AFST 150     Introduction to African and African American Studies  (4)

An introduction to how historical and contemporary analyses of cultural, political, and social forces in America, the Atlantic world (Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean), and Africa have influenced the experiences of people of color. To illuminate those life experiences, the course employs the concept of race (as a theoretical, historical, and critical category), historiography, social analysis, and cultural critique.

AFST 160     Introduction to Black Women's Studies  (4)

This introductory course explores the interlocking forms of oppression circumscribing Black women’s lives in the United States, with a particular emphasis on the ways in which their lived experiences and social realities are influenced by constructions of race, gender, class, sexuality, and other markers of difference. It contextualizes Black women’s struggles for social justice historically within the broader narratives of Black freedom struggles and the Women’s Rights Movement. It underscores the ways in which despite their marginalized status, Black women have used their agency within both the private and public realms to interrogate, challenge, and resist their subordination and subvert the status quo, particularly as it is reinforced in negative constructions of Black female identity.

AFST 210     Blackness in American Popular Culture  (4)

This course interrogates representations of blackness in American popular culture. Using an interdisciplinary lens that considers the social, political, cultural, and historical realities that inform popular culture, students investigate how blackness is constructed and its implications.

AFST 351     Toni Morrison  (4)

This course explores selected fiction by Toni Morrison and some of the literary criticism that surrounds her work. It examines Morrison's treatment of race, class, gender, and sexuality in her fiction, and also considers some of her nonfiction, interviews, and speeches to gain a clearer understanding of her contributions to the American literary canon and the African American literary tradition.

AMST 251     Black Masculinity in the United States  (4)

This course is an interdisciplinary exploration of constructions of Black masculinity in the United States from the twentieth century through the present. Autobiographical accounts are used to examine historical and current definitions of Black manhood that challenge and reinforce understandings of what it means to be both Black and male.

AMST 255     Imagining Africa  (4)

This course examines popular notions of Africa and its relationship to a global African diaspora. Literature is used to question how Africa has served historically as a metaphor for exoticism, sexuality, and savagery in western discourse and, in the contemporary world, as an imagined site of seemingly insoluble problems such as genocide, famine, and the collapse of the state.

AMST 340     African American Women's Short Stories  (4)

Focusing on the literary contributions of 20th century African American women fiction writers, this course specifically examines the shared and distinctive ways in which Black women writers represent the politics of Black womanhood in their short stories. This genre is an essential part of the Black women’s literary tradition that is often left unexplored. Collectively, these texts contribute to a radical literary tradition that implores readers to consider the way(s) in which race, gender, class, and/or sexuality inform the fictional lives of Black women and the lives of the writers. In addition to analyzing representations of Black female identity within the works of several prominent writers, the course traces specific themes such as power, privilege, and perspective.

AMST 351     Toni Morrison  (4)

This course explores selected fiction by Toni Morrison and some of the literary criticism that surrounds her work. It examines Morrison's treatment of race, class, gender, and sexuality in her fiction, and also considers some of her nonfiction, interviews, and speeches to gain a clearer understanding of her contributions to the American literary canon and the African American literary tradition.

AMST 444     Independent Study  (2 or 4)

An opportunity for students to explore a topic of interest in an independent or directed manner. Open only to students pursuing majors in American studies. Prerequisite: Instructor prerequisite override required.

ANTH 301     American Culture  (4)

An anthropological study of the United States using community studies and topical essays to explore regional differences and national continuities. Symbols of self, home, community, and nation are used to interpret technology, the economy, leisure, popular culture, and social class, and patterns that typify America in general, and, in particular, the region of Appalachia.

ANTH 302     Southern Cultures  (4)

An anthropological study of the southern United States emphasizes cultural continuity in both mountains and lowlands. The course uses community studies and literature to explore how indigenous interpretations fit within and react against national patterns and how locality, race, status, and gender act as social principles.

ARTH 340     American Art  (4)

A survey of painting, sculpture, and architecture in the United States from the Colonial period to 1913, with an emphasis on the relationship between American and European art and artists. Other topics considered include the development of art institutions in this country, in particular art museums and academies.

ENGL 224     Slavery and Race in the American Literary Imagination  (4)

Slavery and its legacy, systemic racism, have been subjects for American writers and artists for more than two centuries. Revealing a yawning gap between American ideals and practices, they continue to tell us something vital about our country. This course examines representations of slavery and racism, including slave narratives and neo-slave narratives, across various media. Prerequisite: One course with attribute G1 including AP or IB credit.

