UC Davis 2008-2010 General Catalog - General Catalog - UC Davis

American Studies 137
1E. Nature and Culture in America (4)
Lecture—3 hours; fieldwork—3 hours. Uses and
abuses of nature in America; patterns of inhabitation,
exploitation, appreciation, and neglect; attention
to California; emphasis on metaphor as a key to
understanding ourselves and the natural world;
attention to models of healing: stewardship, ecology,
the “rights” movement. Offered in alternate years.
GE credit: ArtHum or SocSci, Div, Wrt.—III. Smith,
Sze
4. Freshman Seminar (2)
Seminar—2 hours. Prerequisite: open only to students
who have completed fewer than 40 quarter
units. Investigation of a special topic in American
Studies through shared readings, discussions, written
assignments, and special activities (such as fieldwork,
site visits). Emphasis on student participation
in learning. Limited enrollment.—II, III. (II, III.)
5. Technology in American Lives (4)
Lecture—2 hours; discussion—2 hours. Prerequisite:
completion of Subject A requirement. Technology as
both a material cultural force and a symbol in American
culture; the lives of engineers at work and play;
images of the engineer and technology in popular
culture; social political and ethical issues raised by
technology. GE credit: ArtHum or SocSci, Wrt.—I.
(I.) Smith
10. Introduction to American Studies (4)
Lecture—3 hours; discussion—1 hour. United States
history, culture and society. Examination of cultural
objects and social practices. Topics include popular
culture (film, TV, Internet), cultural diversity, social
activism, play, and communication. GE credit:
ArtHum or SocSci, Div, Wrt.—III. Biltekoff, Wang
21. Objects and Everyday Life (4)
Lecture—2 hours; discussion—1 hour; term paper.
Prerequisite: completion of subject A requirement.
Material culture (objects and artifacts ranging from
everyday objects like toys and furnishings to buildings
and constructed landscapes) as evidence for
understanding the everyday (vernacular) lives (gender,
social class, ethnicity, region, age, and other
factors; collecting and displaying material culture;
commodity capitalism) of individuals and communities
in colonial North America and the United States.
Offered in alternate years. GE credit: ArtHum, Div,
Wrt.—I. de la Peña
25. United States as a Business Culture (4)
Lecture—3 hours; discussion—1 hour. Prerequisite:
completed Subject A requirement. Business as a cultural
system and its relation to religion, politics, arts,
science, technology, and material culture; business
themes of success, creativity, invention, and competition
in American autobiographies, fiction, advice literature,
film, and television; cultures of the
workplace; multinational business. GE credit:
ArtHum, SocSci, Div, Wrt.—I. (I.) de la Pena,
Mechling
30. Images of America and Americans in
Popular Culture (4)
Lecture—3 hours; discussion—1 hour. Investigation
of verbal and visual discourses about American
identity in various popular culture products, including
film, television, radio, music, fiction, art, advertising,
and commercial experiences; discourses
about the United States in the popular culture of
other societies. Offered in alternate years. GE credit:
ArtHum or SocSci, Div, Wrt.—(I.) Kelman, Smoodin
55. Food in American Culture (4)
Lecture—3 hours; discussion—1 hour. Prerequisite:
complete Subject A requirement. Food as a cultural
system in the United States; food in the performance
of individual and group identity, including gender
and ethnicity; food in literature, art, popular culture
(film, television, advertising), and folk culture; the
food industry and business. GE Credit: ArtHum, Div,
SocSci, Wrt.—II. (II.) Biltekoff
59. Music and American Culture (4)
Lecture—3 hours; discussion—1 hour. Prerequisite:
completed Subject A requirement. An examination
of music and American culture. Studies will explore
music in its cultural contexts, which may include
examinations of recording and broadcasting, of
race, class, and gender, the role of technology, and
relationships between musical production, consumption
and listening. GE Credit: ArtHum, Div, SocSci,
Wri.—I. (I.) Kelman, Wang
98. Directed Group Study (1-5)
Prerequisite: consent of instructor. (P/NP grading
only.)
99. Individual Study for Undergraduates
(1-5)
(P/NP grading only.)
Upper Division Courses
100. Interdisciplinary Skills (4)
Lecture/discussion—3 hours; term paper. Design
and implementation of interdisciplinary research,
analysis and writing for American Studies and other
cultural studies fields. Library and Internet research
skills, project/problem definition, methods of study
of texts, individuals, communities. Hands-on, skillbuilding,
focused reading, discussion.—I. (I.)
Biltekoff, Wang
101A-H. Special Topics (4)
Seminar—3 hours, intensive reading, writing, and
special projects. Interdisciplinary group study of special
topics in American Culture Studies, designed for
non-majors as well as majors. Content will vary
according to the instructor and in accord with the following
titles: (A) Popular Culture Studies; (B)
Women’s Studies; (C) Material Aspects of American
Culture; (D) American National Character; (E) American
Lives Through Autobiography; (F) The Interrelationship
Between Arts and Ideas; (G) New Directions
in American Culture Studies; (H) Problems in Cross-
Cultural American Studies. May be repeated for
credit in different subject area only.—I, II, III. (I, II,
III.)
110. A Decade in American Civilization (4)
Lecture—2 hours; discussion—2 hours. Prerequisite:
one of courses 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, 1E or 1F. Close
examination of a single decade in American civilization;
the connections between the history, literature,
arts, customs, and ideas of Americans living in the
decade. Issues and representations of race, class,
gender, age, and sexuality in the decade. May be
repeated for credit if decades studied are different.
