* AMST 0029b / AMST 029 / ENGL 0729b / HUMS 0320b, Henry Thoreau  Michael Warner

Henry Thoreau played a critical role in the development of environmentalism, American prose, civil rights, and the politics of protest. We read his writing in depth, and with care, understanding it both in its historical context and in its relation to present concerns of democracy and climate change. We read his published writing and parts of the journal, as well as biographical and contextual material. The class makes a field trip to Walden Pond and Concord, learning about climate change at Walden as revealed by Thoreau’s unparalleled documentation of his biotic surroundings. Student's consider Thoreau’s place in current debates about the environment and politics, and are encouraged to make connection with those debates in a final paper. Previously ENGL 029. Enrollment limited to first-year students.  HU
TTh 11:35am-12:50pm

* AMST 0031a / WGSS 0031a, LGBTQ Spaces and Places  Scott Herring

Overview of LGBTQ cultures and their relation to geography in literature, history, film, visual culture, and ethnography. Discussion topics include the historical emergence of urban communities; their tensions and intersections with rural locales; race, sexuality, gender, and suburbanization; and artistic visions of queer and trans places within the city and without. Emphasis is on the wide variety of U.S. metropolitan environments and regions, including New York City, Los Angeles, Miami, the Deep South, Appalachia, New England, and the Pacific Northwest. Enrollment limited to first-year students.   HU
MW 2:30pm-3:45pm

* AMST 0039a / ENGL 0839a / ER&M 1539a, Latinx Literature Aside the Law  Joseph Miranda

How has Latinx identity emerged through and against the law? From the suspension of Puerto Rican sovereignty to the contemporary proliferation of ethnic studies bans, the state has used the law to delimit Latinx to transparent or static categories of irregular “citizen,” “refugee,” and “migrant.”  If conventional thinking assumes that art only responds to the law in protest or affirmation of the status quo, this seminar introduces students to the ways Latinx literature engages, resists, and disidentifies with the law as it delineates national belonging. We ask how do Latinx creative expressions expand the notions of citizenship, nation, and family beyond their raced, classed, and gendered origins to imagine new futures. Through attention to contemporary tv, film, novels, and poetry, we examine how Latinx artists build alternative forms of thriving collective life in forms of mutual aid, queer kinship, party, and protest. Works up for discussion include those by Justin Torres, Raquel Salas Rivera, and the television show Vida. Drawing inspiration from these texts, students collaborate on podcasts, write analytical essays, and complete other critical and creative projects. Enrollment limited to first-year students.  WR, HU
MW 11:35am-12:50pm

AMST 1109a / HIST 2140a / WGSS 1109a, US LGBTQ History & Queer Futures  Staff

This interdisciplinary course offers a critical overview of queer history in the United States from the colonial era to the present, exploring the lives and experiences of LGBTQ individuals and emphasizing the broader historical evolution of ideas about sex, sexuality, and gender that constitute the ever-changing landscape of queer history. Through an intersectional lens, students analyze how gender, sexuality, race, and class have shaped LGBTQ identities, cultures, and political movements. Drawing heavily from primary sources including historical texts, literature, visual culture, and popular media, we investigate how queer lives and experiences have been represented, constructed, and contested across time.  HU  0 Course cr
HTBA

AMST 1110a / EDST 1110a / SOCY 1012a, Foundations in Education Studies  Staff

Introduction to key issues and debates in the U.S. public education system with a focus on the nexus of education theory and research, policy and pedagogy. The course emphasizes social, scientific, economic, and political forces that shape approaches to schooling and education reform, and it includes theoretical and practical perspectives from practitioners, policymakers, and scholars.  SO  0 Course cr
HTBA

AMST 1115a / RLST 1150a, How to Build an American Religion  Staff

This course offers an introduction to religion in the United States and theories from religious studies that argue its patterns.   HU  0 Course cr
HTBA

AMST 1120a / EVST 1120a / HIST 1120a / HSHM 2040a, American Environmental History  Staff