ENGL 330     The Life and Literature of Tennessee Williams  (4)

A study of the major dramatic works of Tennessee Williams, as well as his poetry and fiction. The course also examines Williams' life and his impact on twentieth-century American literature and theatre. Prerequisite: One course in English with attribute GFWI.

ENGL 338     Border Fictions: Literature of the U.S.-Mexico Border  (4)

This course focuses on literary representations--in fiction, nonfiction and poetry--of the experience and meaning of the imaginary line that divides the United States and Mexico. Among the themes to be discussed are the experience of border-crossing (in both directions), the possibility or impossibility of assimilating to life across the border, and especially the desire that draws migrants toward el otro lado (the other side). Writers to be discussed may include Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton, Katherine Ann Porter, Americo Paredes, Sandra Cisneros, Cormac McCarthy, Oscar Casares, and Luis Alberto Urrea. Prerequisite: One course in English with attribute GFWI.

ENGL 377     American Literature, Beginnings to 1855  (4)

Many people know one sentence from early American literature: Puritan leader John Winthrop’s 1630 claim that “we shall be as a City on a Hill.” Often misinterpreted as a promise of inevitable national success, these words were actually a warning that America’s redemptive promises carried the risk of disastrous and conspicuous failure. This course traces the efforts of English-language writers to respond to both the promises and the failures of the tiny colonial settlements that became the United States. Authors studied include Anne Bradstreet, Mary Rowlandson, Phillis Wheatley, Frederick Douglass, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Walt Whitman. Prerequisite: One course in English with attribute GFWI.

ENGL 378     American Literature from 1850-1900  (4)

Like Abraham Lincoln’s announcement of “a new birth of freedom” in the Gettysburg Address, the American literature covered in English 378 struggles to articulate, then problematize, American freedom in the era surrounding the Civil War and emancipation. What is freedom? To whom does it extend? What are its blessings and its costs? Nobody has ever thought more profoundly about these issues than the American writers who emerged before, during, and after the war America fought with itself: Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Harriet Jacobs, Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Henry James, Charles Chesnutt, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and others. Prerequisite: One course in English with attribute GFWI.

ENGL 379     Origins and Development of the American Novel: 1790 to 1920  (4)

“In the four quarters of the globe,” sneered the English critic Sidney Smith in 1820, “who reads an American book?” This course introduces the U.S. writers who answered Smith’s challenge, such as Hannah Webster Foster, James Fenimore Cooper, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry James, Charles W. Chesnutt, Willa Cather, and Theodore Dreiser. They invented a distinctively American novel and in the process produced masterpieces that are still recognized in all four quarters of the globe. Prerequisite: One course in English with attribute GFWI.

ENGL 380     Emily Dickinson  (4)

A study of one of the most important American poets, whose tight, elliptical lyrics inspired American poets for the next hundred years. This course examines in detail Dickinson's career, sometimes in relation to her poetic contemporaries, and many of the nearly 1800 poems she is known to have written. Prerequisite: One course in English with attribute GFWI.

ENGL 391     Modern American Poetry  (4)

The origin and development of the modern period in American poetry, concentrating on the work of the major modernist poets: Frost, Pound, Stevens, Williams, and Eliot. The course includes a brief examination of their influence in poems by Berryman, Bishop, Brooks, Hughes, Lowell, Moore, Rich, Roethke, Wilbur, and others. Prerequisite: One course in English with attribute GFWI.

ENGL 392     Modern American Fiction  (4)

A study of fiction by James, Hemingway, Cather, Wright, Faulkner, Ellison, Petry and others. Prerequisite: One course in English with attribute GFWI.

ENGL 393     Faulkner  (4)

The most innovative American novelist of the twentieth century is also the writer we need to make sense of the twenty-first. “The past is never dead,” Faulkner said. “It isn’t even past.” But why isn’t it? Why can’t we, as so many Americans ask, “just move on”? Faulkner’s novels keep asking this plaintive question, his characters yearning for the freedom of the fresh start but caught by a tragic past that doesn’t want to let go. This class focuses on the major novels Faulkner wrote, in blindingly quick succession, between 1929 and 1942, what he later called his “matchless time.”. Prerequisite: One course in English with attribute GFWI.

