Undergraduate certificate American Studies

AMS 101 America Then and Now Spring EC This course introduces a selection of signature ideas and debates that made the nation what it is today and what it is becoming. Objects of study range across multiple media, including texts, images, works of art, music, performance, and film, and draw from the diverse fields of literature, history, political science, art history, economics, law, cultural studies, and the history of science. The course attends to how knowledge about America has and continues to be produced, disseminated, and consumed, emphasizing the cognitive processes associated with the invention and delineation of America. R. DeLue, B. Perez, S. Rivett

AMS 301 Science Fiction and Fact (also

ENG 432

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GSS 338

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ASA 301

) Spring SA How does science fiction challenge "facts" about the biology of race, gender, sexuality and other categories of difference? This seminar explores the ways in which contemporary sci-fi that centers the experiences of marginalized communities reconceptualizes the techniques and technologies of social differentiation. The readings couple a sci-fi text with work by scholars across disciplines who have drawn attention to the reemergence of race as a biological rather than social category in genetics and genomics research. T. Khanmalek

AMS 306 Issues in American Public Health (also

GHP 411

) Fall SA The study of public health is an interdisciplinary inquiry involving issues of politics, policy, history, science, law, philosophy, ethics, geography, sociology, environmental studies, and economics, among others. Students will examine the government's role in assuring and promoting health, through the exploration of issues on America's "public health agenda," such as epidemic response, tobacco use, the impact of weight on health, mandatory vaccination, disease prevention, and violence. In doing so, they will consider the impact of race, income, gender, place and environment, education, capitalism and democracy on health outcomes. L. Gerwin

AMS 308 The Politics of American Jewish Power and Powerlessness (See JDS 312)

AMS 309 Music Traditions in North America (See MUS 260)

AMS 310 Multiethnic American Short Stories: Tales We Tell Ourselves (also

ENG 434

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ASA 310

) LA Short stories have been used by writers to make concise, insightful comments about American national identity and individuality. Taken up by African-Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, and many others, the genre has been used to convey experiences with immigration and assimilation, discrimination and oppression, generational divides, and interactions across difference. Examination of such stories deepens our understanding of America's multiethnic landscape. In this seminar, we will explore stories written by a diverse group of writers to consider the ties that both link and divide multiethnic America. T. Desmond

AMS 316 Translating America (See ENG 219)

AMS 320 U.S. Women Writers (See GSS 319)

AMS 322 About Faces: Case Studies in the History of Reading Faces (See ENG 319)

AMS 323 Afro-Diasporic Dialogues: Black Activism in Latin America and the United States (See AAS 322)

AMS 329 South Asian American Literature and Film (See SAS 328)

AMS 330 Ethnographic Playwriting (See THR 303)

AMS 335 American Jews and Sexual Freedom (also

JDS 320

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GSS 323

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ENG 441

) Fall LA For more than a century before #metoo, the histories of sexual repression and liberation in America were already strangely and persistently intertwined with the history of American Jews. This course surveys crucial texts and moments in U.S. literature, law, and culture, exploring the interventions of Jewish writers, lawyers, theorists, and activists in transforming the ways all Americans think about and express their sexuality. Topics addressed will include the roles played by Jews in literary censorship and debates about obscenity, the defense of reproductive rights, the Sexual Revolution, pornography, and the rights of sexual minorities. Staff

AMS 336 Gender Crossings in American Musical Theater (See GSS 337)

AMS 341 "Cult" Controversies in America (See REL 271)

AMS 345 Special Topics in Creative Writing (See CWR 345)

AMS 347 The Asian American Family (See ASA 347)

AMS 348 Introduction to Digital Humanities (See HUM 346)

AMS 350 Civil Society and Public Policy (See WWS 385)

AMS 352 Battle Lab: The Battle of Princeton (See HUM 350)

AMS 355 The History of Black Gospel Music (See AAS 305)

AMS 356 Imagining New Orleans Fall LA The study of New Orleans offers much insight into American identity. The city's heritage is profoundly plural, incorporating elements of French and Spanish culture, the cultures of slaves and free people of color, of Native Americans--all folded after 1803 into possibilities of American experience. We will look at various representations of New Orleans, considering literature, art, architecture, music, and film and incorporating perspectives from within and from outside the city. We will explore what makes New Orleans an American city, and think in turn about what New Orleans tells us about America. J. Axcelson

AMS 359 Topics in American Literature (See ENG 356)

