American Studies 340 - SYMPOSIUM IN AMERICAN STUDIES

Topics course. Limited to senior majors. ?One of the central themes of American historiography is that there is no American Empire.? At the end of the twentieth century this statement, made by historian William Appleton Williams in 1955, inspired a generation of American Studies scholars to prove Williams wrong. Today, it would be difficult to hold Williams? opinion; American Studies scholars have shown that Empire is an underwriting structure of the American project. In this course, we will study how the forces of empire guided and undergirded the development of the US and of American Studies. We will examine the projects of settler colonialism and expansion, the economics of slavery and the colonial trade, structures of banalized violence that defines some lives and desires as more important than others, and the ways in which imperial power has long hidden in plain sight. Readings will range across all periods of American history to provide us with the broadest and most complex picture of empire possible. Permission of instructor required.

Topic: Empire and American Studies. Instructor Permission. Limited to AMS majors Limited to seniors