ENGL 394     Literature of the American South  (4)

A paradox of American literary history is that the South--the poorest and least educated American region, the one beset by the most glaring injustices, the one that seemed to resist modernity most fiercely—produced the most innovative and important American writers of the twentieth century, writers like William Faulkner, Zora Neale Hurston, Eudora Welty, Flannery O’Connor, and Ernest Gaines. This course focuses most intently on their era, “the Southern renascence,” but examines its origins in the nineteenth century and its echoes in the remarkable Southern writing of contemporaries like Jesmyn Ward, Natasha Trethewey, Janice Ray, and others. Prerequisite: One course in English with attribute GFWI.

ENGL 395     African-American Literature  (4)

A study of the major traditions of African-American writing from the nineteenth century to the present, including Frederick Douglass, Linda Brent, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Ernest Gaines, Toni Morrison, and Rita Dove. Prerequisite: One course in English with attribute GFWI.

ENGL 396     American Environmental Literature  (4)

A study of the American environmental imagination. Readings include both literary fiction and nonfiction. Prerequisite: One course in English with attribute GFWI.

ENGL 397     Contemporary American Fiction  (4)

A study of representative American fiction published after World War II, including work by Thomas Pynchon, Josephine Humphreys, Louise Erdrich, Ernest Gaines, Barbara Kingsolver, Robert Stone, and Tim O'Brien. Prerequisite: One course in English with attribute GFWI.

ENGL 398     American Poetry Since World War II  (4)

A study of American poets whose major work was published after World War II, concentrating on Elizabeth Bishop, Anthony Hecht, Donald Justice, Robert Lowell, Howard Nemerov, Sylvia Plath, Theodore Roethke, Richard Wilbur, and Mona Van Duyn. Among others, John Berryman, Maxine Kumin, Adrienne Rich, X.J. Kennedy, and Derek Walcott will also be considered. Prerequisite: One course in English with attribute GFWI.

HIST 201     History of the United States I  (4)

A general survey of the political, constitutional, economic, and social history of the United States.

HIST 202     History of the United States II  (4)

A general survey of the political, constitutional, economic, and social history of the United States.

HIST 204     Rich and Poor in America from the Colonial Period to the Present  (4)

A history of being poor in America focusing on the conjoined categories of "wealth" and "poverty" in the lives of impoverished people, and of private and public actions and policies affecting them from the colonial period through the early twenty-first century. Students consider how poor and non-poor Americans have understood what it means to be poor and wealthy, what causes poverty and affluence, and what remedies the former and enables the latter. For the period after 1870, the course incorporates the enlargement of Americans' vision to encompass global conditions of wealth and poverty.

HIST 231     African-American History to 1865  (4)

A survey of the history of African-Americans from their arrival in the English colonies to the end of the Civil War. African-Americans' struggle with slavery and oppression provide the central theme, but the course will address the various political, economic, social, and cultural conditions which contributed to the development of a unique African-American community. Particular attention will be given to the development of such institutions within this community as family, religion, and education.

HIST 232     African-American History since 1865  (4)

A survey of the major topics and issues in African-American history from 1865 to the present: the era of emancipation, the turn-of-the-century nadir of race relations, black participation in both world wars, the Harlem Renaissance, the Civil Rights Movement, and various dimensions of contemporary black life. The course will also explore some of the historiographical themes that have catalyzed current scholarship and will analyze diverse theories about the black experience in America.

HIST 235     Introduction to Public History  (4)

This course introduces the history, theory, and practice of public history, examining the ideas and questions that shape and are shaped by public engagements with the past. It engages and evaluates historical works aimed primarily at public audiences in order to determine why and how public investments in the historical past develop and change. Prerequisite: One course with attribute G4 including AP or IB credit.

HIST 237     Women in U.S. History, 1600-1870  (4)

A survey of the history of American women which will consider how women experienced colonization, American expansion, the industrial revolution, war, and changes in the culture's understanding of gender roles and the family. The course also explores how differences in race, ethnicity, and class affected women's experience.

HIST 238     Women in U.S. History, 1870 to the Present  (4)

A survey of the major changes in American women's lives since the end of the last century, including increased access to education, movement into the labor market, and changes in reproductive behavior and in their role within the family. Special consideration will be given to the movements for women's rights.

