01:050:101Introduction to American Studies (3) Introduces the American studies method through the use of primary documents including novels, autobiographies, paintings, photographs, and films.
01:050:102Introduction to Critical and Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies (3)Comparative approach to critical race studies. Examines how
U.S. society constructs racial difference and forms of connections and conflicts
among racial and ethnic groups.
01:050:200,201Topics in American Studies (3,3)Varied field topics in American studies that lend themselves to interdisciplinary treatment. May be repeated for credit when topic differs.
01:050:202American Regionalism (3) Multidisciplinary study of the regions of the United States, with focus on their literature, folklore, music, and other arts.
01:050:216America in the Arts (3) What is "American" about American art and design; examination of the architecture as well as fine, folk, and industrial arts and artifacts of the United States. Normally a craft project required of students.
01:050:227Nineteenth-Century American Literature and Culture (3)A survey of 19th-century American literature and
culture with special focus on the concept of the "American Renaissance."Credit not given for both this course and 01:350:227.
01:050:228The Contemporary American (3) The emerging American of our times. Forces shaping American culture as revealed in literature, the media, social criticism, and psychology.
01:050:240Latino/Latina American Cultures (3) Introductory survey of recent texts and films by and about Latinas/os in the United States. Discussion of exile, integration, and assimilation; political presence and nationalism; and examination of literary modes and genres (autobiography, poetry, novel, film, music). Special attention to the migration experiences of Mexican-American, Puerto Rican, Cuban, and Dominican communities.
01:050:245Introduction to Asian American Literature and Culture (3)General introduction to history and culture of Asian America
and major debates in Asian American studies.
01:050:247History and Culture of Hip-Hop (3)
Historical, social, political, and aesthetic roots of hip-hop culture and music. The place of hip-hop in a larger global commercial exchange, advertising, fashion, cinema, music video, and popular literature.
01:050:250Cultures of the Portuguese-Speaking Communities in the United States (3)Discussion of sociocultural issues concerning the diverse Portuguese-speaking communities of the United States.Course taught in English; will count for the Portuguese major or minor if all written work is done in Portuguese. Credit not given for both this course and 01:810:250.
01:050:259Popular Culture (3) How popular culture shapes and reflects society in advertising, music, popular entertainment, fads, fashion, radio, television, sports, and games.
01:050:261The American Best Seller (3) Representative best-selling novels of recent decades and what they and their popularity indicate about American values and assumptions.
01:050:262American Film and American Myth (3) American film and its relationship to American myths, society, and culture. Representative classic films screened.
01:050:263American Folklore (3) Traditional verbal and material lore. American folk narratives, myths, legends, tales, ballads, and songs. How folklore functions in American society and institutions.
01:050:264American Folklife (3) Examination of the lifestyles of American folk groups with emphasis on artifacts: folk architecture, handicrafts, art, costume, and foods.
01:050:265American Experimental Film and Video (3)Survey course on history and development of American experimental cinema movements from beginning to present. Filmmakers include Andy Warhol, Maya Deren, Stan Brakhage, Sidney Peterson, Kenneth Anger, Yoko Ono, and others.
01:050:266Cult Films in American Culture (3)Focus on the American "cult" film from its origins in the
1920s and its evolution in American culture. Close analyses of cult films will
be paired with critical readings in film, theory, and cultural history.This course previously given as a 300-level topics course. Credit not given for that course and this one.
01:050:271Immigrant States (3)New Jersey as one of the
top immigrant destinations in the United States, yet also one of the most ethnically and racially segregated states. Analysis of how and why racial/ethnic
differences shape a person's experiences of and perspectives on the world
locally, nationally, and internationally.Credit not given for both this course and/or 01:595:271 and 01:920:271 and 01:988:271.
01:050:281,282,283,284Topics in American Studies (1.5,1.5,1.5,1.5) Half-semester minicourses given each year on topics of contemporary interest that lend themselves to interdisciplinary treatment. May be repeated for credit when topic differs.
01:050:291Jerseyana: New Jersey as a Culture (3) Interdisciplinary, regional approach to New Jersey, examining its landscape, the peculiarities of its history, its folklore and myths, arts and architecture, music, and literature.
01:050:300,301Topics in American Studies (3,3) Topics of contemporary interest that lend themselves to interdisciplinary treatment. May be repeated for credit when topic differs.
01:050:303A Decade in American Culture (3) Interdisciplinary approach to understanding a particular decade in American culture, employing the arts, humanities, and social sciences. Decade studied depends on the instructor.
01:050:304The American City (3) Interdisciplinary approach to the origin, development, and problems of the American city.
01:050:305Images and Narratives of War (3)Examination of the various ways that wars, post-WWII (such as Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf Wars, and others), have been represented in American popular culture. Material includes films, novels, memoirs, reportage, and histories.
