American Studies 341 - SYMP: T-EMPIRE & AMS

Topics course. Limited to senior majors.: “One of the central themes of American historiography is that there is no American Empire.” With this statement, historian William Appleton Williams inspired a generation of American studies scholars set to prove him wrong. In this course, we study how the forces of empire guided and undergirded both the development of the U.S. and American studies as a field. We examine settler colonialism, territorial expansion, slavery and capitalism, and we consider the structures of banalized violence that define and prioritize lives and desires using a broad historical context to provide us with a complex understanding of empire. Instructor permission required.

Instructor Permission. Limited to AMS majors Limited to seniors