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What does it mean to be an American? Who can claim that identity and why? What are the rights, privileges, and obligations that come with it? What kind of a country is the United States, and what is its relationship with the rest of the world? In this introductory, discussion-based class, we will assume that there are not simple answers to these questions and instead will investigate how groups, individuals, and institutions have imagined and debated them in various moments. To do so, we will take an interdisciplinary approach to the study of a particular moment or issue and analyze cultural products including film, fiction, theater, music, television programs, and practices as diverse as religious celebrations, consumerism, and travel. We will pay close attention to how ideas about identity - racial, gendered, sexual, economic, and more - have been produced and contested. Along the way, we will practice a range of methods for analyzing culture and sharing our analyses, develop a scholarly vocabulary for American culture studies, and discuss the benefits and limitations of interdisciplinary scholarship and its relationship to more traditional disciplines.

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Open to all students without prerequisite. This course is an in-depth study of a subject chosen from topics dealing with American culture, varying from year to year. The course is interdisciplinary in nature, combining material across traditional areas of knowledge, such as science and history, art and archaeology, or technology and literature. In addition, it teaches the art of close reading and analytical writing. The course will be a study of selected topics in American Studies focusing on one or more of the following subjects in the United States and/or its sphere of influence: culture, sense of place, institutions, identity, performance, history, etc. The course may be repeated for credit if the topic differs.

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