01:050:306American Detective Fiction and Film (3) Examination of the distinctively American literary genre of the hard-boiled detective novel and the many films that this genre has inspired, including a look at film noir.
01:050:307The Culture of the 1960s (3) Examination of the culture of the 1960s, with emphasis on the civil
rights movement, the war in Vietnam and student radicalism, Woodstock,
women's liberation, and the sexual revolution, using social history,
literature, music, and film.
01:050:308The Culture of Metropolis (3) Examination of the urban culture of New York City in the 19th and 20th centuries, emphasizing the impact of race, class, gender, and ethnicity on developing subcultures.
01:050:309Nineteenth-Century Architecture in the United States (3)Overview of the social and intellectual history of architecture in the
United States to 1900. Role of architecture in societal transformations
(the development of nationhood, industrialization, and urbanization).
Emphasis on the invention of new building types, including
universities, government buildings, prisons, hospitals, railroad
stations, and the architecture of World's Fairs.Prerequisites: 01:082:105,106 or permission of instructor. Credit not given for both this course and 01:082:391.
01:050:310Methodologies in American Studies (3)Introduction to methodologies in American studies. Examination and analysis of the critical approaches and debates that have shaped and transformed the discipline.
Prerequisites: 01:050:101 or 228. Required for the major. Restricted to majors, or with special permission.
01:050:311Seminar in Black Diasporic Media (3)Examines a range of visual media by black cultural producers. Offers a diasporic framework as an opportunity to trace how technologies, genres, styles, and issues circulate through various historical moments, media, conceptualizations of blackness, and locations.Credit not given for both this course and 01:014:303.
01:050:312Sports in American Culture (3) Examines the place of sports in American life and how sports may be thought of as "the American religion," as a metaphor for American ideals and values. Figures from the world of sports (players and coaches) will be regular guest speakers.
01:050:314Technology and Culture in America (3) Cultural responses to the growth and elaboration of American technology as reflected in literature, art, and popular culture.
01:050:315Documentary Expression in America (3) Relationship between the social and aesthetic functions of documentary in film, photography, journalism, biography, and the nonfiction novel.
01:050:324Wayward Americans (3) Cultural approach to the means by which socially dominant groups in American society have sought to control deviant behavior. Examination of social theory, social history, literature, and film.
01:050:325Women on the Fringe: Perceptions of Women as Social and Sex-Role Deviants in American Civilization (3) Societal reaction to female behavior deviating from social and feminine norms. Use of historical narratives, literature, and film to treat such themes as heresy, madness, prostitution, adultery, criminality, political protest, and lesbianism.
01:050:326The Culture of American Women (3) Construction of feminine culture as distinct from the dominant patriarchal culture, examining social history, religion, psychology, sociology, oral history, literature, and film.
01:050:329The United States as Seen from Abroad (3) United States as perceived by foreign commentators, such as Dickens, Trollope, and Waugh, and American expatriate intellectuals and artists, such as James, Hemingway, and Baldwin.
01:050:330American Cults and Communes (3) Examination of historic and fictional communal and religious experiments, illuminating their surprising similarities and what they tell us about American society and culture. From the Shakers and the Oneida community through Jonestown and the Hare Krishnas. Texts include novels and feature films.
01:050:331Ethnic America (3) Examination of cultural pluralism and the means by which ethnic groups such as Irish, Italians, Jews, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Hispanics have constructed their ethnic identities and the political and cultural forces that shaped those constructions.
01:050:332The American Jewish Experience in Literature (3) Patterns of alienation and assimilation of an American ethnic group as portrayed in its literature. Attention to early narratives as well as the works of contemporary writers such as Roth, Potok, Bellow, Malamud, and Singer. Credit not given for both this course and 01:563:332.
01:050:333The Cultures of Consumption (3) Examination of the development of mass society, mass production, and consumption from the 1880s to the present. Areas considered may include industrialization and the development of work in relation to leisure, the development of the advertising industry, television, technology, and popular and mass production and consumption.
01:050:335Jewish-American Women: Contested Lives (3) Explores the Jewish-American female identity in autobiography and memoir, social history, literature, and film. Examines interplay of religious belief, secularism, social mobility, and acculturating influences within American experience. Credit not given for both this course and 01:563:335 or 01:988:334.
01:050:336American Jews and the Media (3)Examines the roles that the news media (film, recordings, radio,
television, and computers) played in American Jewish life throughout the 20th
century.Credit not given for both this course and 01:563:306.
01:050:337Contemporary Jewish Culture (3)Study of contemporary Jewish life, especially in America--in
communities, institutions, rituals, personal histories, etc.--through the
approach of fieldwork and ethnographic writing.Credit not given for both this course and 01:563:346.
