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AMERICAN STUDIES UNDERGRADUATE COURSE DESCRIPTIONS - SPRING 2010 182.001 Intro to Environment, Science & Tech T 4:00 - 6:30 DSH 234 Correia Arts & Sciences group: Social Science / Core Curriculum: Social Science This is an introduction to American attitudes toward nature, science, technology and the impacts of those attitudes on built and natural environments regionally, nationally and globally. This course covers the period from World War II to the present, focusing on the environmental effects of such diverse scientific and technological products as chemical pesticides, nuclear power, and television. In this course we will look at current environmental issues, delving into contentious topics and passionate debates, while asking difficult questions. How does consumerism impact the environment, and how much stuff do we really need? Is wilderness a necessity or a luxury? Should an endangered fish have water rights? Are pesticides giving us cancer? We'll consider debates within the scientific community, explore conflicts between developers and environmentalists, and look at the promise and limitations of technological solutions. 184.001 Intro to American Pop Culture TR 5:00 - 6:15 DSH 128 Daniel Arts & Sciences group: Humanities Popular culture can be defined as the beliefs and practices that characterize a particular culture, as well as the objects, narratives, and rituals through which they are organized and that are widely shared, enjoyed, and understood among a population. It is also generally understood as the culture of ordinary people, as opposed to highly educated or specialized elites. This course examines many aspects of popular culture, including movies, action figures and other toys, cartoons/comics, advertising, television, and urban legends. The class involves learning how to read popular culture as a text and as an indicator of societal norms, diversions, and diversities. 185.001 Intro to Race/Class/Ethnicity MWF 1:00 - 1:50 DSH 233 Matjaka 185.002 Intro to Race/Class/Ethnicity TR 12:30 - 1:45 SARAR 101 Olorunsiwa Arts & Sciences group: Social Sciences/Core Curriculum: Social Sciences This is an interdisciplinary introduction to the issues, and social and cultural formation of race, class and ethnicity in American life and society. The course is designed to foster an appreciation of the heterogeneity of experience in American life. The course is focused on the study of cross-cultural group relations. More specifically, this course will consider: Who are you? For most of us, self-description includes our race, class, and ethnicity, but what do these terms mean? Are these terms fixed and unchanging? This course introduces the terms, race, class and ethnicity and offers a critical discussion of their historical meaning and their meaning in modern society. We will pay attention to cross-cultural and interdisciplinary themes within thee definitions. 186.004 Intro to Southwest Studies MWF 1:00 - 1:50 DSH 132 Staff 186.005 Intro to Southwest Studies TR 8:00 - 9:15 am DSH 129 Trujillo Arts & Sciences group: Humanities/ Core Curriculum: Humanities Provides both an introduction to the complex history and culture of the southwestern United States and a demonstration of the possibilities of the interdisciplinary study of regional American culture. It is multicultural in content and multidisciplinary in methodology. Examines cross-cultural relationships among the peoples of the Southwest within the framework of their expressions and experiences in art, culture, religion, and social and political economy. More specifically, this course will consider: What is this place we call the Southwest? How is it defined- geographically, politically, and culturally? Who are the people that live there? How have their lives been transformed by social and historical forces into the cultures we see today? At the same time, how have these same groups retained their traditions, customs, and beliefs in response to change? This course will explore contemporary Southwestern cultures, their multiple voices and culture expressions, using an interdisciplinary approach that draws from geography, anthropology, history, literature, and the arts. 200.001 Race, Sports & Media TR 2:00 - 3:15 MITCH 117 Staff Arts & Sciences group: Humanities This course is offered with AFST 297, Race, Sports & Media. This course will examine how race, sport, and media converge to influence the way the public views different members of different cultures, ethnic groups and gender. At the end of this course you will have a better knowledge and understanding of media's effect on sport culture. 200.002 Intro to Chicano/a Literature MWF 11:00 - 11:50 DSH 234 Staff Arts & Sciences group: Humanities This course is offered with ENGL 265, Introduction to Chicano/a Literature. 