* AMST 0013a / BLST 0213a / ENGL 0813a, Counternarratives: Black Historical Fictions  Elleza Kelley

While historical records have long been the source from which we draw our picture of the past, it is with literature and art that we attempt to speculatively work out that which falls between the cracks of conventional archival documentation, that which cannot be contained by historical record—emotion, gesture, the sensory, the sonic, the inner life, the afterlife, the neglected and erased. This course examines how contemporary black writers have imagined and attempted to represent black life from the late 17th to the early 20th centuries, asking what fiction can tell us about history. Reading these works as alternative archives, or “counternarratives,” which index the excess and fugitive material of black histories in the Americas, we probe the uses, limits, and revelations of historical fictions, from the experimental and realist novel, to works of poetry and drama. Drawing on the work of various interdisciplinary scholars, we use these historical fictions to explore and enter into urgent and ongoing conversations around black life & death, African-American history & memory, black aesthetics, and the problem of “The Archive.” Enrollment limited to first-year students.  HU
MW 2:35pm-3:50pm

* AMST 0028b / HIST 2140b / WGSS 0028b, US Queer History  Talya Zemach-Bersin

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
TTh 4pm-5:15pm

* AMST 0097a / ER&M 0097a, Food, Race, and Migration in United States Society  Quan Tran

Exploration of the relationship between food, race, and migration in historical and contemporary United States contexts. Organized thematically and anchored in selected case studies, this course is comparative in scope and draws from contemporary work in the fields of food studies, ethnic studies, migration studies, American studies, anthropology, and history.    SO
TTh 1:05pm-2:20pm

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

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
TTh 11:35am-12:50pm

* AMST 1117b / HSAR 3217b, American Art to 1900  Jennifer Raab

This course offers a survey of American art from European colonization of the continent to the establishment of a US overseas empire circa 1900. Through paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings, photographs, and material culture, we consider the role of the visual arts in settler colonialism and nation building, in the invention of race and enforcement of its categories, and in the construction of citizenship. Throughout the term we think about how American art is shaped within wider Atlantic, Pacific, and Caribbean worlds. We look at plantation and “frontier” landscapes, the art of natural history, the cult of presidential images, the emergence of photojournalism, the creation of the modern museum, and the politics of public monuments. The aim of this course is three-fold: to acquire a foundational understanding of the art and visual culture of the United States, to situate the visual in the context of a historical and cultural framework, and to learn how to think and write about objects.  The course is open to students at all levels, including those with no prior background in art history.  HU  0 Course cr
TTh 11:35am-12:25pm

AMST 1160a / BLST 1160a / HIST 1784a, The Making of the Black Atlantic, 1400-1900  Staff

This course explores the formation of the Black Atlantic from the early modern period through 1900. It begins with the development of racial slavery, a new type of human slavery, during the sixteenth century. The racialized slavery that emerged in the Americas was new to World History, developed by European colonists to exploit the natural resources of the Americas. The transatlantic slave trade in captive Africans transported more than twelve million people to the Americas. They shaped the growth and formation of every American society, from culture to economy and politics. We will focus upon North American and the Caribbean, where European colonists developed colonies that produced for export to the European market and were completely dependent upon the enslaved labor of Africans. The production and commerce of tobacco, sugar, rum, coffee and cotton with slave labor formed capital that empowered the growth of European empires, and ultimately the United States. The brutality of that forced labor led to resistance, and to organized rebellions that still reverberate in our societies, and in the global Order. This course treats this history from the late medieval period to the cusp of the twentieth century.  HU  RP  0 Course cr
HTBA

AMST 1165b / HIST 1165b, The American Century  Beverly Gage

United States politics, political thought, and social movements in the 20th century. Pivotal elections and political figures (Wilson, Roosevelt, Nixon, Reagan) as well as politics from below (civil rights, labor, women's activism). Emphasis on political ideas such as liberalism, conservatism, and radicalism, and on the intersection between domestic and foreign affairs. Primary research in Yale archival collections. Students who have already completed HIST 136J must have the instructor's permission to enroll in this course, and will perform alternate readings during some weeks.  HU  0 Course cr
TTh 11:35am-12:25pm

