American Studies 130 - Transnational American Studies

(Offered as AMST 130 and BLST 130[D]) The hustle and flow of bodies, ideas, inequalities and solidarities is core to our increasingly globalized world. This course offers an introduction to the Americas as a transnational space. We will explore the interplay of race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, and nationality from interdisciplinary perspectives. We will draw examples from the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, and Latin America. Students will learn through a variety of methods including textual analysis, feminist ethnography, archival research, and cultural studies. We will also examine multiple approaches to American Studies such as critical race and ethnic studies, feminist and queer studies, indigenous studies, as well as theories of decolonization and settler colonialism. We will grapple with the complexities of identity and difference, immigration and border control, slavery, colonization, and empire.

Limited to 20 students. Fall semester. Assistant Professor Jolly.

How to handle overenrollment: Preference will be given to first year students and sophomores and American Studies and Black Studies majors.

Students who enroll in this course will likely encounter and be expected to engage in the following intellectual skills, modes of learning, and assessment: emphasis on written work, critical reflections, qualitative work, group-based discussions, cultural analysis, ethnographic analysis, critical engagements with linkages in various ethnic studies fields; open engagements with difference, identity, and nuanced interrogations of the inner-workings of power, unsettling racism and colonialism in a transnational context.