200.003 Social Movements in America TR 2:00 - 3:15 ORTG 243 Marcum Arts & Sciences group: Social Sciences This course examines the dynamics of community activism and movements for social change in the United States. In addition to exploring organizational methods, tactics, and political efficacy, we will be considering the cultural and historical aspects of social movements, asking such questions as: how do social movements emerge and take shape within the context of American culture and particular historical moments? And, how are various kinds of cultural production (music, art, film) deployed as a form of community activism? This Service-Learning class will be student-led and student driven. Students will be asked to develop service-learning projects and/or organize events/actions that contribute to social change and positive futures. This course also remains committed to supporting residents of Albuquerque's Santa Barbara/Martineztown in their efforts to build a strong and sustainable community. Interested students will have the opportunity to work on issues of affordable housing in this community. *There will be a strong service-learning component to this class. 251.001 Chicano Experience in the US MWF 10:00 - 10:50 DSH 221 Perea Arts & Sciences group: Humanities This course is offered with CHMS 201, Introduction to Chicano, Hispano, Mexicano Studies. This course is an introduction to the field of Chicano/Hispano/Mexicano Studies. In this course, we will study the history of Chicanos/Hispanos/Mexicanos in the United States and in the México-U.S. borderlands in particular. Alongside this history, we will also study the creative work of this population. This creative work includes history, narrative, film and art (painting, photography, sculpture, etc.). 285.001 American Life and Thought W 5:30 - 8:00 ORTG 313 Mays Arts & Sciences group: Humanities American Life and Thought: Work in America examines the history of working people - men and women, paid and unpaid, of various racial and ethnic groups, in diverse geographic regions of the United States - from the late 19th-century to the present. This course considers issues such as the historical transformations of the labor process and production, the changing nature of working class life and community, the evolution of organized labor movements, and the relationship of workers and unions to the state. We will also look at the experience and circumstances of people marginal to the traditional employer/employee relationship. In addressing these topics, we will devote particular attention to the ways that issues of race, gender and ethnicity affected historical developments. (Note: this course is required for all American Studies majors and minors) 303.001 Law in the Political Community W 5:30 - 8:00 Wright Arts & Sciences group: Social Science Also offered as POLS 303, Law in the Political Community. The purpose of this course is twofold: to introduce students to the principal features of the American legal system as a part of the political system, and perhaps more importantly, to equip the students with a set of analytical tools that they can use to analyze how actors and institutions operate within this system and why they behave in certain ways. With a critical eye, we will explore how the law functions as a tool and an institution of government, the presidency, the judiciary, the bureaucracy, etc. Furthermore, we will examine the role played by the court system in the formation and implementation of public policy. 310.001 Chicano-a Cultural Studies MWF 10:00 - 10:50 ORTG 115 Torres Arts & Sciences group: Humanities This course is offered with ENGL 365, Chicana/o Cultural Studies. The image is a fundamental dimension in Chicana/o cultural production. Chicana/o literature, history, film, music, murals, etc. all take stock of the power and play of the image both to construct and deconstruct culture. In this course, we explore the politics and aesthetics of the image in contemporary Chicana/o culture. Through the study of these artistic/cultural productions, we will explore the various ways that artists from this region of the United States address the American nation. Some of the concerns include: Manifest Destiny, empire, land, foreign policy, mestizaje, and postmodernity. Our excursion will explore the power of the image to signify through literature, film, murals, comic books, and interviews. 