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

An introduction to the field of American architecture and urbanism: the study of buildings, architects, designs, styles, and urban landscapes, viewed in economic, political, social, and cultural contexts. Organized chronologically, from pre-Colonial times to the present, as well as thematically, the course studies the formation and meaning of the built environment in America. The many topics encountered along the way include the public and private investment in the built environment; history of housing in America; transportation and infrastructure; architectural practice; and the social and political nature of city building and urban change. Attention also paid to the transnational nature of American architecture—the role of colonialism, the global exchange of architectural ideas, and the international careers of some architects. We will take advantage of our local setting, New Haven, as a cross-section of American architectural and urban history and a storehouse of key examples of building types, urban landscapes, and architectural styles. Upon completion, students should be expected to grasp the basic periods, trends, and processes in American architectural history and their connection to urban patterns. This course aims to give students the tools to appreciate and interpret the built environments that surround them, from impressive monuments to ordinary structures  HU  0 Course cr
HTBA

AMST 1199a / EVST 1199a / HIST 1199a / HSHM 2070a, American Energy History  Staff

The history of energy in the United States from early hydropower and coal to present-day hydraulic fracturing, deepwater oil, wind, and solar. Topics include energy transitions and technological change; energy and democracy; environmental justice and public health; corporate power and monopoly control; electricity and popular culture; labor struggles; the global quest for oil; changing national energy policies; the climate crisis.  HU  0 Course cr
HTBA

* AMST 2004a / CPLT 2410a / ENGL 2124a / TDPS 2400a, Glamour  Hal Brooks

Glamour: you know it when you see it, but what is it? In this class, we try to figure that out by reading and watching various works that theorize and/or obsess over what glamour is and does. More questions we’ll consider include: what’s the relationship between glamour and performance, especially theatrical performance? What kind(s) of desire does glamour produce? Does glamour have an ethics, a politics? And/or is it the refusal of those things? What’s the role of the individual spectator, reader, writer, or performer in making glamour happen?  Actually, how does glamour happen? What would it take to make this class glamorous? Should we try? Readings will include work by Thorsten Veblen, Roland Barthes, Henrik Ibsen, Judith Brown, Edward Said, Lloyd Suh, Nella Larsen, and Zelda Fitzgerald, among others. We also spend several weeks studying the work of contemporary American playwright Adrienne Kennedy. Assignments include analytical exercises, in-class presentations, a “glamour memoir,” and a final project which may be either “creative” or analytical in its emphasis.   HU
Th 1pm-4pm

AMST 2200b / HUMS 1650b / SOCY 2300b / WGSS 2200b, Topics in Human Sexuality  Staff

In 1970, Yale professors and sexuality scholars Lorna and Philip Sarrel introduced what came to be their wildly popular lecture, “Topics in Human Sexuality.” The course, offered at the height of the sexual revolution and shortly after Yale University admitted women undergraduates, was multipurpose: to teach students about pressing, contemporary social problems around sex, gender, and sexuality; to help students learn about their bodies, sexualities, and relationships; to direct students to resources and information about their sexual and reproductive health; and to advance the mission of a liberal arts education, namely, the cultivation of well-rounded, critically engaged, curious, participatory young citizens. This iteration of the course is inspired by the Sarrels’ ambitions, even if we are unlikely to realize them in full. The course is offered in the spirit of a critical sexuality education, critical as in 1) theory- rather than practicum-driven, but nonetheless 2) urgent. As political movements that endanger transgender children, suppress sexual expression, and rescind reproductive rights gain traction, the course offers candid, careful focus on: abortion, sexual education, queer and trans kids, pornography, university sexual politics, hooking up, and breaking up.  Along the way, we watch a season of Netlfix’s “Sex Education” together. The class (nonexclusively) focuses on social and political problems in the contemporary United States, and examines those problems by drawing upon scholarship in Gender & Sexuality Studies, American Studies, Sociology, Psychology, and Public Law.  HU, SO  0 Course cr
TTh 10:30am-11:20am