Ways in which people have shaped and been shaped by the changing environments of North America from the nineteenth century to the present. Migration of species and trade in commodities; the impact of technology, agriculture, and industry; the development of resources in the American West and overseas; the conservation and environmental movements; planning and the impact of public policies; automobiles, highways, and urban growth; toxic chemicals, radiation, and environmental justice; climate change and energy transitions.  WR, HU  0 Course cr
HTBA

AMST 1142a / HIST 2149a, Early American Studies for 21st-Century America  Staff

This introductory lecture offers students a scholarly initiation into the field of early American studies while also reflecting on the increasingly loud politicization of “early American history” as a scholarly and rhetorical project. From Hannah Nikole Jones’ 1619 Project to the first Trump administration’s 1776 Commission, from the “originalism” or some members of the United States judiciary to the neo-monarchism of so-called “dark enlightenment” thinkers (the Enlightenment itself also being an eighteenth-century movement, if a relatively small one), the politics of our present moment regularly invoke early American history to ground and legitimate their ethical, political, historical, and visionary claims. While this course is primarily an introduction to early American studies—an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the period that draws on scholarship in history, literature, and law, among other fields— the course is organized into three sections, organized around three themes (sovereignty, labor, and governance), and at the end of each section we engage twenty-first century political debates surrounding these themes. This course focuses on British colonial North America, and then the early national United States before 1865, but readings cluster around the long eighteenth century. Topics may include the histories, geographies and politics of Native nations prior to the incursion of Europeans into the region; the labor cultures of bondage (chattel slavery) and indenture; anti-government, anti-monarchical and revolutionary movements; the legal architecture of Native dispossession; the beginnings of nationalist imperialism; the politics of democratic governance; regional, religion-based, and culturally-specific formations of gendered and sexual comportment; visual and/or literary arts of the era; abolitionist movements (temperance, anti-slavery); the creation of citizenship infrastructures as well as those controlling immigration and naturalization; and contemporary visions of what “Americanness” meant, looked like, or represented.   HU  0 Course cr
HTBA

* AMST 1184a / ENGL 2464a / HUMS 1840a, Approaches to Contemporary Biography: Writing and Reading Biography  Karin Roffman

The art of biography explored through groundbreaking examples, with particular emphasis on contemporary texts that explore the lives and work of artists. Topics on biographical theory and practice include: the balance of life and work; the relationship between biographer and subject; creative approaches to archives and research; and imaginative narrative strategies. Some classes take place at the Beinecke Library and there are some visits by working biographers. Students must complete an original biographical project by the end of the semester.  HU  RP
F 1:30pm-3:20pm

AMST 1197a / ARCH 2600a / HIST 1125a / HSAR 3219a / URBN 1101a, American Architecture and Urbanism  Staff

Introduction to the study of buildings, architects, architectural styles, and urban landscapes, viewed in their economic, political, social, and cultural contexts, from precolonial times to the present. Topics include: public and private investment in the built environment; the history of housing in America; the organization of architectural practice; race, gender, ethnicity and the right to the city; the social and political nature of city building; and the transnational nature of American architecture.  HU  0 Course cr
TTh 11:35am-12:25pm

* AMST 2233a / ER&M 3536a / HIST 2196a / WGSS 2235a, Another “Other” – Introducing Critical Theories and Histories of Disability  Jiya Pandya

What is disability? How has its definition changed over time? How do people “become” disabled and how does one inhabit a disabled body? In what ways has the disabled body become a site for enacting imperial, national, and resistant politics? Where and how are alternate, radical visions of health being developed? This introductory course in Disability Studies poses answers to these and other related questions through an overview of key texts and debates in the growing field of disability studies. Students will learn about the transnational history of disability and disability rights, think about the intersections of disability, race, sexuality, gender, and citizenship, and engage with questions of accessibility and activism that already exist in spaces around you. This course, composed of three modules on “disability,” “disidentifications” with disability, and “disability justice” and “health liberation,” is meant to be both an academic overview of a field and a toolkit for advocacy. As we reckon with the longer impacts of COVID-19 and process what it means to live life during and after a global pandemic, it makes most sense for us to turn to those who have reckoned with what it means to live in “crisis,” to inhabit a body that is almost-always at “risk,” and to build creative forms of care and community. We will spend significant time with disabled writers, artists, and scholars who offer insight and memory about interactions with and between medicine, war, design, technology, sexuality, race, and imperialism. none
MW 11:35am-12:50pm