HIST 295     History of Southern Appalachia  (4)

An examination of the events, people, movements, and themes of the region's past, from earliest known human habitation to the present. The course explores contrasting ways of life expressed by native and European peoples; implications of incorporating the area into the United States; the agricultural, industrial, and transportation revolutions of the nineteenth century; popular culture within and about Appalachia; contemporary issues of regional development and preservation; and ways the unique environment of these mountains has shaped and frustrated notions of regional identity. Prerequisite: One course with attribute G4 including AP or IB credit.

HIST 316     The African-American Church in Slavery and Freedom  (4)

This seminar course examines the presence of the African-American church in the lives of African Americans and in the history of the United States. From its creation as an "invisible institution" during slavery to its dynamic existence during the era of black emancipation to its crucial presence during the Civil Rights Movement and beyond, the black church has been a vital force in framing the contours of African-American culture and shaping religious life in America. This course explores how the church has functioned as a formative social and political institution within a racially fractured but continually changing civic landscape. Prerequisite: One course with attribute G4 including AP or IB credit.

HIST 317     African-American Intellectual History  (4)

This course examines the development of African-American thought from the late-eighteenth century to the present and explores various moral, spiritual, literary and intellectual dimensions of African-American thinking and life. Using fiction, biography, historical and philosophical works, we shall focus on both notable intellectuals as well as historiographic themes and ideas that have catalyzed distinctive African-American perspectives on the world. Many courses in African American History focus on how society and non-African Americans have defined and, in many cases, distorted African American identity. One distinctive animating feature of this course is that it seeks to uncover the ways African Americans have struggled with defining themselves. Prerequisite: One course with attribute G4 including AP or IB credit.

HIST 322     Southern Lives  (4)

An exploration of Southern history through the lenses of biography, autobiography, and fiction. This seminar examines the careers of significant figures in the history and literature of the South from the antebellum era to the present. Prerequisite: One course with attribute G4 including AP or IB credit.

HIST 323     The Many Faces of Sewanee  (4)

This seminar uses the Sewanee area as a case study to introduce students to the conceptual processes of history. Students employ historical methods within a variety of interdisciplinary contexts, drawing on insights from archeology, biology, and geology, as well as various approaches to history, to comprehend both what has happened here and how it is variously understood. Classroom sessions are complemented by regular field work and archival research. Prerequisite: One course with attribute G4 including AP or IB credit.

HIST 324     Colonial and Imperial Warfare in North America and Southern Africa  (4)

This seminar compares the warfare that accompanied colonial encounters in North America and southern Africa, from the first European contact through the early twentieth century. It focuses on wars fought in response to resistance by native peoples and on the use of native allies in warfare between imperial foes as windows into the processes of acculturation, resistance, dispossession, and representation that characterized the colonial encounter as a whole. Texts range from traditional military history to religious, cultural, environmental, and comparative approaches to the topic. Prerequisite: One course with attribute G4 including AP or IB credit.

HIST 325     Revolutionary America  (4)

A study of the development and challenges of early American nationalism. Students will consider the growth of republican institutions and ideas during the colonial era, the causes and conduct of the American Revolution, and the initial tests of the young republic. Prerequisite: One course with attribute G4 including AP or IB credit.

HIST 327     The Old South  (4)

An exploration of the Southern past from the earliest English settlements to the establishment of the Confederate States of America. This course charts the development of distinctive Southern political, economic, and social structures, examines the role of chattel slavery in shaping the region, and analyzes the causes of the war for Southern independence. Prerequisite: One course with attribute G4 including AP or IB credit.

HIST 328     Slavery, Race, and the University  (4)

An exploration of the importance of slavery to the development of higher education in the United States through a close study of the history of the University of the South, its antebellum roots in the slaveholding South, and the continuing impact of the legacies of slavery and racial injustice on its development. The course also examines campus monuments and memorials that shape collective memories and identities at Sewanee and considers the ethical questions of how universities may seek justice and reconciliation in light of their historic and long-unaddressed connections to slavery. Not open to new first-year students. Prerequisite: One course in history with attribute G4 including AP or IB credit.

HIST 336     Hours of Crisis in U.S. History  (4)

This course examines several key moments of crisis in American political, military, and cultural history from the Second Continental Congress's decision to declare independence in 1776 to the wars with Iraq in 1991 and 2003. The class explores the events that created the context for essential public actions, the historical factors that led to the decisions, and how succeeding generations came to view those decisions and, in some cases, to use them as precedents in thinking about contemporary problems. Prerequisite: One course in history with attribute G4 including AP or IB credit.

