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What is American Studies?



What does America stand for? What does it mean to be an American? And subsequently, who 'is' considered an American - and who is not? These are the core questions - as timely as ever - that we will seek to explore during the semester. This course will introduce students to American Studies, as both an academic discipline that we study as well as a contested idea to be debated. It surveys the increasingly broadening fields of study that fall under the rubric of American Studies - literature, history, social sciences, cinema, music and art - and teaches students 'how to' conduct research by applying or combining them. At heart, the course seeks to give students a 'taste' of the excitingly diverse, and constantly evolving, flavors of American Studies in order to help them locate a particular area/topic/era/methodology that they might wish to pursue in a more advanced manner in their later studies.





Grading and Assignments

Class Participation (including short response paper) - 25%

midterm exam (in class) - 25%

Final Paper 50%