310.002 Chicano/a Narrative: The Politics of Style TR 12:30 - 1:45 DSH 327 Alemán Arts & Sciences group: Humanities This course is offered with ENGL 465, Chicano/a Literature. Usually, a course on ethnic American literature focuses on the social issues that beset marginal groups--identity conflicts; class, racial, and gender troubles; language and education angst; family matters; etc. More rarely do ethnic literature classes focus on the second category--literature. So, this course will consider how Chicana/o writers use experimental forms, genres, and techniques to express cultural and social crises. We'll be reading innovative narratives that bend or break the rules of literary representation to give expression to the complex individual, social, and cultural lives of Mexican Americans. We'll encounter traditional genres turned topsy-turvy; disjointed narratives induced by drug use; vignettes, multiple narrators, and meta-fiction; and political postmodern play in contemporary Chicana/o literature. We'll also view films that synthesize celluloid innovation with identity matters. We'll still consider the cultural pressures that characterize Chicana/o literature, but I hope to foster an understanding of those pressures through an appreciation and analysis of literary style. Probable texts include: Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo; Canícula; The Mixquiahuala Letters; Eulogy for a Brown Angel; The Rain God; The Rag Doll Plagues; and short stories. [There might be some tinkering with text selection between now and the start of the spring semester]. 310.003 Globalization, Identities & Politics MW 1:00 - 2:15 MVH 2131 Mazumdar Arts & Sciences group: Humanities This course is offered with WMST 379, Globalization, Identities & Politics. In this course we shall examine how and why identity categories such as gender, ethnicity, race, class, religion, and being "native" or indigenous to a place are important organizing concepts in global and local economy. We shall also explore how these concepts are important in the globalizing force of the market, based on the philosophy of neo-liberalism, within nations and in international politics. In the course of the semester, we shall see how globalization is affecting different groups differently due to differential power of groups within nations and internationally. We shall also discuss how these identities interact with colonial history, nation formation and culture in understanding the practices, institutions and structures of the global world order as they are played out in various levels, particularly the micro and the local. Finally, we shall explore the different ways local communities are negotiating the global market forces and reinventing the meanings of wealth and poverty; in this context we shall explore how new identities and communities are emerging locally and globally. 310.005 US/Middle East Cultural Politics TR 11:00 - 12:15 MITCH 102 Lubin Arts & Sciences group: Humanities This course historicizes contemporary United States military and economic involvement in the Middle East by considering the cultural history of U.S./Middle East relations from the mid-19th century to the present. An emergent area of transnational study within American Studies, studies of U.S./Middle East cultural relations are focused on policy, economic, cultural, and affective dimensions. Students will engage the field by analyzing primary documents, reading literature, and viewing visual and popular culture. 310.006 Folk Music in America MWF 10:00 - 10:50 White Arts & Sciences group: Humanities This class will focus on Appalachian music, songs, tunes, and ballads, but it will also have a large component of other kinds of folk music played in America: Polish Gorale tunes, Irish fiddle and concertina music, Eastern European and Balkan music, Swedish fiddle tunes, Northern New Mexico tunes and dances. We will have some field trips, try our hand at playing a little, and investigating lesser known types of music and historical ballads from all over the country. 310.007 New Mexico Hispanic Religious Ritual T 5:30 - 8:00 Carrillo Arts & Sciences group: Humanities This course is offered with RELG 483, New Mexico Hispanic Ritual. This seminar studies religious rituals and customs enacted by New Mexico Hispanics (songs, plays, ceremonies) in the context of ethnohistory. This course will concentrate on the rituals and the sacred actions of Nuevomejicanos. Chief interests will be passion plays and other religious drama, the penitential Brotherhood of Our Father Jesus the Nazarene, Spanish-language sermons, and the narrative hymns (alabados) of Holy Week. 313.001 American Folklore & Folklife TR 9:00 - 12:00 COMMJ 144 White Arts & Sciences group: Humanities This is part of a four-semester course in Violin Making: Construction, History, Culture and Performance. Through both lectures and field trips, students will learn the history of violin making, some aspects of performance, and be exposed to a variety of cultural and historical materials related to the religious, ritual and folk violin performances and dances practiced in New Mexico since the early 17th century. Enrollment in the course must be approved by the instructor, Dr. Peter White, who can be reached at plwhite@unm.edu. 320.001 The Nuclear West M 7:00 - 9:30 Richter Arts & Sciences group: Social Science Many influential scientists, politicians, and governmental bodies now believe that a Nuclear Renaissance is needed to curb the negative impacts of global climate change and fossil fuel resource depletion. Yet nuclear energy has