Check out some of the exciting American Studies courses for Fall 2008.
Philadelphia Arts and Culture (4 s.h.)
American Studies 0801.001, 002, 003
Ken Finkel
Main Campus
MW, 11:40 am – 12:30 pm
F, 10:40 am – 11:30 am
American Studies 0801.401
Ken Finkel
TUCC
M, 5:30 pm – 8:00 pm
What and where is the real Philadelphia ? How can we get past the clichés to better understand and experience the city`s historic and legendary sense of itself? For more than three centuries, Philadelphia`s unique identity has been defined and redefined by a prodigious and prolific creative community: painters, sculptors, writers, performers, architects, planners, thinkers, and more. We`ll explore Philadelphia`s evolving sense of itself through a broad range of examples of creative works from the 17th through the 20th centuries. And through this prism of expression, and the institutions that present and protect it, we`ll develop a deep understanding of Philadelphia as one of the nation`s most creative cities.
Note: This course fulfills the Arts (GA) requirement for students under Gen Ed and Arts (AR) for students under Core.
Higher Education and American Life (3 s.h.)
American Studies 0855.001
William Cutler
Main Campus
MWF, 10:40 am – 11:30 am
You have decided to go to college. But why? What role will college and in particular Temple University play in your life? Reflect on this important question by looking at the relationship between higher education and American society. What do colleges and universities contribute to our lives? They are, of course, places for teaching and learning. They are also research centers, sports and entertainment venues, sources of community pride and profit, major employers, settings for coming-of-age rituals (parties, wild times, courtship, etc.), and institutions that create lifetime identities and loyalties. Learn how higher education is shaped by the larger society and how, in turn, it has shaped that society. Become better prepared for the world in which you have chosen to live for the next few years.
Note: This course fulfills the U.S. Society (GU) requirement for students under Gen Ed and American Culture (AC) for students under Core.
Students cannot receive credit for this course if they have successfully completed Educational Administration 0855 or English 0855.
American Lives (3 s.h.)
American Studies 1001.001
Friederike Baer
Main Campus
MWF, 9:40 am – 10:30 am
American Studies 1001.002
Jacqueline Robinson-Waldstreicher
Main Campus
MW, 3:40 pm –5:00 pm
American Studies 1001.401
Bruce Plourde
TUCC
T, 5:30 pm – 8:00 pm
American Studies 1901.001 – Honors
Bryant Simon
Main Campus
TR, 10:10 am – 11:30 am
This course is an introduction to American Studies through the study of autobiographical writings—life stories—that give us insight into American values, conditions, aspirations, and conflicts. By looking closely at these American lives, students will meet people of various periods and backgrounds and become familiar with the way history has shaped lives, and the way individuals have both created and resisted the forces of change. The conflicting images and realities of American society will be explored.
Work in America (3 s.h.)
American Studies 1042.101
Beth English
Ambler Campus
2:40 pm – 4:00 pm
A broad discussion of work in the United States, which takes a historical look at worker-management relationships, the organization of workplaces, the experiences of ordinary workers, and the experiences of different groups of people (e.g., ethnic minorities) in the workplace. The course will provide students with a perspective on major historical and cultural developments in the U.S. from the late 19th century to the present, using primary documents, literature, and secondary readings on the nature of work in America .
Note: This course can be used to satisfy the university Core American Culture (AC) requirement. Although it may be usable towards graduation as a major requirement or university elective, it cannot be used to satisfy any of the university Gen Ed requirements. See your advisor for further information.
The American Sexual Past (3 s.h.)
American Studies 2003.001
Lisa Rhodes
Main Campus
TR, 12:40 pm – 1:30 pm
This course will explore the history of sexuality in America . The purpose of this course is to familiarize the student with important historical events/periods in the development of sexuality in the United States and major themes and issues in the American cultural history of sex and sexuality. Its purpose is to survey the ways in which sexuality has changed and shifted over the course of colonial and American history. It will also connect sexuality to the social, political, and economic realities that helped to shape it in different eras. The focus of the course will consist of major themes that illuminate aspects of sexuality in colonial and American culture and history. These may include, but are not limited to: censorship, family and sex, marriage and sex, female sexuality, male sexuality, homosexuality, birth control, bisexuality, the state use of sterilization, transgender/transsexual sexuality, sex workers, sexually transmitted infections, and sex in the media and arts. The approach taken in the class will cut across racial, class, gender, transgender, and ethnic boundaries. In order to better understand our own society, it is necessary to be aware of events that shaped the world as we know it today.
