Fall 2014
DEPARTMENT OF AMERICAN STUDIES & ETHNICITY
GRADUATE COURSE OFFERINGS
Disclaimer: The following list of courses is based on our best available information. We do not
guarantee instructor, courses, location and time are accurate.
CORE COURSES
AMST 500: Introduction to American Studies and Ethnicity
What do you need, what do you want, and what do you know? We will do a broadly
based “survey” of modern and contemporary social and cultural theories, together with
their pertinent backgrounds and pretexts, including readings of theorists suggested by
members of the seminar. The core of the seminar will be readings of theorists
representing the following broadly defined schools or movements: Marxist and neoMarxist; Postmodern and Poststructuralist; New Historicist; Feminist; Cultural Studies;
Critical Race Studies; Queer; Postcolonial and Transnational; New Media. Each member
of the seminar will lead the seminar discussion of one assigned work. Because I have to
order books well in advance of the seminar, I will select basic readings for us. This list
will include works by Paul Gilroy, Walter Mignolo, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Lisa Lowe,
Roderick Ferguson, and Judith Butler. But this seminar will be participatory, so I will
contact enrolled members of the seminar for suggestions and there will be a means
whereby each seminar member will be able to add to the basic work I’ve chosen. Each
member of the seminar will propose (in the seminar) a seminar project in which his/her
position is developed clearly and exemplified by an applicable case study or research
object. The seminar project will be submitted as a fully developed “position paper” (1520 pages) at the end of the semester. John Rowe, M 2-4:50PM
AMST 553: Race, Gender and Sexuality
Interdisciplinary investigation of concepts, theories, and debates in the study of race and
its intersection with gay, lesbian, trans, heterosexual and other sexualities/genders.
Nayan Shah, W 2-4:50PM
AMST 622: Research Seminar on Transpacific Studies
Interdisciplinary research seminar foregrounding a multilateral approach towards
understanding the political, cultural, economic, and military relations and conflicts
between Asia, the Americas, and the Pacific. Viet Nguyen, T 2-4:50PM
AMST 700: Theories and Practices of Professional Development
Offers students a structured environment in which to write their dissertation proposals
and focuses on professional development. Completion of qualifying exam. Graded
CR/NC. M, 2-4:50PM
OTHER COURSES OF INTEREST
AHIS 500: Methods and Theory of Art History
Methodologies, theories and critical traditions that have shaped the discipline. Emphasis
will vary depending on faculty. Required of all first-year M.A. and Ph.D. candidates.
Open to graduate or limited status students in art history only.
Suzanne Hudson, M 9-11:50PM, VKC 379
ANTH 562: The Practice of Ethnography
Ethnography is most commonly understood as a longitudinal qualitative methodology
hallmark to the field of anthropology. Yet, it is also a theoretical approach and, as will be
demonstrated in this course, a dynamic way of seeing and being in the world. In this
seminar, we will explore modes of inquiry and analysis that characterize the practice of
ethnography. Special attention will be devoted to the various phases of ethnographic
fieldwork, from ‘entering the field’, collecting data, to writing/representing one’s
findings. We will also examine such analytical paradigms as discourse analysis, narrative
analysis, visual analysis, among other foci. A review of specific case studies will
augment this training and further clarify the intersubjective dimensions of ethnographic
fieldwork and representation Lanita Jacobs, Tu 4-6:50pm, GFS 204
COLT 525: Studies in Literary and Cultural History
Literary and cultural currents from classical antiquity through modernity. Varying focus
on specific genres, periods, movements, or problematics. Natania Meeker & Marcus
Levitt W 2-4:50pm, SOS B51
COMM 620: Studies in Communication Theory:
Current problems in communication theory and research; advanced, specialized interest
areas of individual faculty on the frontiers of knowledge.
 Economic Cultures -- Manuel Castells & Sarah Banet-Weiser, Th 9:3012:20pm, ASC 328
 Communication, Culture and Capitalism – Christopher Smith, Th 3:306:20pm, ASC 240
 Black Popular Culture: Theory and Central Debates – Taj Frazier, W 3:306:20pm, ANN 309
CTCS 500: Seminar in Film Theory
Introduction to classical and contemporary film theory; exploration of their relationship
to close textual analysis and filmic experimentation.
Kara Keeling, Th 10-1:50PM, SCA 316
CTCS 510: Reagon’s America (Crack Nation)
Seminar on media’s impact in defining nation and/or region in specific cultural contexts.
Also addresses issues of exile, diaspora, transnationalism and globalism. Departmental
approval required. Todd Boyd, Lecture W 1-3:50pm, SCA 216 & Screening W 46:50pm, SCA 112
CTCS 518: Seminar: Avant-garde Film/Video
Aesthetic, historical and ideological issues in avant-grade film and video. Cinema Lab
fee $50. Thomas Kemper, M 1-5:50PM, SCA 316
CTCS 673: Place & Space in Cinema
Contemporary theoretical frameworks and their relationship to film and television
studies. Topics differ from semester to semester. Priya Jaikumar, T 10-1:50PM, SCA
316
ENGL 501: History of Literary and Cultural Theory
The assumptions and practices of major theorist and theoretical schools from Plato to
literary modernism.