* AMST 2246a / ENGL 2826a / PLSC 2846a, The Media and Democracy  Joanne Lipman

In an era of "fake news," when the media is under attack, misinformation is at epidemic levels, and new technologies are transforming the way we consume news, how do journalists hold power to account? What is the media’s role in promoting and protecting democracy? Students explore topics including objectivity versus advocacy, and hate speech versus First Amendment speech protections. Case studies span from 19th century Yellow Journalism to the #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter movements, to the rise of AI journalism and social media “news influencers.”  SO
T 3:30pm-5:20pm

* AMST 2255b / CPSC 2155b, Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, and Society  Julian Posada

This seminar examines the development and implementation of artificial intelligence technologies across a broad array of social contexts, incorporating historical, cultural, economic, legal, and political perspectives. The course provides an in-depth study of contemporary AI, from its historical development and varied definitions to current issues, emphasizing the relationship between power dynamics and ethical considerations. After establishing a foundation in theories and the study of ethics and power, the course delves into diverse aspects of AI, including the implications of human labor and material infrastructures in the development of the technology, concerns related to bias and discrimination, and its impacts on the environment. The concluding module applies these discussions to real-world scenarios, exploring how to address ethical and societal issues through legal and human rights frameworks, governance and regulation, and grassroots initiatives. This course is ideal for both computer science and engineering students seeking a socio-humanistic perspective on artificial intelligence, and humanities and social sciences students interested in the societal implications of AI.  HU, SO
M 3:30pm-5:20pm

* AMST 2262a / ER&M 3000a, Comparative Ethnic Studies  Ximena Lopez Carrillo

Introduction to the methods and practice of comparative ethnic studies. Examination of racial formation in the United States within a transnational framework. Legacies of colonialism, slavery, and racial exclusion; racial formation in schools, prisons, and citizenship law; cultural politics of music and performance; social movements; and postcolonial critique.  SO
W 3:30pm-5:20pm

* AMST 2265a / CPSC 2265a, Topics in Critical Computing  Julian Posada and Theodore Kim

This course introduces the social, cultural, and political contexts shaping the contemporary development and use of computing and information technology. Through structured discussions, lectures, and collaborative activities, participants will explore computing's historical evolution, ethical and societal implications, and tangible impacts, including its reliance on transnational infrastructures and environmental effects. Emphasis will be placed on analyzing computer-related social issues through theoretical and critical approaches, empirical research, and governance frameworks, as well as both technical and social strategies for addressing key challenges. The course is designed for students from diverse academic backgrounds across all divisions, aiming to develop a nuanced understanding of computation's intersection with broader social systems and to equip them with tools to engage with critical issues in the rapidly shifting digital landscape.  HU, SC
M 1:30pm-3:20pm

AMST 2272a / ER&M 2682a / HIST 1183a / WGSS 2272a, Asian American History, 1800 to the Present  Staff

An introduction to the history of East, South, and Southeast Asian migrations and settlement to the United States from the late eighteenth century to the present. Major themes include labor migration, community formation, U.S. imperialism, legal exclusion, racial segregation, gender and sexuality, cultural representations, and political resistance.  HU  0 Course cr
HTBA