* AMST 2201a, Interdisciplinary Approaches to American Studies  Lisa Lowe

This seminar is both a history of and practical guide to the interdisciplinary American Studies field. Students read examples from the established academic disciplines of history, sociology, political science, economics, natural science and literature, alongside varieties of American Studies scholarship, to analyze the methods, objects, criteria, protocols and practices that comprise the interdisciplinary field.  HU
MW 2:35pm-3:50pm

AMST 2228b / GLBL 2201b / HIST 1128b, Origins of U.S. Global Power  David Engerman

This course examines the causes and the consequences of American global power in the “long 20th century,” peeking back briefly into the 19th century as well as forward into the present one. The focus is on foreign relations, which includes but is not limited to foreign policy; indeed, America’s global role was rooted as much in its economic and cultural power as it was in diplomacy and military strength. We study events like wars, crises, treaties, and summits—but also trade shows and movie openings. Our principal subjects include plenty of State Department officials, but also missionaries, business people, and journalists. We pay close attention also to conceptions of American power; how did observers in and beyond the United States understand the nature, origins, and operations of American power?  HU  0 Course cr
MW 10:30am-11:20am

* AMST 2232a / ER&M 3686a / WGSS 2232a, Latine Queer Trans Studies  Deb Vargas

This course provides an introduction to Latinx queer trans* studies. We approach the field of Latinx queer trans* studies as an ongoing political project that emerges from social justice activism, gay/lesbian/queer/trans studies, critical race feminism, cultural practitioners, among other work. We pay particular attention to the keywords “trans,” “queer,” “Chicanx,” and “Latinx” by placing them in productive tension with each other through varied critical genealogies.    HU, SO
M 1:30pm-3:25pm

* AMST 2239a / EDST 1235a / WGSS 2239a, Education and the Culture Wars  Talya Zemach-Bersin

Examination of the historical development and politics of the “culture wars” with a focus on how battles over the “soul of America” have focused on the American education system. Conflict over "American values” issues like patriotism and religion are compounded by legal battles over federal funding, parental rights, and school choice. Study of interdisciplinary readings from law, political science, history, and education studies. EDST 1110 recommended.
T 4pm-5:55pm

* 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 1:30pm-3:25pm

* 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 4pm-5:55pm

* 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 4pm-5:55pm

* 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-3:25pm

* AMST 2286a / AFAM 3820 / BLST 3820a / ENGL 3820a / HUMS 2410a, James Baldwin's American Scene  Staff

In-depth examination of James Baldwin's canon, tracking his work as an American artist, citizen, and witness to United States society, politics, and culture during the Cold War, the Civil Rights era, and the Black Arts Movement.  HU  0 Course cr
HTBA

* AMST 3037b / ER&M 4049b / HIST 3737b / HSHM 4460b, Globalizing Disability: Histories and Theories from the Non-West  Jiya Pandya

Is disability a universal identity? Who decides who is disabled and how they get treated? How do experiences of illness, disability, access, and care differ in different modern global contexts? Can (and should) disability – as identity, rights, and pathology – be decolonized? We tackle these and other questions in this course, which offers students insight into historical and theoretical contributions from the growing fields of disability studies and mad studies. We focus primarily on ideas and critiques that emerge from scholars and practitioners working in and on the complex geographies that are given the uneven labels of the non-West, Third World, Developing World, and Global South. Tracing histories across multiple countries and regions from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, we examine how the forces of colonialism, post-colonial nation-building, and international governance shaped the lives of people who were labeled or came to identify as disabled. Structured thematically, we read historical, anthropological, critical theory, and cultural studies interventions into topics such as global medicine, humanitarianism, rights, war, welfare, and mental health. Even as we read widely, we center disability (and its intersections with race, gender, sexuality, and class) as a political methodology and a form of radical embodiment. Students from all disciplinary backgrounds may take this class, which both works alongside and builds on WGSS 2235’s broader introduction to disability studies.  WR, HU
HTBA