AMS 361 Slavery, Antislavery, and the U.S. Constitution (also

HIS 261

) HA An examination, first, of the place of slavery and opposition to slavery in the framing and ratification of the Constitution in 1787-88, and, second, of how the constitutional politics surrounding slavery led to the Civil War and Emancipation. R. Wilentz

AMS 362 Blackness and Media (See AAS 363)

AMS 363 Gender, Sexuality, and Contemporary U.S. Theatre and Performance (See GSS 363)

AMS 365 Isn't It Romantic? The Broadway Musical from Rodgers and Hammerstein to Sondheim (See GSS 365)

AMS 366 Queer Boyhoods (See GSS 316)

AMS 369 Women and American Religion (See REL 360)

AMS 370 Asian American History (See HIS 270)

AMS 372 Postblack - Contemporary African American Art (See AAS 372)

AMS 373 Pleasure, Power and Profit: Race and Sexualities in a Global Era (See GSS 345)

AMS 378 Race and Religion in America (See REL 377)

AMS 382 Public Policy in the U.S. Racial State (See AAS 380)

AMS 383 Graphic Memoir (See GSS 373)

AMS 385 Theater and Society Now (See THR 385)

AMS 387 Education Policy in the United States (See WWS 387)

AMS 389 Black Aesthetics: Art, Literature, and Politics in the African Diaspora (See ENG 379)

AMS 390 American Legal Thought (also

HIS 382

) EM This course surveys American legal thought and the practices of American lawyers. Along the way, it questions the notion of distinctive "schools," as well as the distinctive legality and the distinctive Americanness of legal thought. It offers an intellectual history of 20th century American law, with an emphasis on core controversies and debates. H. Hartog

AMS 393 Jewish Identity and Performance in the US (See ENG 410)

AMS 396 Forms of Literature (See ENG 401)

AMS 397 Religion and American Film (See REL 257)

AMS 398 FAT: The F-Word and the Public Body (See DAN 312)

AMS 399 In the Groove: Technology and Music in American History, From Edison to the iPod (also

HIS 399

) HA When Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877, no one, including Edison, knew what to do with the device. Over the next century Americans would engage in an ongoing dialogue with this talking machine, defining and redefining its purpose. This course will track that trajectory, from business tool to scientific instrument to music recorder to musical instrument. By listening to the history of the phonograph, and by examining the desires and experiences of phonograph users, students will perceive more generally the complex relationships that exist between a technology and the people who produce, consume, and transform it. E. Thompson

AMS 403 Advanced Seminar in American Studies Fall SA This is an experimental and collaborative seminar that will explore selected sites and episodes in the history of property relations in America. We are as interested in hoarding as in wealth production, blood as well as land, cultural identities as well as corporations. The focus is relentlessly interdisciplinary, bringing together legal cases, ethnographies, novels, poems, films, buildings, maps, and other cultural products. The seminar will offer several opportunities for students to "do" American Studies through the lens of property law and property conflicts. A. Cheng, H. Hartog

AMS 404 Advanced Seminar in American Studies (also

ASA 404

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LAO 404

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THR 404

) Fall HA This course offers an intensive introduction to the particular tools, methods and interpretations employed in developing original historical research and writing about race and ethnicity in twentieth century popular performance (film, television, theater). Through collaborative, in-depth excavations of several genre-straddling cultural works, course participants will rehearse relevant methods and theories (of cultural history, of race and ethnicity, of popular culture/performance) and will undertake an independent research project elaborating the course's guiding premise and principles of practice. B. Herrera

AMS 412 Princeton and Slavery (See HIS 402)

AMS 416 Topics in Literature and Ethics (See ENG 416)

AMS 431 BANNED: The Paradox of Free Speech in Cinema (See COM 431)

AMS 436 Crime, Gender, and American Culture (See GSS 336)

AMS 448 Corporealities of Politics (See GSS 348)

AMS 454 An Introduction to Latino Literature and Culture (See ENG 354)

AMS 457 Empire of the Ark: The Animal Question in Film, Photography and Popular Culture (See ENV 357)

AMS 459 The History of Incarceration in the U.S. (See HIS 459)

AMS 474 Violence in America (See HIS 474)

AMS 479 Society, Politics, and Ideas in 1980s America (See HIS 479)

AMS 481 History of the American Workplace (See HIS 481)

AMS 498 Princeton Atelier (See ATL 498)

AMS 499 Theoretical Approaches in Black Studies (See AAS 499)