become an increasingly problematic energy source, fraught with unrecognized or forgotten risks, yet imbued with hope for a sustainable energy future. This course seeks to unravel the histories of nuclear production in a specific region- the American West- in order to more fully understand the complexities of the nuclear present and future in America. Over the course of the semester, we will discuss the major nuclear production sites, including the Trinity explosion in New Mexico, atomic bomb testing in the desert plains of Nevada, plutonium production in Hanford, Washington, uranium mining in Colorado and the Navajo Nation, environmental and social justice on the Pajarito Plateau and Los Alamos, and nuclear waste storage in Carlsbad and Yucca Mountain. Throughout the course, we will connect the histories of these places to the present controversies over nuclear energy production, including the entire energy cycle from beginning to end, and how it touches the everyday lives of the people who live near or work at these various facilities. This course will also examine the cultural production of nuclear sites, including the ways they are memorialized physically, and through film, plays, graphic novels, articles, and other media. 3 30.001 Feminist Theories T 5:30 - 8:00 MVH 2131 Mays Arts & Sciences group: Humanities This course is offered with WMST 304, Feminist Theories: Identity, Knowledge, and Power. Exploration of the intersections, connections, and tensions between feminist theory and queer, critical race, and postcolonial theories. Theoretical focus on the discussion around previous and emerging analyses of identity, knowledge/power, and justice. 330.021 Introduction to Chicana Studies TR 12:30 - 1:45 SARAR 107 Aviles Arts & Sciences group: Humanities This course is offered with CHMS 332, Introduction to Chicana Studies. This course is an interdisciplinary approach to Chicana studies through literature, art, and film. The class begins with a set of critical essays to introduce students to the field. We then turn to early literature to understand historically the emergence of a Chicana literary tradition in the post-Civil Rights age. While the class focuses on literature students will also become familiar with Chicana art, film, and scholarly criticism. Students will grasp issues and concepts central to Chicana studies and learn to utilize them in the analysis of Chicana cultural production generally and of Chicana literature in particular. 340.001 Theatre History II TR 11:00 - 12:15 CTRART B147 Staff Arts & Sciences group: Fine Arts This course is offered with THEA 336, Theatre History II: 18th Century to the Present. This course surveys the history and theory of theatre and performance since the 18th century, with particular emphasis on the theatrical traditions of Europe and the United States. Course participants will learn to identify theatrical forms and styles of performance across cultures and across centuries as they become fluent in the theories and terminologies relevant for the critical, historical analysis of theatrical performance in a global context. 340.004 Aging, Sex & Popular Culture TR 9:30 - 10:45 MVH 2131 Gravagne Arts & Sciences group: Social Science This course is offered with WMST 379, Aging, Sex, and Popular Culture. What stories are being told about aging in popular culture today? How do these stories both reinforce and resist the multiple and often invisible practices of ageism, the process of systematic stereotyping of and discrimination against people because they are perceived as old? In what ways does gender inflect these stories? What might be the consequences of telling these stories differently? In this course, we attempt to answer these questions by exploring cultural representations of aging in contemporary movies such as "Gran Torino," "Up," "Something's Gotta Give," and "Young@ Heart," literature such as Endnotes and To Love What Is, and TV programs such as "The Simpsons" and "30 Rock," as a means of examining both the theoretical and practical ways in which a realm of human experience has been transformed into a political, economic, and cultural crisis. By seeing that age, like race and gender, is a dualistic marker of social difference and categorical identity that is shaped more by culture than by biology, more by belief and custom than by bodily change, we can discover how we "learn" to be old. We will also discover that early in life we become complicit in the stereotypical thinking that defines the old or aging (20's, 40's, 60's, 80's?) as medicalized, frightening, genderless, asexual beings who deserve to be marginalized and viewed as less than fully human. Once we understand that meanings attributed to and representations of aging exert a direct material force on our lives, even though they are neither natural nor essential, we will explore examples, theories, and methods of rewriting this cultural narrative of decline and deterioration to reflect the gains as well as the losses occasioned by growing older. By telling stories differently, we will find other ways to age. 350.001 Blacks in Latin America MWF 9:00 - 9:50 MVH 4022 Staff Arts & Sciences group: Humanities This course is offered with AFST 388, Blacks in Latin America I. A comprehensive analysis of the plight of Black people in Latin America as compared with their experiences in North America, from the 15th to 19th centuries. 