* AMST 3092a / CPLT 3892a / SPAN 3205a, Introduction to Critical Sleep Studies: Las políticas del dormir y no dormir  Moira Fradinger

Although we spend approximately one third of our lives asleep, since the industrial revolution and the emergence of uninterrupted city lighting, industrialized societies seem to have developed an ambivalent relation to sleep: both protected and devalued for the sake of higher standards of productive work. The devaluation of sleep, in particular, has produced, during the twentieth and the first two decades of the twenty-first centuries, an array of social, political, and medical discourses to study the impact of changing patterns of sleep and sleeplessness at the global level. This seminar studies topics in the politics and cultures of sleep and sleeplessness, which posit sleep as a human practice. As any human practice, it is framed by cultural and political settings, so that how, when, why, where, and who sleeps vary across sectors of society, across past and present and across world cultures. We study historical, literary, philosophical, sociological, political, and filmic texts. A cultural, social, and political understanding of sleep and sleeplessness can reveal how sleep has been transformed into a bodily site upon which social values are imposed, social surveillance is enacted, ideas about “normality” are instrumentalized, resulting in a demand that humans adapt to human-made changing conditions of production, rather than universally unchanging health needs. Taught in Spanish  HU
W 7pm-8:55pm

* 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.
T 1:30pm-3:25pm

* AMST 3302a / ER&M 3512a / 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
W 1:30pm-3:25pm

* AMST 3303a or b / EP&E 247 / ER&M 3530a or b / FILM 2980a or b / SAST 2620a or b, 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
HTBA

* AMST 3304a or b / ANTH 3304a or b / ER&M 3304a or b / HUMS 3304a or b / SOCY 3104a or b, 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
HTBA

* AMST 3309a / AFAM 2359 / BLST 2359 / EDST 1255a, Education and Empire  Talya Zemach-Bersin

This course offers an introduction to the transnational history of education in relation to the historical development of the U.S. empire both at home and abroad. By bringing together topics often approached separately—immigration, education, race, colonialism, and the history of U.S. empire—we interrogate the ways that education has been mobilized to deploy power: controlling knowledge, categorizing and policing differences, administering unequal paths to citizenship/belonging, forcing assimilation, promoting socio-economic divides, and asserting discipline and control. EDST 110 recommended.  HU
W 4pm-5:55pm

* AMST 3316b / HIST 3156b, Capitalism, Labor, & Class Politics in Modern U.S.  Jennifer Klein

History of American capitalism from the mid-19th century through the 21st century. This course examines different modes of capitalist accumulation and creation of landscapes, territories, boundaries. Readings address how regionalism, race, and class power shaped the development of American capitalism. We consider the continuum of free and coerced labor well after the end of slavery in the U.S. We read about indigenous communities, the environment, energy politics, and on-going struggles with the state. This mix of labor history, social theory, intellectual history, business history, social history, and geography also impel us to imagine the workings of American capitalism beyond the borders of the nation—to think about how capitalists and workers move through space and reshape space; the exchange of workers, ideas, technologies, and resources across national, imperial, and oceanic boundaries.  WR, HU
HTBA

* AMST 3319a / ENGL 3805a, The Modernist Novel in the 1920s  Joe Cleary

Many of the classics of modernist fiction were published between 1920 and 1930. These novels did not come into the world as “modernist”; that term was later conferred on narrative experiments often considered bizarre at the time. As writers, the “modernists” did not conform to pre-existing social conceptions of “the writer” nor work with established systems of narrative genres; rather, they tried to remake the novel as form and bend it to new purposes. This course invites students to consider diverse morphologies of the Anglophone modernist novel in this decade and to reflect on its consequences for later developments in twentieth-century fiction. The seminar encourages careful analyses of individual texts but engages also with literary markets, patronage systems, changing world literary systems, the rise of cinema and mass and consumer cultures, and later Cold War constructions of the ideology of modernism.  WR, HU
MW 11:35am-12:50pm