Hilary Schor, M 2-4:20PM, THH 109
ENGL 580: Nineteenth-Century U.S. Literatures and Cultures
This seminar looks at canonical and non-canonical U.S. literature and culture as a
response to U.S. imperialism in the period of nation-building. The paradox that U.S.
nationalism is deeply transnational is explained simply by the fact that the United States
legitimated itself as a nation by immediately turning to a wide variety of colonial projects
inside North America and on a global scale that by the end of the century, marked by the
Spanish-American and the Philippine-American wars, had been systemized into what we
term “imperialism.” The seminar will provide excellent coverage of the main nineteenthcentury literary classics – selections from Emerson, Margaret Fuller’s Woman in the
Nineteenth Century, Melville’s Moby-Dick, Hawthorne’s The Marble Faun, Whitman’s
poetry (selected), Mark Twain’s Following the Equator – and consideration of lesser
known works that will transform our understanding of these canonical authors and texts –
Martin Delany’s Blake, or the Huts of America, John Rollin Ridge’s (Yellow Bird’s) Life
and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta, and selections from Erika Lee and Judy Yun’s Angel
Island: Immigrant Gateway to America and from Marlon Hom’s Songs of Gold
Mountain: Cantonese Rhymes from San Francisco’s Chinatown. We will use several
sustained scholarly studies of nineteenth-century U.S. literature: Anna Brickhouse’s
Transamerican Literary Relations and the Nineteenth-Century Public Sphere (2004),
Robyn Wiegman’s Object Lessons (2012), and my new book (not yet published) The
Ends of Transnationalism and U.S. Cultural Imperialism. Requirements: each seminar
participant will lead the discussion in one part of a seminar, present an in-seminar
proposal for the seminar essay/ project, and complete a seminar essay/ project (20-25 pp.
or equivalent). John Carlos Rowe, W 5-7:20pm, THH 111
ENGL 660: Studies in Genre
History, transformation, and theory of genre,; studies in epic, lyric, drama, comedy,
tragedy, the novel, biography, essay, and other forms.
Susan McCabe, W 5-7:20PM, WPH 204
HIST 500: Introduction to Graduate Historical Studies
Techniques, theories, and sub-disciplines of history.
Richard Fox, M 4-6:50PM, WPH 104
HIST 680: Seminar in 20th Century United States History
This is a research seminar in which students will begin and complete a research paper in
any topic in 20th century US History. There are no common readings only research
focused assignments. Steve Ross, W 2-4:50PM, WPH 204
POSC 618: Seminar in Problems of American Politics: Racial and Ethnic Politics
Theoretical and methodological problems in American Politics with emphaisis on
emerging research paradigms. John Ell Barnes, Th 2-4:50PM, VKC 103
SOCI 520: Qualitative Research Methods
Seminar in epistemologies, ethics, and techniques of qualitative research. Critical reading
and practice in social observation, interviewing, fieldwork, and research design.
Preparation of IRB proposal. Leland Saito, W 5-7:50pm, HSH 303
SWMS 588: The Brown Commons: Queer Studies Before, Alongside and After José
Esteban Munoz(1967-2013) The celebrated queer theorist, José Esteban Muñoz, the
author of Disidentifications, Cruising Utopia and countless articles, editor of a
fielddefining book series at NYU Press, Sexual Cultures, and mentor to multiple
generations of scholars working at the intersections of gender, race and sexuality, died on
December 4, 2013. When Muñoz passed away, he was at work on a project exploring
collective queer/of color endeavors in the academy, politics and the public sphere. His
new work, on a “brown commons” draws upon his previous work inspired by an eclectic
range of thinkers like Sedgwick, Weber, Nancy, Bloch and Heidegger, as well as
contemporaries and colleagues like Moten, Doyle, Berlant and Halberstam, among
others. Furthermore he also drew inspiration from, and collaborated with younger
scholars such as Shane Vogel, Tavia Nyong’o, Alexandra Vazquez and Eng-Beng Lim
(among whom, I’m also deeply honored to be included). This seminar will provide a
survey of queer/of color, or “brown” gender and sexuality studies vectored through and
alongside Muñoz’s work on queer utopias, horizons, and commons—from his influences,
to the work he influenced; from the fields that shaped his own scholarship, to the field he
helped bring to fruition in institutional, as well as intellectual contexts. A final book list
will be available August 1, 2014. Be prepared to read both of Muñoz’s monographs, as
well as several articles and co-edited collections. Karen Tongson, Tu 2-5:40pm, VKC
161