There is an old debate among historians of the United States over whether to consider the US an empire; the answer turns, basically, on how you define "empire." This course is not very interested in that question. Rather, it begins with the problem of how to collapse two very different faces of the analysis of US imperialism. One is public/boy/policy/official: the military, diplomacy, NGOs, and medicine and science. The other is private/girl/racialized/marginal: questions of gender, children, race, indigeneity, sexuality.