Spring 2020  |  AMST 8202 Section 001: Theoretical Foundations and Current Practice in American Studies (52353)

Instructor(s)
Class Component:
Lecture
Credits:
3 Credits
Grading Basis:
Student Option
Instructor Consent:
No Special Consent Required
Instruction Mode:
In Person Term Based
Times and Locations:
Regular Academic Session
 
01/21/2020 - 05/04/2020
Wed 01:25PM - 03:20PM
UMTC, East Bank
Appleby Hall 204
Enrollment Status:
Open (9 of 15 seats filled)
Also Offered:
Course Catalog Description:
Analysis of central theoretical work in the field and survey of key methodologies. prereq: grad AmSt major or instr consent or dept consent
Class Description:
Though American Studies scholars work in a wide range of topical areas and use multiple methods to conduct their research, the common language among scholars in our interdisciplinary field is theory. Put another way, theoretical debates, concepts, and ideas prompt the kinds of questions we pursue in our research. Becoming fluent in theory, then, is a way of engaging in a wide range of research across diverse areas of study. Further, learning about these debates will help you to imagine and formulate the theoretical interventions you hope to make in your own research. The central purpose of this course, then, is to familiarize graduate students with some of the theoretical foundations in American Studies with an emphasis on contemporary scholarship. It begins by discussing the theoretical work on modernity, capitalism, race, and the state. Some of the key theorists here include Karl Marx, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Charles Mill, Dave Roediger, and Wendy Brown. Next, we draw from psychoanalytic theory, postcolonial theory, and women of color feminism as ways of apprehending subjectivity, imagination, memory, and collective resistance. Some of theorists discussed here are Sigmund Freud, Frantz Fanon, Homi Bhabha, Chandra Mohanty, Nancy Chodorow, and Chela Sandoval. The final section of the course focuses on theories of neoliberalism, transnationalism, and globalization in conceptual work by Stuart Hall, David Harvey, Lisa Duggan, Jacqui Alexander, and Aiwa Ong, among others. Our approach to theory will be exegetical in nature, that is, as we read each theoretical work the focus will be on unpacking categories as well as the organization and significance of a text. Following weeks where we grapple with key concepts, we read contemporary research in American Studies that draws from these theoretical frameworks as exemplary models. To provide one example, after reading theories of the state, we will focus in alternate weeks on two award-winning books: Margot Canaday's The Straight State, which focuses on how the twentieth century U.S. state regulates sex and gender nonconformity and Peggy Pascoe's What Comes Naturally which examines miscegenation law as a window into how the state 'sees race.' As these examples suggest, throughout we will be concerned with the theoretical categories of gender, sexuality, race, and nation. Some of the studies we will read draw from popular culture, others focus on literature, and still others are ethnographic and/or historical. The central objective throughout is not only to read and unpack social theory, but understand its application in contemporary research.
Textbooks:
https://bookstores.umn.edu/course-lookup/52353/1203
Instructor Supplied Information Last Updated:
23 March 2012

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