350.002 Applied Community Research TR 12:30 - 1:45 ORTG 121 Bubb *There will be a strong service-learning component to this class. Arts & Sciences group: Social Science Applied Community Research is a three credit hour course that examines the racial, ethnic, and class stratifications within Albuquerque, the state of New Mexico, and throughout the country as a whole. The course will provide students the opportunity to work interactively with community-based organizations in Albuquerque and throughout the state that focus on creating educational and recreational programming and providing social services for individuals of all ages as well as ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Students will have the opportunity to gain professional experience within different community sites as they observe, interact, and participate with community members. Each community site that the class interacts with provides students with different insights as to how professional organizations operate, how structural development and management occurs, how educational, recreational, and social programming decision making processes are conceived and implemented, how individuals cope with everyday decision making processes while dealing with individuals from different cultural backgrounds, and how students can implement theoretical information into practical settings while learning how to collaboratively work with others to create activities, events, and programs for others. The course will provide students with the tools necessary to navigate through complex social settings and the ability to interact and communicate in a changing culture. 350.003 Race, Class, & Feminism MWF 10:00 - 10:50 MVH 2131 Mazumdar Arts & Sciences group: Humanities This course is offered with WMST 325, Race, Class and Feminism. In this course we shall critically analyze the paradigms that have been used since ancient times to divide populations into different genders, classes, and races in order to privilege some of these categories at the cost of others. We shall study how these categories have been created via several socio-cultural paradigms like division of labor, Nationalism, State formation, and religion. As the semester progresses we shall focus on globalization as the central paradigm in creating gender, class, and race divisions in modern times. In the course of the semester we shall also study the various forms of power as well the various types of resistances of the oppressed groups. 350.004 Race & the Law TR 9:30 - 10:45 MVH 4022 Gipson Rankin Arts & Sciences group: Social Science This course is offered with AFST 397, Race and the Law. 350.005 Racial Formations in Pop Culture T 5:30 - 8:00 Montañez Arts & Sciences group: Humanities This course will analyze different racial and ethnic representations in popular culture to gain a broader understanding of the race-as-social- construction position in the United States. Specifically, this course will examine popular films, literature, and folklore as texts that reveal the unstable and complex meanings of race that are continuously being contested, created, and transformed. 350.006 Black Woman TR 12:30 - 1:45 MVH 4022 Gipson Rankin Arts & Sciences group: Humanities This course is offered with AFST 250, Black Woman. This survey course reviews the contributions of Black Women to American history. This course will study the managerial role Black women provided during the slavery era; the foundational unsung heroine role black women performed during the Civil Rights era; the internal struggle black women had during the Women's Movement; and the modern Black women's challenges and successes in crafting modern American society. An additional focus of the readings, discussions, films and student assignments will be to understand the life cycles and multiple roles of black women as mothers, daughters, helpmates, workers, and social change agents. The concepts of cuisine, music, beauty, and "sisterhood" as it pertains to the black woman will be expounded upon throughout the semester. This course will also debate where black female stereotypes originated and how they are being countered in modern culture. 350.041 History of Harlem Renaissance MWF 3:00 - 3:50 MVH 4022 Staff This course is offered with AFST 397, History of Harlem Renaissance. 