* AMST 3300a / WGSS 3350a, The Invention of Love  Igor De Souza

This course proposes a historical, theoretical, and cultural investigation of what we call “romantic love,” the kind of love we tend to associate with courtship, with relationships that include a sexual-erotic component, and with marriage. We begin with Denis de Rougemont’s controversial thesis that romantic love was invented around the 1200s in the courtly culture of Southern France. We examine manifestations of romantic love in medieval Arab cultures as precedents to the invention of courtly love. In the second part of our course, we turn to modern humanistic theories about romantic love. Among the questions that critical theorists and philosophers have posed, we consider: How is love related to desire? Is sexual desire an indispensable component of romantic love? Is romantic love ultimately a selfish, exclusionary act, or is it about renouncing the self, losing the self in the other? In the third part of our course, we apply the insights of parts 1 and 2 to discuss case studies of romantic love in the contemporary United States. In this section, we explore reining assumptions between romantic love and: marriage; monogamy; dating; the digital environment; queerness; age; and transnationalism.
Th 3:30pm-5:20pm

* AMST 3302a / ER&M 3012a / HSHM 4930a / WGSS 3312a, Technology, Race and Gender  Kalindi Vora

In this course, we discuss technology and the politics of difference through a survey of topics including artificial intelligence, digital labor (crowdsourcing), and robotics and computer science. Materials for study include humanistic and social scientific critique, ethnographies of technology, technical writing and scientific papers, as well as speculative art practices including design, visual art and fiction. What assumptions and politics of imagination govern the design and development of new technologies? What alternative imaginaries, politics, or even speculations, can be identified with a feminist analytic lens? The seminar also includes a practicum component where we practice the politics of speculation through writing and design projects. To do this we study everything from active STEM projects at Yale to speculative fiction and film to think about how structures of race, gender, sexuality, ability, nation, and religious difference inform how we "speculate" or imagine the future through the ways we design and build technological worlds in practice and in fiction.  HU, SO
T 1:30pm-3:20pm

* AMST 3303a / EP&E 247 / ER&M 3530a / FILM 2980a / SAST 2620a, Digital War  Madiha Tahir

From drones and autonomous robots to algorithmic warfare, virtual war gaming, and data mining, digital war has become a key pressing issue of our times and an emerging field of study. This course provides a critical overview of digital war, understood as the relationship between war and digital technologies. Modern warfare has been shaped by digital technologies, but the latter have also been conditioned through modern conflict: DARPA (the research arm of the US Department of Defense), for instance, has innovated aspects of everything from GPS, to stealth technology, personal computing, and the Internet. Shifting beyond a sole focus on technology and its makers, this class situates the historical antecedents and present of digital war within colonialism and imperialism. We will investigate the entanglements between technology, empire, and war, and examine how digital war—also sometimes understood as virtual or remote war—has both shaped the lives of the targeted and been conditioned by imperial ventures. We will consider visual media, fiction, art, and other works alongside scholarly texts to develop a multidiscpinary perspective on the past, present, and future of digital war. none  HU, SO
Th 1:30pm-3:20pm

* AMST 3304a / ANTH 3304a / ER&M 3304a / HUMS 3304a / SOCY 3104a, Ethnography & Journalism  Madiha Tahir

While each is loathed to admit it, journalism and ethnography are cousins in some respects interested in (albeit distinct) modes of storytelling, translation, and interpretation. This methods course considers these shared grounds to launch a cross-comparative examination. What can the practies of each field and method—journalism and ethnography—tell us about the other? How do journalists and ethnographers engage ideas about the truth? What can they learn from each other? Students spend the first four weeks studying journalistic methods and debates before shifting to ethnographic discussions, and finally, comparative approaches to writing; data and evidence; experience and positionality.   HU, SO
Th 9:25am-11:15am

* AMST 3321a / TDPS 2003a, Introduction to Dramaturgy  Tav Nyong'o

This course explores the evolution of dramaturgy from its German modern origins to its contemporary role in performance studies and social practice. Students will examine how theories of performativity have expanded our understanding of dramatic structure beyond traditional theatrical contexts. The course investigates how social movements, cultural rituals, and everyday interactions can be analyzed through dramaturgical frameworks, while broadening the definition of "texts" that can be adapted for performance. Through both theoretical study and practical application, students will develop core dramaturgical skills by analyzing diverse performance texts for structure, meaning, and cultural context. Course projects include collaborating on a literary adaptation with a director and participating in a devised work with a contemporary artist, emphasizing the dramaturg's role as a cultural interpreter, creative collaborator, and social critic in today's performance landscape. Please email the instructor describing your relevant background and reason for interest in the class.  WR, HU
M 3:30pm-5:20pm