HIST 347     The American Civil Rights Movement  (4)

This seminar will survey the major topics and issues of the twentieth-century Civil Rights Movement in America. In addition to exploring the lives and roles of popular figures like Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, and Jesse Jackson, we shall also examine the contributions of important but less prominent figures such as Charles Houston, Medger Evers, Ella Baker, Clifford Durr, and Septima Clark. Emphasis shall be placed on each phase of the movement, from the formation of the NAACP at the 1909 Niagara Conference to the legal strategy to overthrow racial segregation to the nonviolent protest of the 1950s and 60s and finally ending with the Black Power Movement. Prerequisite: One course with attribute G4 including AP or IB credit.

HIST 375     The Outlaw in American Culture  (4)

This survey approaches the outlaw both as imagined in fiction, film, and music and as a real historical subject. Special attention is paid to how changing understandings of the "outlaw" correspond to specific moments in American history such as the settling of the West, gangsterism in the Great Depression, the rise of Black Power, and the development of new technology involving internet hacktivists. Legal and other-than-legal responses to the outlaw are also considered. Prerequisite: One course with attribute G4 including AP or IB credit.

HIST 393     America's Civil War  (4)

This course examines the military, economic, political, and social upheaval of mid-nineteenth century America. We will consider the failure of antebellum political mechanisms, the growth of sectionalism, justifications for and against secession, the methods and implications of war, competing constitutional systems during the conflict, efforts to eradicate Southern separatism, and the lingering cultural implications of the nation's fratricidal dispute. Students will employ the America's Civil War web site, as well as other media, in preparing for discussions, tests, and research papers. Prerequisite: One course with attribute G4 including AP or IB credit.

HIST 493     The Civil War and American Historical Memory  (4)

This seminar examines, through a variety of texts, the impact of the Civil War on American historical memory. The goal is to awaken in students' minds the enduring importance of historical events and to suggest way in which time, distance, and context affect how those events are understood. The seminar, then, is an historiographical excursion which treats a wide range of materials as meaningful historical documents. Prerequisite: One course with attribute G4 including AP or IB credit.

ITAL 309     Italian Americans in Cinema and Literature  (4)

This course analyzes the experience of migration and assimilation of Italian Americans in films and novels. Coursework explores the representation of Italian American identities with regards to race and ethnicity, family and gender roles, labor and political activism, and the glamorization of crime. This course is taught in English.

POLS 107     The Political Agenda  (4)

A course devoted to examining a variety of contemporary issues in American Politics. Students engage in written and oral discourse to consider the emergence of problems, their political development, and possible resolution. In so doing, they learn about the institutions and processes of American government. Students may not receive credit for both POLS 101 and POLS 107.

POLS 203     The Presidency  (4)

A study of the office and powers of the President, presidential leadership, and the relations between the Chief Executive, Congress, and the executive agencies.

POLS 204     The American Congress  (4)

A study of the institution and processes of the American Congress, including its design and development over time. This course studies Congress by 3 approaches—Congress and its constituents, Congress and its members, Congress and the American political system—with special attention to its representation and law-making functions.

POLS 222     United States Foreign Policy  (4)

An examination of changes in national security policies in the post-World-War-II period. The course will focus on containment, mutual defense in Europe and Asia, deterrence, arms control and force reduction, detente and U.S. Chinese relations.

POLS 223     Introduction to Public Policy  (4)

Students are introduced to foundational theories of public policy, gaining valuable insight into "who gets what, when, and how" in the political process. Through a series of case studies in environmental, social welfare, criminal justice, and health policy, students are asked to apply and critically evaluate policy problems and solutions, given existing public policy theories.

POLS 313     Environmental Politics and Policy  (4)

The course explores the ideas that influence environmental thought, examines various environmental problems and suggested solutions, and critically evaluates the role that political institutions play in creating and enforcing environmental policy. Specific topics include environmental justice, environmental federalism, environmental health, and regulatory behavior. Not open for credit to students who have completed ENST 334. Not open to new first-year students. Prerequisite: POLS 101 or POLS 223.

POLS 330     Race and Ethnicity in American Politics  (4)

This course examines the many ways in which race and ethnicity play a role in American politics, including how race and ethnicity affect personal identity, political preferences, political participation, candidates and campaigns, public officeholders, and policymaking. Topics considered include racial identity, descriptive and substantive representation, intersectionality (the interaction of race, gender, class and other social categories), and the effect of race and ethnicity on current public policy debates. Not open to new first-year students.