Philadelphia Neighborhoods (3 s.h.)
American Studies 2021.401
Randal Baron
TUCC
T, 5:30 pm – 8:00 pm
Students will be introduced to the development of the city of Philadelphia as seen from a neighborhood perspective. From Colonial times to the present, neighborhood and community are the primary means by which the city`s residents experienced the growth and change of the Philadelphia metropolitan area. Using archival resources over the World Wide Web, as well as the rich historical legacy of the region`s museums, students will explore the development of the city's neighborhoods.
Radicalism in the United States (3 s.h.)
American Studies 2031.001
Michael Brodie
Main Campus
TR, 1:10 pm – 2:30 pm
A study of issues and traditions in the history of radical thought and behavior. Emphasizing the 20th century, the course focuses on major social contexts and ideologies such as anarchism, militant unionism, socialism, and communism, each of which has had a long and vibrant history in the U.S.
America in the 1950s (3 s.h.)
American Studies 2064.001
Philip Yannella
Main Campus
TR, 11:40 am – 1:00 pm
This course will provide a survey of the 1950s, a time of deep, widespread, and lasting social change in the United States. Every aspect of the life of the country – government foreign and domestic policy, the workplace, entertainment, sports, the arts, and so forth – underwent some degree of significant alteration in the fifties. Some of this change resulted from the release of energy held in check by the Great Depression and World War II; some resulted from new technologies such as television and new spatial arrangements such as suburbanization; and some resulted from the emergence of new voices and styles (e.g., Abstract Expressionism, Rock and Roll, the Beats, bebop and other jazz forms) and more strenuous demands for freedom and equality by long-oppressed groups. While the course will survey the decade and the postwar era in general, it will also go into some depth by focusing on particular expressions of the major issues of the period.
Asian Diaspora (3 s.h.)
American Studies 2096.001
Lindsey Powell
Main Campus
R, 5:30 pm – 8:00 pm
Spurred by pressures of colonialism, economic change, nationalism, political repression, and war as well as individual needs and adventurism, Asians have migrated from their homelands to new regions of the world. This course focuses on Asians in U.S. society through comparison with their reception into other societies. In considering Asian diasporas, familiar terms such as Asia, American, Community, and Nation are called into question by the multiplicity of experiences and identities of those who have ventured out from Eastern regions of the globe.
Asian American Experiences (3 s.h.)
American Studies 2107.001
Tamara Nopper
Main Campus
TR, 11:40 am – 1:00 pm
An introduction to the varied historical and contemporary experiences of Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Korean, South, and Southeast Asian immigrants and their descendants in the United States. Explores economic, social, political, and cultural developments, beginning with the arrival of the Chinese in the 1830s and ending with the experiences of Asian-American immigrants and their communities today.
Topics in American Culture (3 s.h.)
“Television and American Culture”
American Studies 2120.001
Lisa Rhodes
Main Campus
MWF, 2:40 pm – 3:30 pm
This course will give you a working knowledge of the history of broadcast media, specifically radio and television, in America. We will also study the rise of cable TV and the internet. Some of the topics we will address include: the rise of the American broadcast media network; the creation of genres in broadcast media; major controversies in media including censorship and media regulation, race and its impact on U.S. media, and the role of women in media; and the rise of the giant media conglomerates in the late 20th century. We will also touch on academic and professional approaches to the study of media, specifically the Cultural Studies approach to media.
Quest for the American Dream
American Studies 2901.001 – Honors
Friederike Baer
Main Campus
MWF, 10:40 am – 11:30 am
The news commentator and reporter Dan Rather has described the American Dream as “one of the greatest ideas in the history of human achievement … It defines us as a people, even as we add to its meaning with each new chapter in our national experience and our individual actions.” References to the American Dream are everywhere: Advertisements promise to help consumers attain it, musicians sing about it, politicians invoke it in an effort to gain public support. But what is it? In this course, we will explore the significance of the American Dream in
shaping the character of American society and culture, from the founding of the nation to the late twentieth century. We will pay special attention to the contested meanings of the idea, and what it has meant to different American communities at various times. In short, we will examine how
the American Dream has been defined, expanded, threatened and defended.