* 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 2:35pm-3:50pm

* 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
W 9:25am-11:20am

* AMST 3349a / TDPS 4303a, Technologies of Movement Research  Emily Coates

An interdisciplinary survey of creative and critical methods for researching human movement. Humans move to communicate, to express emotions, to commune, to protest, to reflect and embody the natural world. Drawing on an array of artistic projects and scholarship in dance and performance studies, art, anthropology, sociology, philosophy, cognitive science, and the history of science, we consider case studies that take up movement as both the object and method of inquiry. Class time and assignments include moving, reading, and watching. All physical capabilities are welcome; no prior experience in dance required. Limited enrollment. See Syllabus page on Canvas for application. 
T 9:25am-11:20am

* AMST 3350a / ER&M 3519a / SAST 4750a / TDPS 3029a, Drama in Diaspora: South Asian American Theater and Performance  Shilarna Stokes

South Asian Americans have appeared on U.S. stages since the late nineteenth century, yet only in the last quarter century have plays and performances by South Asian Americans begun to dismantle dominant cultural representations of South Asian and South Asian American communities and to imagine new ways of belonging. This seminar introduces you to contemporary works of performance (plays, stand-up sets, multimedia events) written and created by U.S.-based artists of South Asian descent as well as artists of the South Asian diaspora whose works have had an impact on U.S. audiences. With awareness that the South Asian American diaspora comprises multiple, contested, and contingent identities, we investigate how artists have worked to manifest complex representations of South Asian Americans onstage, challenge institutional and professional norms, and navigate the perils and pleasures of becoming visible. No prior experience with or study of theater/performance required. Students in all years and majors welcome.  HU
T 4pm-5:55pm

* 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 4pm-5:55pm

* AMST 3365a / EP&E 4399 / ER&M 3695a, 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 4pm-5:55pm

* AMST 3375a / ER&M 3502a / HIST 3102a, Asian Americans and the Law in 20th C. U.S. History  Mary Lui

This junior history seminar explores 20th century Asian American history through the themes of law and justice.  Specifically, we examine the ways in which U.S. laws and legal institutions have defined race and belonging for Asian Americans by focusing on three topics―education, housing, and criminal justice.  These broad themes allow us to understand historic changes in Asian migration, family and community formation, political organizing, and social justice activism as well as situate Asian American history in the broader context of Civil Rights struggles throughout the 20th century. The course also explores a wide array of primary sources and historical methods used to develop a research project based on Asian American encounters with the U.S. legal system.  WR, HU
TTh 11:35am-12:50pm

* AMST 3382a / WGSS 3372a, Theory and Politics of Sexual Consent  Joseph Fischel

Political, legal, and feminist theory and critiques of the concept of sexual consent. Topics such as sex work, nonnormative sex, and sex across age differences explored through film, autobiography, literature, queer commentary, and legal theory. U.S. and Connecticut legal cases regarding sexual violence and assault.  SO  RP
W 9:25am-11:20am

* AMST 3395a / FILM 3270a, The Documentary Tradition  Charles Musser

This course examines key works, crucial texts, and fundamental concepts in the critical study of non-fiction cinema, exploring the participant-observer dialectic, the performative, and changing ideas of truth in documentary forms.  HU  RP
T 4pm-5:55pm, M 7pm-10pm

* AMST 3398b / ER&M 3508b / HIST 2158b, American Indian Law and Policy  Ned Blackhawk

Survey of the origins, history, and legacies of federal Indian law and policy during two hundred years of United States history. The evolution of U.S. constitutional law and political achievements of American Indian communities over the past four decades.  HU
T 9:25am-11:20am