354.001 Social Class & Inequalities: Leadership & Mentoring in Urban Communities TR 3:30 - 4:15 Bubb Arts & Sciences group: Social Science This course will examine the ethnic, cultural, and class problems facing children and teenagers within the urban communities of Albuquerque. The course provides students with opportunities to work interactively with community-based organizations that focus on creating educational and recreational programming and providing social services for children and teenagers of different social classes, cultures, and ethnic backgrounds. Students have opportunities to gain professional experience within different community sites as they observe, interact, and participate with community members. Each community site that the class interacts with provides students with different insights as to how professional organizations operate, how structural development and management occurs, how educational, recreational, and social programming decision making processes are conceived and implemented, and how students can implement theoretical information into practical settings while collaboratively working with others to create activities, events, and programs. The course prepares students to interact with children and teenagers who face a varying array of social and economical problems in their everyday lives. Students gain practical experience that will help them to work in social and educational settings by addressing issues such as student developmental theory, supplemental instruction, group dynamics, learning styles, success skills, and the ability to effectively communicate, interact, and problem solve when working with individuals struggling with various social and economical problems. 357.001 African American Literature TR 2:00 - 3:15 MVH 4022 Matthews Arts & Sciences group: Humanities This course is offered with ENGL 466, African American Literature. An introduction to traditional and/or contemporary African American texts. Topics have included Survey of the African American novel and Toni Morrison. 358.017 U.S. Latina Writers M 4:00 - 6:30 Vizcaíno Arts & Sciences group: Humanities This course is offered with CHMS 393, US Latina Writers. This class is a focused study of contemporary U.S. Latina writers. Beginning with Sandra Cisneros' House on Mango Street and Woman Hollering Creek, the class charts the formation of U.S. Latina writing within and against the recent "Latin" boom in mainstream U.S. culture. We will chart this formation primarily through literature (fiction, poetry, novel-writing, personal essay), but we will also supplement the literary with critical readings, popular culture, art, and film. Readings consist of contemporary U.S. texts in English by U.S.-born and immigrant Latina writers. Assignments include short response papers, a midterm and a final, and two critical essays. Other possible readings include Ana Castillo's The Mixquiahuala Letters, Judith Ortiz Cofer's An Island Like You, Junot Diaz's Drown, Graciela Limón's In Search of Bernabé, Demetria Martínez's Mother Tongue, Cherrie Moraga's Loving in the War Years, and Bryce Milligan et. al. Daughter's of the Fifth Sun. 363.001 Chicano/Latino Film W 5:30 - 8:00 Meléndez Arts & Sciences group: Humanities Examines the history of Latino/a film images and depictions in America from the Silent Period to the present. Special regard is given films produced by Chicanos/Latinos in the contemporary period. In this regard, the course seeks to understand Latino/a filmmaking as a self-representational medium and as a response and an affirmation of the Latino/a experience in America. In this course we will have the opportunity to screen feature-length films, Chicano/a docu-drama and Latino/a independent and experimental films. We will study Chicano/Latino film as a form of cultural representation and communication. Additionally, we will consider such questions as film narration, symbolism and Latino/a subjectivity in film. The film titles we will see this semester have been selected for their subject matter and approach as well for their innovation in style and technique. A partial list of films include: Salt of the Earth, The Ring, Giant, Zoot Suit, Stand and Deliver, Break of Dawn El Norte, Mi Familia, American Me, I Am Joaquin and work by Lourdes Portillo, Sylvia Morales, Luis Valdez and other filmmakers. 485.001 Senior Seminar in US Culture M 4:00 - 6:30 ORTG 313 Brandzel Arts & Sciences Group: Humanities This seminar is required of, and limited to, American Studies majors. The course provides an opportunity for students to develop and strengthen their skills in research, analysis, and writing towards the production of a 20 page original senior thesis. We will begin this semester reading a set of exemplary theses written by American Studies majors. During the first month of the semester faculty in American Studies will visit the class to discuss their research methodologies. Then we will work together to produce a set of our own research papers and present them in a conference setting to the American Studies community.
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