Photography in America (3 s.h.)
American Studies 3011.001
Miles Orvell
Main Campus
TR, 11:40 am – 1:00 pm
An overview of the history of photography in America from its beginning in the 1840s to the present, emphasizing its relation to society and the arts. The course will cover both documentary and aesthetic movements, including such figures as Brady, Muybridge, Riis, Hine, Evans, Stieglitz, Steichen, Strand, Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, Duane Michals, Cindy Sherman, etc. The cultural meaning of the Civil War, of westward expansion, of the Great Depression, of the Civil Rights movement, will be studied in relation to photography. Slides and readings on photography and American culture and on how the camera affects our seeing and thinking.
Film and American Society (3 s.h.)
American Studies 3012.101
Beth English
Ambler Campus
R, 4:40 pm – 7:10 pm
This course explores the way visual media (film, video, television) have in various ways recorded or documented the social and historical "reality" of American life. A number of issues will be explored: What is the place of documentary within American society, as information and as entertainment? And why are we so attracted to it? How close to "reality" can visual media come? How does documentary compare with non-documentary film in its effort to represent American culture and history?
Courtroom in American Society (3 s.h.)
American Studies 3033.001
Joseph Walker
Main Campus
MWF, 9:40 am – 10:30 am
This course will examine the relationship between our legal system and American society. Does the law shape social mores or is it merely a reflection of them? What role should the court play in protecting individual rights? We will study the evolution of American jurisprudence in the area of abortion, affirmative action, freedom of expression, separation of church and state, and examine emerging areas of legal debate including the right to same sex marriage, the legalization of prostitution and the constitutionality of Megan's law.
American Frontiers (3 s.h.)
American Studies 3051.001
Ryan Edgington
Main Campus
MWF, 9:40 am – 10:30 am
Reexamined from the perspective of the late 20th century, the American frontier becomes contested terrain between diverse groups of settlers and natives. With a geographic focus on America west of the Mississippi, this course looks at elements that were used to construct the myth of the frontier and the many elements that were left out. It incorporates Euro-American women, and persons of Latin American heritage, Asians, African Americans, and especially Native Americans into the story of the frontier of the 19th century and the west of the 20th.
Literature of American Slavery (3 s.h.)
American Studies 3075.001
David Waldstreicher
Main Campus
TR, 1:10 pm – 2:30 pm
What kinds of arguments did people use to attack - and support - slavery, and what difference did those literatures make? This course examines the intersection of persuasive writing and the institution of slavery from 1680 to the Civil War, with a special focus on the antebellum period, when the problem of slavery came to occupy a central role in American politics and American literature.
The American Woman: Visions and Revisions (3 s.h.)
American Studies 3096.401
Regina Bannan
TUCC
W, 4:40 pm – 6:30 pm
An examination of images and roles of women in American culture. Using fiction, poetry, and autobiography, we develop an understanding of stereotypes and myths and we relate these images to the real-life experiences of American women. The readings include all classes and many ethnic groups, and focus primarily on the 20th century.
Senior Seminar in American Studies (3 s.h.)
American Studies 4097.001
Lisa Rhodes
Main Campus
W, 4:40 pm – 7:20 pm
The capstone class required of all American Studies majors. Open to others with permission of the Director of American Studies. Students write a major paper. Should be taken in the Fall of the senior year.
Note: This is a Capstone writing course. Special authorization required for all students. Interested students should first consult with the Director of American Studies.
3082. Independent Study (1 to 4 s.h.)
The student devises a program for independent study with his advisor and an instructor. Designed for those students whose research interests are not met in any established course.
Note: Special authorization required for all students. Interested students should first consult with the Director of American Studies.
3089. Field Work in American Studies (1 to 4 s.h.)
The Field Study internship offers students the opportunity to relate academic interests to a variety of cultural and civic institutions in the Philadelphia area. Individual readings and a final report or research paper provide a perspective on American culture.
Note: Each three credits earned normally requires ten hours of work per week (during the summer sessions the number of hours is doubled) under faculty and institutional supervision. Interested students should first consult with the Director of American Studies.
|