POLS 331     Constitutional Law: Balancing Powers  (4)

This course examines Supreme Court cases related to separation of powers and checks and balances by situating cases within varying theories of constitutional interpretation and by assessing the socio-political implications of those decisions. Cases studied include controversies about executive privilege, the Commerce Clause, the Tenth Amendment, and federalism. The course emphasizes, above all, the political role of the judiciary. Not open to new first-year students.

POLS 335     The Politics of the American South  (4)

At the Founding, it was clear that regional differences nonetheless divided a legally united nation. The South was distinct by the center of its political culture and its economy—slavery. Differences persisted after the Civil War and the social and partisan realignment in the twentieth century. This course examines the politics of the South in historical and contemporary contexts and addresses concepts of political culture, identity, race, gender, religion, economics, federalism, rural-urban divide, partisanship and ideology, campaigns and elections, voter suppression, equality, civil rights, law enforcement and violence, and criminal justice. Not open to new first-year students.

POLS 338     Constitutional Law: Civil Rights  (4)

This course examines Supreme Court cases related to equality: by situating cases within varying theories of constitutional interpretation, and by assessing the socio-political implications of those decisions. Civil rights are specific governmental provisions to secure individual entitlements, as exemplified by the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of "equal protection of the laws." Claims centering on race, gender, sexual orientation, and disability are examined, along with other claims of equality arising from the Fifteenth Amendment's prohibition of voting discrimination. The course emphasizes, above all, the political role of the judiciary. This course may not be taken by students who have taken POLS 332. Not open to new first-year students.

POLS 343     Visions of Constitutional Order  (4)

This course in American political thought examines the problems of establishing and maintaining free popular government by considering the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century sources and debates that informed the Founders' Constitution. Focus is on the multiplicity of the Founders' views rather than a single vision. Reference is also made to Lincoln's understanding of the Constitution in the Secession Crisis of 1861. Not open to new first-year students. Prerequisite: POLS 101 or POLS 105.

POLS 344     Myth America  (4)

This course is concerned with myths that have played a prominent role in our nation's self-conception and its political rhetoric -- such as the myth of the frontier, the myth of success, and the notion of the American dream. We will examine 1) the changing historical meanings of these myths from the colonial period to the twentieth century and 2) the gender aspects of these myths. Not open to new first-year students.

POLS 373     African-American Political Thought  (4)

This course focuses on important African-American writers whose unique perspectives challenge us to think about questions of justice, equality and difference, morality, and rule. Readings begin in the nineteenth century (Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington) and proceed into the late twentieth century with selections from authors such as Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, James Baldwin, Shelby Steele, Cornel West, and Toni Morrison. Not open to new first-year students.

RELG 119     Religion in American History  (4)

A survey of American religious history and an introduction to the critical interrogation of each of the course’s orienting terms--American, religion, and history. This course considers key concepts, central questions, and select archival material in the historical study of American religion through the examination of specific figures, signal moments, and significant movements from colonial encounter to the present, and it explores how the study of religion in American history intersects with other categories of human distinction and difference-making, including race, space, gender, sex, and class.

RELG 235     Cult Controversies: Race, Gender, and Sex in America's 'Alternative' Religions  (4)

Introduces and explores new religious movements, sectarian spin-offs, and alternative communities in the U.S. that have tested the parameters of acceptable "religion" at different moments in history. Particular attention is given to intersectional dynamics. The class questions the politics and practices of labeling, especially the language of "cults," and centers on specific historical case studies in order to illustrate and analyze major theoretical and methodological challenges in and for the study of religion(s). It considers what draws people to create and join new religious movements, the distinctive worlds such groups endeavor to build, and the controversies that have historically attended them.

RELG 348     Business of Religion  (4)

This course explores the discursive connections between business and religion by examining their shared histories. Structured around a series of case studies from American religious historiography (e.g. Quaker Oats, Ivory Soap, Wal-Mart, Oprah), it considers how religious and business discourses can be understood as historically entangled and interpretatively contested ways to name and navigate the vexed relations of human exchange and culture-making, ritual purchase and systems of value, modes of production, and forms of authority. The course considers how religious institutions have engaged corporate concerns and how businesses might be and have been understood as religious subjects themselves in American history.

