives and radicals alike? How have artists and thinkers captured the affective dimension of the American dream—the optimistic heights, the disillusioned lows? And how did marginalized communities that didn’t share in this optimistic faith in opportunity or meritocracy wage critique? How did this dream look from abroad, and what visions of the future remain today? And how has capitalism undergirded American notions of success and failure, even in artistic spheres? This multidisciplinary semester will explore these ideas across a range of textual forms and creative expressions, like visual art, film, and music, culminating in a series of projects where students will follow this idea to their present. Possible authors include: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gwendolyn Brooks, H.T. Tsiang, James Baldwin, Jack Kerouac, Joan Didion, Chang-rae Lee, Lauren Berlant, Ta-Nehisi Coates Valeria Luiselli, Jack Halberstam, David Graeber. If you have any questions, please contact Hua Hsu ([email protected])

 

A Lexicon of Migration

 

Professor:

Jeff Jurgens

 

Course Number:

ANTH 224

CRN Number:

10176

Class cap:

18

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    10:10 AM - 11:30 AM Olin 304

 

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis D+J Difference and Justice

 

Crosslists: American & Indigenous Studies; Global & International Studies; Human Rights; Middle Eastern Studies

 

Indigenous Cinema: Decolonizing the Frame

 

Professor:

Zack Khalil

 

Course Number:

FILM 299

CRN Number:

10670

Class cap:

12

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

Mon       1:30 PM - 4:30 PM Avery Film Center 117

 

Distributional Area:

PA Analysis of Art  

 

Crosslists: American and Indigenous Studies

 

The Boundaries of Freedom: A History of the United States, 1865-2024

 

Professor:

Daniel Wortel-London

 

Course Number:

HIST 113

CRN Number:

10198

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    10:10 AM - 11:30 AM Olin 204

 

Distributional Area:

HA Historical Analysis D+J Difference and Justice

 

Crosslists: American & Indigenous Studies; Human Rights

 

Unsustainable?: An Environmental History of the United States

 

Professor:

Daniel Wortel-London

 

Course Number:

HIST 207

CRN Number:

10207

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Olin 205

 

Distributional Area:

HA Historical Analysis  

 

Crosslists: American & Indigenous Studies; Environmental Studies; Politics

 

Migrants and Refugees in the Americas

 

Professor:

Miles Rodriguez

 

Course Number:

HIST 225

CRN Number:

10203

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Olin 305

 

Distributional Area:

HA Historical Analysis D+J Difference and Justice

 

Crosslists: American & Indigenous Studies; Global & International Studies; Human Rights; Latin American/Iberian Studies

 

Human Rights to Civil Rights

 

Professor:

Kwame Holmes

 

Course Number:

HR 189

CRN Number:

10215

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     10:10 AM - 11:30 AM Olin 309

 

Distributional Area:

HA Historical Analysis D+J Difference and Justice

 

Crosslists: Africana Studies; American & Indigenous Studies; Historical Studies

 

Immigrants Among Us: The Rights of Non-Citizens

 

Professor:

Peter Rosenblum Danielle Riou

 

Course Number:

HR 274

CRN Number:

10219

Class cap:

18

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Olin 306

 

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis D+J Difference and Justice

 

Crosslists: American & Indigenous Studies; Global & International Studies; Politics; Sociology

 

Chronic: Disability, Sickness, Access, and Revolt

 

Professor:

Evan Williams

 

Course Number:

HR 372

CRN Number:

10453

Class cap:

15

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

Mon       12:30 PM - 2:50 PM Henderson Comp. Center 106

 

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis D+J Difference and Justice

 

Crosslists: American & Indigenous Studies

 

Modern Comedy

 

Professor:

Matthew Mutter

 

Course Number:

LIT 157

CRN Number:

10285

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Reem Kayden Center 111

 

Distributional Area:

LA Literary Analysis in English  

 

Crosslists: American & Indigenous Studies

 

American Literature II: Democratic Vistas, Democratic Crises

 

Professor:

Elizabeth Frank

 

Course Number:

LIT 258

CRN Number:

10340

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

  Wed Thurs    8:30 AM - 9:50 AM Olin 202

 

Distributional Area:

LA Literary Analysis in English  

 

Crosslists: American & Indigenous Studies; Environmental & Urban Studies

 

Race and Real Estate

 

Professor:

Peter L'Official

 

Course Number:

LIT 328

CRN Number:

10345

Class cap:

15

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

   Thurs    12:30 PM - 2:50 PM Olin 301

 

Distributional Area:

LA Literary Analysis in English D+J Difference and Justice

 

Crosslists: American & Indigenous Studies; Architecture; Environmental Studies; Human Rights

 

Genre and Beyond: 150 Years of American Popular Music

 

Professor:

Franz Nicolay

 

Course Number:

MUS 124

CRN Number:

10489

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    10:10 AM - 11:30 AM Blum Music Center N210

 

Distributional Area:

AA Analysis of Art  

 

Crosslists: American & Indigenous Studies

 

Indigenous Ethnomusicologies

 

Professor:

Luis Chavez

 

Course Number:

MUS 260

CRN Number:

10466

Class cap:

20

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    10:10 AM - 11:30 AM Blum Music Center N217

 

Distributional Area:

MBV Meaning, Being, Value  

 

Crosslists: American & Indigenous Studies; Anthropology; Environmental Studies; Experimental Humanities; Global & International Studies; Human Rights; Latin American/Iberian Studies

 

American Popular Song I (1900-1929)

 

Professor:

John Esposito

 

Course Number:

MUS 266A

CRN Number:

10471

Class cap:

10

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Blum Music Center N211

 

Distributional Area:

AA Analysis of Art  

 

Crosslists: Africana Studies; American & Indigenous Studies

 

Advanced Contemporary Jazz Techniques ll

 

Professor:

John Esposito

 

Course Number:

MUS 366B

CRN Number:

10472

Class cap:

10

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    10:10 AM - 11:30 AM Blum Music Center N211

 

Distributional Area:

PA Practicing Arts  

 

Crosslists: American & Indigenous Studies

 

Accordionology: Class, Race, and Migration in American Musics

 

Professor:

Maria Sonevytsky

 

Course Number:

MUS 387

CRN Number:

10500

Class cap:

8

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

  Wed  Fri   11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Blum Music Center HALL

 

Distributional Area:

PA Practicing Arts  

 

Crosslists: American & Indigenous Studies; Anthropology

 

The Future Politics of New York State

 

Professor:

Bill Dixon

 

Course Number:

PS 262

CRN Number:

10265

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    10:10 AM - 11:30 AM Fisher Studio Arts ANNEX

 

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis  

 

Crosslists: American & Indigenous Studies

 

Introduction to Sociology

 

Professor:

Jussara dos Santos Raxlen

 

Course Number:

SOC 101

CRN Number:

10273

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Olin 204

 

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis D+J Difference and Justice

 

Crosslists: American & Indigenous Studies

 

Wealth, Poverty, and Inequality

 

Professor:

Yuval Elmelech

 

Course Number:

SOC 120

CRN Number:

10274

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    3:30 PM - 4:50 PM Olin 201

 

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis D+J Difference and Justice

 

Crosslists: American & Indigenous Studies; Gender and Sexuality Studies; Human Rights

 

Sociology of Race & Ethnicity

 

Professor:

Jussara dos Santos Raxlen

 

Course Number:

SOC 122

CRN Number:

10275

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    1:30 PM - 2:50 PM Olin 205

 

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis D+J Difference and Justice

 

Crosslists: Africana Studies; American & Indigenous Studies; Human Rights; Latin American/Iberian Studies

 

Introduction to Research Methods

 

Professor:

Yuval Elmelech

 

Course Number:

SOC 205

CRN Number:

10276

Class cap:

15

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Henderson Comp. Center 106

 

Distributional Area:

MC Mathematics and Computing  

 

Crosslists: American & Indigenous Studies; Environmental & Urban Studies; Global & International Studies; Human Rights

 

The Environment and Society

 

Professor:

Peter Klein

 

Course Number:

SOC 231

CRN Number:

10278

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Olin Languages Center 115

 

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis D+J Difference and Justice

 

Crosslists: American & Indigenous Studies; Environmental & Urban Studies; Human Rights; Science, Technology, Society

 

Social Problems

 

Professor:

Yuval Elmelech

 

Course Number:

SOC 332

CRN Number:

10281

Class cap:

15

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

  Wed     3:30 PM - 5:50 PM Olin 101

 

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis D+J Difference and Justice

 

Crosslists: American & Indigenous Studies; Human Rights

 

Tricks of the Trade: Qualitative Research Practicum

 

Professor:

Peter Klein

 

Course Number:

SOC 333

CRN Number:

10282

Class cap:

12

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue      9:10 AM - 11:30 AM Albee 106

 

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis  

 

Crosslists: American & Indigenous Studies; Environmental & Urban Studies; Global & International Studies; Human Rights