May 05, 2024  
2018-2019 Undergraduate and Graduate Catalog 
    
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2018-2019 Undergraduate and Graduate Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

American Studies (AMST) Courses

American Studies

Courses

American Studies

  • AMST 142 - Race and Hollywood

    (3 units)

    Prerequisite: One GE Foundation Course and ENGL 100  or GE Composition (Area A1)
    Examines the role of Hollywood in shaping understandings of race in the 20th and 21st centuries. Provides an interdisciplinary look at how film influenced and shapes American racial discourse, and how race shaped the development of the medium of film in both form and content.

  • AMST 152 - Surfing and American Culture

    (3 units)

    Prerequisites: One GE Foundation course and ENGL 100  or GE Composition (Area A1)
    Examines a popular recreational activity, industry, and lifestyle associated with Southern California. Traces the history of surfing and surf culture, connecting it to themes including colonialism, capitalism, race and gender, the military industrial complex, subcultural studies, environmentalism, and globalization.

  • AMST 300 - Introduction to American Studies

    (3 units)

    Interdisciplinary approaches to study of American civilization from colonial period through twentieth century. Significant issues and problems in American life examined from perspectives of several disciplines.

  • AMST 310 - Foodways in Contemporary America

    (3 units)

    Prerequisites: Completion of GE Foundation Courses
    Examines the production and consumption of food in the U.S. after 1945, comparatively exploring issues of race, class, gender, and inter-ethnic relations. Themes include food as “Americanization,” “authentic” cuisine, politics of sustainability, and social justice in the food industry.

    Letter grade only (A-F).

  • AMST 350 - California Culture

    (3 units)

    Prerequisites: GE Foundation requirement; upper-division standing.
    Interdisciplinary examination of California culture. Emphasis on how California’s history, politics, environment, social movements, art, and literature produce a contested and always changing culture.

  • AMST 351 - Celebrity in American Culture

    (3 units)

    Prerequisites: GE Foundation requirement; upper-division standing
    Interdisciplinary examination of the changing meanings of fame in American society, addressing the production, consumption and cultural work of celebrity.

  • AMST 360 - Explorations in American Popular Culture

    (3 units)

    Prerequisites: GE Foundation requirement; upper-division standing.
    Examines broad terrain of American popular culture from multiple disciplinary perspectives, interrogating both the form and content of cultural production and reception in the past and present.

    Not open for credit to students with credit in AMST 200.

  • AMST 361 - Sports in American Culture

    (3 units)

    Critical study of sport as performance and spectacle; representations of sport in art, music, literature, and folklore to study the social history of American ideals and values; sport and community formation; cultural dimensions of spectator sport.

  • AMST 419 - The Suburbs

    (3 units)

    Prerequisites: GE Foundation Requirement; upper-division standing.
    Examines the place of the American suburbs in the geographical, social, political, and cultural landscape of the United States. As part of the course, each student will “adopt a suburb” and produce an original research profile of a local suburban community.

  • AMST 421 - Animals in American Culture

    (3 units)

    Prerequisites: GE Foundation requirement; upper-division standing
    Interdisciplinary examination of the role of non-human animals in making cultural meaning. Traces the many ways in which animals, not just humans, have shaped American history and culture.

  • AMST 495 - Selected Topics in American Studies

    (3 units)

    Prerequisites: GE Foundation; upper-division status.
    Topics of current interest in American Studies selected for intensive development.

    May be repeated to a maximum of 6 units with different topics in different semesters. Topics announced in Schedule of Classes.

  • AMST 498 - Senior Seminar in American Studies

    (3 units)

    Prerequisites: Completion of AMST 300  and 18 units of upper-division work in American Studies or affiliated fields.
    Capstone research course for American Studies majors

    Letter grade only (A-F).