* AMST 3325a / ER&M 3556a / WGSS 1135a, Latina.x.e Feminist Archives  Deb Vargas

The course introduces students to Latina/x/e feminist archives. We focus on historical and contemporary writings by and about Chicana, Puerto Rican, Central American, and other Latina/x/e feminist writers and activists. The course draws from interdisciplinary scholarship addressing the intellectual landscape of Latina/x/e and critical race feminist theories and social movement activist organizing. While this course approaches Latina/x/e feminist theories and activism as often having emerged in relation to U.S. nation-making projects we will consider this work with the understanding that projects of Latina/x/e feminism should be understood as cross-border, transnational, and multi-scaler critiques of nation-state violence.  HU
M 1:30pm-3:20pm

* AMST 3333a / ENGL 3811a, American Strangeness  Sarah Mahurin and Aaron Magloire

This course examines various elements of strangeness – the uncanny, the macabre, the absurd, the shocking – as seen in and through modern and contemporary American literature.  How do authors depict, and how do readers contend with, bizarre phenomena? What is the role of readerly expectation (met and unmet)?  How do concepts of “form” and “genre” react to and against competing concepts of strangeness? We will examine convention and its breaking, mysticism and supernaturality, and our changing sense of what counts as weird.  HU
MW 2:30pm-3:45pm

* AMST 3334a / CPLT 3500a / FILM 3540a / GMAN 3460a / HUMS 3466a, Uwe Johnson's Anniversaries: From A Year in the Life of Gesine Cresspahl  Austen Hinkley

Uwe Johnson's Anniversaries: From A Year in the Life of Gesine Cresspahl remains a monument of postwar German literature – and it was written in and about New York City. Across its 367 short chapters (each corresponding to a day of the year), the novel unfolds on three levels: the historical present in New York, memories and family history from Germany, and reporting from the New York Times on current events. The result is a view of life, politics, and history in the middle of the 20th century that is as rich and expansive as it is fragmented. The social and political climate of New York in the late '60s is put into contact with memories of the rise of Nazism in Germany; reporting on the Vietnam war, the civil rights movement and the Prague Spring is refracted through the lenses of the protagonist's past life in East Germany and her new life raising her daughter alone in New York. This course undertakes a close reading of Johnson's sprawling novel with attention to its many historical, political, and literary contexts. Readings from the novel are complemented by relevant short readings on theories of media, politics, literature, and history. No prior knowledge of German language and literature is required.
   HU
W 1:30pm-3:20pm

* AMST 3336b / WGSS 3335b, LGBTQ Life Spans  Scott Herring

Interdisciplinary survey of LGBTQ life spans in the United States concentrating primarily on later life. Special attention paid to topics such as disability, aging, and ageism; queer and trans creative aging; longevity and life expectancy during the AIDS epidemic; intergenerational intimacy; age and activism; critiques of optimal aging; and the development of LGBTQ senior centers and affordable senior housing. We explore these topics across multiple contemporary genres: documentary film (The Joneses), graphic memoir (Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home), poetry (Essex Hemphill’s “Vital Signs”), fabulation (Saidiya Hartman’s Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments), and oral history. We also review archival documents of later LGBTQ lives—ordinary and iconic—held at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library as well as the Lesbian Herstory Archives.  HU
MW 2:30pm-3:45pm

* AMST 3339a / ER&M 4050a, Bad Bunny: Musical Aesthetics and Politics  Albert Laguna