* 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
Th 9:25am-11:20am

* AMST 4027a / ENGL 4827a / ER&M 3554a, After Asian America  Sunny Xiang

Why does “Asian America” seem so 1968, a platform for political mobilization that’s hyperspecific to a particular time and place? Conversely, why does “Asian America” continue to be so elusive, a speculative identity that we’re still searching for? To be after Asian America is to feel nostalgia, embarrassment, desire, and frustration—perhaps all at once. To be after Asian America is to experience uncertainty about the object provoking such feelings. This course is “after Asian America” in all these ways. Through literary, aesthetic, cultural, and scholarly texts, we will develop a critical vocabulary for analyzing the range of identifications and disidentifications that inform Asian American culture, politics, and thought. In prioritizing temporal disorientation over historical chronology, this course shows how affect and sensation can surface alternate genealogies of power and difference. That is, our interest in the ambivalences of an already dated yet perpetually emergent racial formation will incite us to treat feeling as a vital form of knowledge about war, colonialism, capitalism, ecology, and being. While we will certainly discuss regimes of perception through primary and secondary texts, I hope we can also approach our own thinking, reading, speaking, and writing as collectively embodied and temporally contingent acts.   WR, HU
M 1:30pm-3:25pm

* AMST 4403b, Introduction to Public Humanities  Karin Roffman and Matthew Jacobson

Introduction to the various media, topics, debates, and issues framing public humanities. The relationship between knowledge produced in the university and the circulation of ideas among a broader public, including modes of inquiry, interpretation, and presentation. Public history, museum studies, oral and community history, public art, documentary film and photography, public writing and educational outreach, and the socially conscious performing arts.  HU
Th 1:30pm-3:25pm

* AMST 4422a / ER&M 3507a / HIST 3151a, Writing Tribal Histories  Ned Blackhawk

Historical overview of American Indian tribal communities, particularly since the creation of the United States. Challenges of working with oral histories, government documents, and missionary records.  WR, HU
Th 9:25am-11:20am

* 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-11:20am

* AMST 4462b / ER&M 4062b / WGSS 4463b, The Study of Privilege in the Americas  Ana Ramos-Zayas

Examination of inequality, not only through experiences of the poor and marginal, but also through institutions, beliefs, social norms, and everyday practices of the privileged. Topics include: critical examination of key concepts like “studying up,” “elite,” and “privilege,” as well as variations in forms of capital; institutional sites of privilege (elite prep schools, Wall Street); living spaces and social networks (gated communities, private clubs); privilege in intersectional contexts (privilege and race, class, and gender); and everyday practices of intimacy and affect that characterize, solidify, and promote privilege.  SO
T 1:30pm-3:25pm

* AMST 4463a and AMST 4464a / EVST 4630a and EVST 4640a / FILM 4550a and FILM 4560a / TDPS 4023a and TDPS 4024a, 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-10pm

* AMST 4470a / AFAM 4357 / AFST 4457a / BLST 4357a / ER&M 4067a / FREN 4810a, Racial Republic: African Diasporic Literature and Culture in Postcolonial France  Fadila Habchi

This is an interdisciplinary seminar on French cultural history from the 1930s to the present. We focus on issues concerning race and gender in the context of colonialism, postcolonialism, and migration. The course investigates how the silencing of colonial history has been made possible culturally and ideologically, and how this silencing has in turn been central to the reorganizing of French culture and society from the period of decolonization to the present. We ask how racial regimes and spaces have been constructed in French colonial discourses and how these constructions have evolved in postcolonial France. We examine postcolonial African diasporic literary writings, films, and other cultural productions that have explored the complex relations between race, colonialism, historical silences, republican universalism, and color-blindness. Topics include the 1931 Colonial Exposition, Black Paris, decolonization, universalism, the Trente Glorieuses, the Paris massacre of 1961, anti-racist movements, the "beur" author, memory, the 2005 riots, and contemporary afro-feminist and decolonial movements.  HU
W 1:30pm-3:25pm

* AMST 4471a and AMST 4472b, Individual Reading and Research for Juniors and Seniors  Greta LaFleur

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 4491a or b, Senior Project  Greta LaFleur

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  Greta LaFleur

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