GE credit: ArtHum or SocSci, Div, Wrt.—I. (I.)
111. Theories and Practices of Everyday
Life in the United States (4)
Lecture—3 hours; discussion—1 hour. Prerequisite:
upper division status; preparatory courses for the
American Studies major or the equivalent interdisciplinary
experience. Introduction to the cultural studies
theories and to critical practices that seek to
understand everyday life in the United States, with
special attention to uncovering the vernacular theories
governing these practices.—I. (I.)
115. Living in Bodies: Body Politics in the
United States (4)
Lecture—3 hours; discussion—1 hour. Prerequisite:
upper division status; preparatory courses for the
American Studies major or the equivalent interdisciplinary
experience. Examination of human bodies as
sites for cultural constructions of identities and
“selves” in the United States; attention to bodily
norms, crises, and transgressions; the relation
between disciplining the body and controlling social
categories, including race, gender, class and sexualities.—II.
(II.)
120. American Folklore and Folklife (4)
Lecture—3 hours; fieldwork—1 hour. Theory and
method of the study of American folk traditions,
including oral lore, customs, music, and material folk
culture; the uses and meanings of those traditions in
various folk communities, including families, ethnic
institutions, voluntary organizations, and occupational
groups GE credit: ArtHum or SocSci, Div,
Wrt.—III. (III.) Mechling
125. Corporate Cultures (4)
Lecture—2 hours; discussion—1 hour; fieldwork—1
hour. Prerequisite: one course chosen from course
120, Anthropology 2, Psychology 16, or Sociology
1; or consent of instructor. Exploration of the small
group cultures of American corporate workplaces,
including the role of environment, stories, jokes, rituals,
ceremonies, personal style, and play. The effects
of cultural diversity upon corporate cultures, both
from within and in contact with foreign corporations.—III.
(III.) de la Peña
130. American Popular Culture (4)
Lecture/discussion—3 hours; fieldwork—1 hour. Prerequisite:
course 1 or upper division standing. American
popular expression and experience as a
cultural system, and the relationship between this
system and elite and folk cultures. Exploration of theories
and methods for discovering and interpreting
patterns of meaning in American popular culture.
GE credit: ArtHum or SocSci, Div, Wrt.—II. (II.) Kelman,
Smoodin
132. Critical Approaches to Media Culture
(4)
Lecture/discussion—4 hours; film viewing—2 hours.
Critical approaches to the study of contemporary
media culture, focusing specifically on film, television,
computer, and print media and their products
and on the various interrelationships between media
and U.S. culture. Offered in alternate years. GE
credit: ArtHum or SocSci, Div, Wrt.—II. (II.)
133. Rhetoric of Media on Social Issues (4)
Lecture/discussion—4 hours. An introduction to rhetorical
analysis of social issues as depicted within
media culture, with specific emphasis on the way
media frame messages about new social problems.
Not open to students who have taken Rhetoric and
Communication 124. Offered in alternate years. GE
credit: SocSci, Div, Wrt.—(III.)
139. Feminist Cultural Studies (4)
Lecture/discussion—4 hours. Prerequisite: one
course in Women’s Studies or American Studies. The
histories, theories, and practices of feminist traditions
within cultural studies. (Same course as
Women’s Studies 139.) GE credit: SocSci, Div,
Wrt.—III. (III.)
151. American Landscapes and Places (4)
Lecture—2 hours; discussion—1 hour; fieldwork—3
hours. Prerequisite: course 1, upper division standing.
Comparative study of several American cultural
populations inhabiting a region, including their relationship
to a shared biological, physical, and social
environment, their intercultural relations, and their
relationships to the dominant American popular and
elite culture and folk traditions. GE credit: ArtHum or
SocSci, Div, Wrt.—II. (II.)
152. The Lives of Children in America (4)
Lecture—2 hours; discussion—2 hours. Experience
of childhood and adolescence in American culture,
as understood through historical, literary, artistic,
and social scientific approaches. GE credit: ArtHum
or SocSci, Div, Wrt.—III. (III.) Smith
153. The Individual and Community in
America (4)
Lecture—2 hours; discussion—2 hours. Interdisciplinary
examination of past and present tensions
between the individual and the community in American
experience, as those tensions are expressed in
such cultural systems as folklore, public ritual, popular
entertainment, literature, fine arts, architecture,
and social thought. GE credit: ArtHum or SocSci,
Div, Wrt.—II. (II.) Kelman, Wang
154. The Lives of Men in America (4)
Lecture—2 hours; discussion—2 hours. Interdisciplinary
examination of the lives of boys and men in
America, toward understanding cultural definitions
of masculinity, the ways individuals have accepted
or resisted these definitions, and the broader consequences
of the struggle over the social construction
of gender. GE credit: ArtHum or SocSci, Div, Wrt.—
I. (I.) Mechling
155. Symbols and Rituals in American Life
(4)
Lecture—2 hours; discussion—2 hours. Prerequisite:
course 1. Interdisciplinary examination of selected,
richly expressive events (parades, festivals, holidays)
and symbols (flags, memorials, temples) which
encode nationwide values and understandings
(Thanksgiving, New Year’s, etc.) or which realize
more limited, special meanings (Mardi Gras, rodeo,
Quarter Offered: I=Fall, II=Winter, III=Spring, IV=Summer; 2009-2010 offering in parentheses
General Education (GE) credit: ArtHum=Arts and Humanities; SciEng=Science and Engineering; SocSci=Social Sciences; Div=Social-Cultural Diversity; Wrt=Writing Experience