This course examines the music of Bad Bunny as a point of departure for developing our skills as close listeners attentive to how cultural production creates interpretive avenues for understanding how aesthetics, history, and politics intersect. Topics include the history of Puerto Rico and its colonial past and present (tourism, debt crisis, hurricanes); the evolution of musical forms (bomba, plena, salsa, reggaeton) and their travels across the Americas; and the Puerto Rican diaspora in New York City.     none  HU
T 3:30pm-5:20pm

* AMST 3355a / AFAM 3675a / ER&M 3574a / FREN 3675a / LAST 2675a, Haiti Writes I  Marlene Daut and Kaiama Glover

From nineteenth-century antislavery pamphleteering to accounts of ecological catastrophe in 21st-century fiction, Haitian literature has resounded across the globe since the nation's revolutionaries declared independence in 1804. Starting with pre-revolutionary writing, including the emergence of Haitian Creole letters, moving through a long, largely francophone nineteenth century, to present-day Haitian writing in the English language, this two-semester exploration of Haitian literature presents the political, cultural, and historical frameworks necessary to comprehend Haiti's vast literary output. Whether writing in Haiti or its wide-ranging diasporas, Haitian authors have boldly contributed to pressing conversations in global letters while reflecting Haiti's unique cultural and historical experiences. Considering an expansive array of poets, playwrights, and novelists - such as Baron de Vastey, Juste Chanlatte, Demesvar Delorme, Edwidge Danticat, René Depestre, Kettly Mars, Dany Laferrière, and Évelyne Trouillot – this course engages students in a fresh examination of Haiti’s richly polyglot and transnational literary tradition that spans more than two centuries.
T 1:30pm-3:20pm

* AMST 3361a / ER&M 3561a, Comparative Colonialisms  Lisa Lowe

Settler colonialism, slavery, racialized immigration, and imperial war have been integral to the emergence of the U.S. nation, state, and economy, and the consequences of these histories continue today. In this interdisciplinary undergraduate seminar, we examine the relevance of these historical and ongoing formations to the founding and development of the United States, giving attention to the independence of each, as well as to their differences, convergences, and contestations. We consider the strengths and limits of different analytic frames for understanding these histories of colonialism, enslavement, capitalism, and empire. We approach the study through readings in history, anthropology, political economy, literature, arts, and other materials.   HU
W 1:30pm-3:20pm

* AMST 3365a / EP&E 4399a / ER&M 3695a / FILM 2680, Platforms and Cultural Production  Julian Posada

Platforms—digital infrastructures that serve as intermediaries between end-users and complementors—have emerged in various cultural and economic settings, from social media (Instagram), and video streaming (YouTube), to digital labor (Uber), and e-commerce (Amazon). This seminar provides a multidisciplinary lens to study platforms as hybrids of firms and multi-sided markets with unique history, governance, and infrastructures. The thematic sessions of this course discuss how platforms have transformed cultural production and connectivity, labor, creativity, and democracy by focusing on comparative cases from the United States and abroad. The seminar provides a space for broader discussions on contemporary capitalism and cultural production around topics such as inequality, surveillance, decentralization, and ethics. Students are encouraged to bring examples and case studies from their personal experiences.   HU, SO
M 3:30pm-5:20pm

* AMST 3399b, Histories and Methods of American Studies  Laura Barraclough

Intended primarily for juniors in American Studies, this course serves as both an introduction to American Studies and preparation for senior essays/projects in the major. It explores the histories of American Studies as a field and examines commonly used research methods. Students chart their own entry points and pathways through American Studies by completing scaffolded assignments that draw on both primary and secondary sources. Secondary objectives include strengthening relationships with American Studies faculty and peers and deepening engagement with the undergraduate American Studies program at Yale. Juniors in the American Studies major. Other students may be admitted with instructor permission.  HU
W 9:25am-11:15am