RHET 311     U.S. Public Address I: 1620-1865  (4)

History and criticism of American speeches and rhetorical texts. The course examines a broad range of historical and rhetorical factors that influenced the creation and reception of speeches from the colonial period through the end of the Civil War, focusing not only on the political, religious, legal, and social exigencies to which speeches responded but also on the place of those rhetorical texts in U.S. public controversies.

RHET 312     U.S. Public Address II: 1865-Present  (4)

History and criticism of American speeches and rhetorical texts. The course examines a broad range of historical and rhetorical factors that influenced the creation and reception of speeches from the Civil War to the present, focusing not only on the political, religious, legal, and social exigencies to which speeches responded but also on the place of those rhetorical texts in U.S. public controversies.

RHET 331     Voices of American Women  (4)

An examination of the history and criticism of American women's oratory and the history of women's public discourse in the United States from the colonial period through the present. Considers the historical, social, and cultural significance of women's rhetorical participation in civic life, as well as issues of authority, reception, and the nature of argument both within and about women's public address.

RHET 411     Rhetoric in the Age of Protest I: 1948-1973  (4)

Study of the discursive and non-discursive aspects of protest in the period 1948-1973. Focus on the forms and functions of rhetorics and counter-rhetorics in U.S. controversies over communism, civil rights, free speech, war, students’ rights, women’s rights, farm workers’ rights, Native American rights, gay rights, the environment, and poverty. Prerequisite: One course in rhetoric.

RHET 412     Rhetoric in the Age of Protest II: 1974-2024  (4)

A study of the discursive and non-discursive aspects of protest from 1974-2024. Focus on the forms and functions of rhetorics and counter-rhetorics in U.S. controversies over civil rights, women’s rights, LBGTQIA+ rights, the environment, anti-war protests, and disability rights, among other social movements. Prerequisite: One course in rhetoric. Prerequisite: One course in rhetoric.

SAST 220     Place, Memory, and Identity  (4)

This course explores critical intersections of memory, identity, and place from a multidisciplinary perspective. Students engage a series of concepts and skills regarding place--abstractly and concretely--as they relate to efforts by individuals, communities, and societies to gain meaning from the past for the present.

SPAN 389     U.S. Latino and Latina Literature and Culture  (4)

An introduction to the cultural production of Latinos and Latinas in the United States. Representative works from various literary genres, films, and the visual arts serve as the basis for the examination of recurring themes, which include: identity and self-definition, biculturalism, exile, migration, social class, political and social engagement, race, gender, and sexuality. Taught in English. Prerequisite: One course in Spanish numbered 203 or higher or placement.

WMST 100     Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies  (4)

This course provides an introduction to contemporary analyses of women's economic, cultural, biological, environmental, and political conditions. We will explore commonalities and differences among women, both in the United States and in other nations. In so doing, we will engage the concept of gender as an historical and critical category relating to a woman's ethnicity, class, sexuality, and race. The course also will examine varieties of recent feminist thought, paying particular attention to the impact of this scholarship on traditional academic disciplines. Open only to first-year students, sophomores, and juniors.

WMST 160     Introduction to Black Women's Studies  (4)

This introductory course explores the interlocking forms of oppression circumscribing Black women’s lives in the United States, with a particular emphasis on the ways in which their lived experiences and social realities are influenced by constructions of race, gender, class, sexuality, and other markers of difference. It contextualizes Black women’s struggles for social justice historically within the broader narratives of Black freedom struggles and the Women’s Rights Movement. It underscores the ways in which despite their marginalized status, Black women have used their agency within both the private and public realms to interrogate, challenge, and resist their subordination and subvert the status quo, particularly as it is reinforced in negative constructions of Black female identity.

WMST 251     Black Masculinity in the United States  (4)

This course is an interdisciplinary exploration of constructions of Black masculinity in the United States from the twentieth century through the present. Autobiographical accounts are used to examine historical and current definitions of Black manhood that challenge and reinforce understandings of what it means to be both Black and male.

WMST 340     African American Women's Short Stories  (4)

Focusing on the literary contributions of 20th century African American women fiction writers, this course specifically examines the shared and distinctive ways in which Black women writers represent the politics of Black womanhood in their short stories. This genre is an essential part of the Black women’s literary tradition that is often left unexplored. Collectively, these texts contribute to a radical literary tradition that implores readers to consider the way(s) in which race, gender, class, and/or sexuality inform the fictional lives of Black women and the lives of the writers. In addition to analyzing representations of Black female identity within the works of several prominent writers, the course traces specific themes such as power, privilege, and perspective.