01:050:340Race Matters (3)How "race" is represented and narrated as a political,
cultural, and critical category. Discussions on racial formations in
contemporary American culture; race as social construction; race as "natural"
and as a "performance"; inquiry and debate on self-hatred, racisms, whiteness,
Orientalism; race, gender, and queer intersectionality; and color.
01:050:341The Child in America (3) Evolution of concepts of childhood and adolescence in America and of child-rearing practices through an examination of social history, religious tracts, novels, poetry, film, and child care manuals.
01:050:342American Sexuality (3) Changing American attitudes toward sexual expression and changes in sexual behavior. Examination of literature, film, 19th- and 20th-century advice manuals, and reports on sexual behavior such as the Kinsey Report and the works of Masters and Johnson.
01:050:351American Art, 1776-1913 (3)Visual and material culture of
the United States from the American Revolution to the Armory Show. Survey of painting, sculpture,
photography, and print culture in relation to American social, political, and
cultural history. Prerequisite: 01:082:105,106 or permission of instructor. Credit not given for this course and 01:082:351.
01:050:355Museums, Monuments, and American Culture (3)Introduction to museum studies. Theories of societal roles of museums, monuments, and
historical sites: history versus heritage, preservation laws, restoration, and
governmental censorship. Includes field trips and collaborative projects.
01:050:365American Folk Song and Ballad (3) Social concerns in folk songs--sources and circulation in oral tradition, with reference to lyrical folk songs, narrative folk songs, traditional ballads, broadside ballads, and Native American ballads.
01:050:366Folklore of American Occupational and Regional Groups (3) Folklore of occupational groups such as sailors, lumbermen, cowboys, and miners, and of regional groups such as southern mountaineers, Mississippi Delta blacks, Louisiana Cajuns, and Jersey Pineys.
01:050:370The Black Community and Social Issues (3)Examines a variety of social issues that impact the life
chances of African Americans in the United States.Credit not given for both this course and 01:014:384.
01:050:376Native American Literatures in English (3)Fiction, poetry, and autobiography by such writers as Apes, Momaday, Welch, Silko, and Erdrich. Attention to issues of Native American representation.Credit not given for both this course and 01:351:376.
01:050:377Asian-American Literatures in English (3)Theme or genre-based study of selected Asian-American
writing in English. Topics chosen by individual instructors; consult departmental
announcement. Credit not given for both this course and 01:351:377.
01:050:380,381Internship in American Studies (3,3)Professional, supervised work in an approved organization or
agency; an appropriately designed academic project required.Prerequisite: Permission of the department before registration. No more than one internship can count toward the major or minor.
01:050:389Junior Seminar in American Studies (3) A required interdisciplinary seminar for majors. Theme dependent on instructor. Prerequisites: Two 300-level American studies courses, or one American studies 300-level course and one approved section of 01:355:201 (Research in the Disciplines). To be taken by American studies majors in their junior year.
01:050:390Special Problems in American Culture (3) Independent study of an interdisciplinary nature, which may be expressed in a paper, audiovisual project, or other creative enterprise. Prerequisites: Permission of department during preceding semester required. May be repeated for credit with permission of department.
01:050:444American Land-Use Policy (3)Exploring the diverse connections between America's
national development and its land environment. This is essentially a course in
ecological history.Credit not given for both this course and 10:762:444.
01:050:450Seminar: Folk Festival Management (3) Designed to accompany presentation of the New Jersey Folk Festival. Readings in histories of folk performance and fieldwork in folklore, as well as planning and production of public event. Prerequisite: Permission of instructor during preceding semester required.
01:050:455Maritime Culture (3)Uses a number of
disciplines to explore the influence of the sea on American life. A study of
marine policy that embraces both economic and environmental issues, as well as
current policy regarding world trade and regulatory reform, conservation and
fisheries, national defense, and admiralty law.
01:050:465Cultures of U.S. Imperialism (3)An exploration of American
nation-building through the imperial projections of the United States. Topics include the economic, political,
social, and cultural dynamics between the United States and its colonies, both
formal and informal. Focus might be on a single location or on a comparative
approach to imperialist projects.
01:050:487,488,489Seminars in American Studies (3,3,3) Interdisciplinary seminars for majors. Themes dependent on instructor. For American studies majors who have completed 01:050:389.
01:050:490Senior Essay or Senior Project in American Studies (3)Independent study of an interdisciplinary nature, which may be expressed in a paper, audiovisual project, or other creative enterprise. Prerequisites: Permission of department during preceding semester required. May be repeated for credit with permission of department.
01:050:495 and 496Honors in American Studies (3,3)Research essay or project, designed by the student and prepared under faculty supervision. An oral defense is required.Prerequisite: Permission of department. Open only to seniors.