* AMST 3831a / ENGL 3831a / ER&M 3831a / WGSS 3831a, Texxture  Sunny Xiang

The term texxture was first used by queer studies scholars to describe a density of tactile information about an object’s provenance, composition, circulation, and use. This brilliant coinage offers an immanent theorization of texture as something like an x-factor—an excess and an essence, something magical yet practical, a strange intensity and the thing itself. Such ambiguities, however, also contribute to texture’s interpretive difficulties. For whether we have in mind a velvet armchair, a pair of distressed jeans, a handbound book, or a tablet computer, texture performs a dramatic revelation to the extent that it is also shadowed by deception and ambivalence. These paradoxes and cruxes inspire a range of inquiries for our class: What can the perception and creation of texture teach us about the sensorial and material politics of race, gender, empire, capitalism, and art? How might texture help us study the relation between desire and violence, especially at the interface of touch? What things, beings, events, places, emotions, and ideas appear to have a texture? What is texture’s route to intelligibility, and is there a scale or unit at which texture vanishes?  WR, HU
TTh 9am-10:15am

* AMST 4407b / ER&M 3691b / HSHM 4550b, Eugenics and its Afterlives  Daniel HoSang

This course examines the influence of Eugenics research, logics, and ideas across nearly every academic discipline in the 20th century, and the particular masks, tropes, and concepts that have been used to occlude attentions to these legacies today. Students make special use of the large collection of archives held within Yale Special Collections of key figures in the American Eugenics Society. Students work collaboratively to identify alternative research practices and approaches deployed in scholarly and creative works that make racial power visible and enable the production of knowledge unburdened by the legacies of Eugenics and racial science.   HU  0 Course cr
T 9:25am-11:15am

* AMST 4409b / HIST 3166b / WGSS 4409b, Asian American Women and Gender, 1830 to the Present  Mary Lui

Asian American women as key historical actors. Gender analysis is used to reexamine themes in Asian American history: immigration, labor, community, cultural representations, political organizing, sexuality, and marriage and family life.  WR, HU
W 1:30pm-3:20pm

* AMST 4441a / ER&M 3570a / HIST 3130a, Indians and the Spanish Borderlands  Ned Blackhawk

The experiences of Native Americans during centuries of relations with North America's first imperial power, Spain. The history and long-term legacies of Spanish colonialism from Florida to California.  WR, HU
T 1:30pm-3:20pm

* AMST 4445b / AFAM 2310b, Politics and Culture of the U.S. Color Line  Matthew Jacobson and Lisa Lowe

The significance of race in U.S. political culture, from the “separate but equal” doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson to the election of an African American president. Race as a central organizer of American political and social life.  HU  RP
M 1:30pm-3:20pm

* AMST 4447b / EDST 2270b / ER&M 3567b, Contemporary Native American K-12 and Postsecondary Educational Policy  Matthew Makomenaw

This course explores Native American educational policy issues, programming, funding, and success. Native American representation in policy conversations is often incomplete, complicated, or relegated to an asterisk resulting in a lack of resources, awareness, and visibility in educational policy. This course examines the challenges and issues related to Native education; however, the impetus of this course centers on the resiliency, strength, and imagination of Native American students and communities to redefine and achieve success in a complex and often unfamiliar educational environment. EDST 1110 recommended.  SO
W 9:25am-11:15am

* AMST 4449a / FILM 4470a / HIST 2114a, The Historical Documentary  Charles Musser

This course looks at the historical documentary as a method for carrying out historical work in the public humanities. It investigates the evolving discourse sand resonances within such topics as the Vietnam War, the Holocaust and African American history. It is concerned with their relationship of documentary to traditional scholarly written histories as well as the history of the genre and what is often called the “archival turn.”
T 3:30pm-5:20pm, M 7pm-10pm

* AMST 4453b / HIST 3119b, The United States Constitution of 1787  Mark Peterson

This undergraduate seminar is organized around developing a deep historical understanding of one of our most important documents, the United States Constitution, as it emerged in the late 1780s.  In addition to close reading and analysis of this fundamental text, we read a series of other primary sources relevant to the evolution of constitutional thought and practice in the Anglo-American tradition of the early modern period.  And we engage relevant secondary scholarship produced by professional historians over the past century or more, in an effort to grapple with the evolution of changing approaches to the Constitution and its meaning over time. This course carries PI credit in History.  WR, HU
W 9:25am-11:15am

* AMST 4459b / ANTH 465 / ANTH 4865b, Multispecies Worlds  Kathryn Dudley

This seminar explores the relational and material worlds that humans create in concert with other-than-human species. Through an interdisciplinary analysis of the problematic subject of anthropology—Anthropos—we seek to pose new questions about the fate of life worlds in the present epoch of anthropogenic climate change. Our readings track circuits of knowledge from anthropology and philosophy to geological history, literary criticism, and environmental studies as we come to terms with the loss of biodiversity, impending wildlife extinctions, and political-economic havoc wrought by global warming associated with the Anthropocene.  A persistent provocation guides our inquiry: What multispecies worldings become possible to recognize and cultivate when we dare to decenter the human in our politics, passions, and aspirations for life on a shared planet?  SO
Th 1:30pm-3:20pm

* AMST 4461b / AFAM 2339b / EDST 2209b / ER&M 1692b / WGSS 2202b, Identity, Diversity, and Policy in U.S. Education  Craig Canfield

Introduction to critical theory (feminism, queer theory, critical race theory, disability studies, trans studies, Indigenous studies) as a fundamental tool for understanding and critiquing identity, diversity, and policy in U.S. education. Exploration of identity politics and theory, as they figure in education policy. Methods for applying theory and interventions to interrogate issues in education. Application of theory and interventions to policy creation and reform. EDST 1110 recommended.  WR, HU
M 3:30pm-5:20pm

* AMST 4463a / EVST 4630a / FILM 4550a / TDPS 4023a, Documentary Film Workshop  Charles Musser

A yearlong workshop designed primarily for majors in Film and Media Studies or American Studies who are making documentaries as senior projects. Seniors in other majors admitted as space permits.  RP
W 3:30pm-6:20pm, T 7pm-9pm

* AMST 4469a / EP&E 4396a / PLSC 3238a, American Progressivism and Its Critics  Stephen Skowronek

The progressive reform tradition in American politics. The tradition's conceptual underpinnings, social supports, practical manifestations in policy and in new governmental arrangements, and conservative critics. Emphasis on the origins of progressivism in the early decades of the twentieth century, with attention to latter-day manifestations and to changes in the progressive impulse over time.  SO
M 3:30pm-5:20pm

* AMST 4471a and AMST 4472b, Individual Reading and Research for Juniors and Seniors  Laura Wexler

Special projects intended to enable the student to cover material not otherwise offered by the program. The course may be used for research or for directed reading, but in either case a term paper or its equivalent is required as evidence of work done. It is expected that the student will meet regularly with the faculty adviser. To apply for admission, a student should submit a prospectus signed by the faculty adviser to the director of undergraduate studies.
HTBA

* AMST 4481a / ENGL 4811a / ER&M 3511a, The Native American Novel  Lloyd Kevin Sy

This course explores the evolution of the Native American novel, tracing its development from The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta (1854) to contemporary works. We will examine how Indigenous writers have used the novel to engage with themes such as sovereignty, memory, land, identity, assimilation, and storytelling as resistance. Readings may include works by John Rollin Ridge, Zitkála-Šá, D'Arcy McNickle, N. Scott Momaday, Leslie Marmon Silko, Louise Erdrich, Gerald Vizenor, and Tommy Orange. Through close reading and critical analysis, we will consider how Native novelists navigate history, genre, and literary form to challenge dominant narratives. None  WR, HU
T 1:30pm-3:20pm

* AMST 4491a or b, Senior Project  Laura Wexler

Independent research and proseminar on a one-term senior project. For requirements see under “Senior requirement” in the American Studies program description.
HTBA

* AMST 4493a and AMST 4494b, Senior Project for the Intensive Major  Staff

Independent research and proseminar on a two-term senior project. For requirements see under "Senior requirement" in the American Studies program description.
T 1:30pm-3:20pm