2007-09 - Graduate School - The University of Alabama

Graduate Catalog: Section 6.1http://graduate.ua.edu/catalog/15100.htmlcreation of African-American culture within the USA ; Afro-centricity and the theory of African-Americans as Omni-American; the South as black national territory; and late capitalist challenges to black identity. Offered springsemester.AMS 502 Special Topics in African-American Studies. Three hours.Research and discussion of selected African-American topics.AMS 505:506 Directed Study. One to three hours each semester.Prerequisite: Sponsorship by a faculty member.AMS 530 Special Topics. One to three hours.Selected American topics in American studies offered by AMS faculty members or Americanists from relateddepartments. Recent example: Women in America.AMS 531 Studies in Popular Culture. Three hours.Research and discussion of selected topics in American popular culture: literature, music, network broadcasting,advertising, film, and drama.AMS 532 Studies in the Arts. Three hours.Research and discussion of selected topics in literature, film, painting, photography, and architecture, and the role ofthe artist in 19th- and 20th-century America.AMS 533 Studies in American Thought. Three hours.Research and discussion of selected topics in American intellectual history: the law, nature and the city, religion andthe state, liberalism and conservatism, Utopianism, and science and society.AMS 534 Studies in the South. Three hours.Research and discussion of selected topics in Southern culture: ethnicity, regional consciousness, women in theSouth, and change and continuity.AMS 535 Studies in Ethnicity, Class, and Gender. Three hours.Research and discussion of selected topics in ethnicity, class, and gender in America.AMS 536 Studies in Social Experience. Three hours.Research and discussion of selected topics in the American social experience.AMS 537 Studies in the West. Three hours.Research and discussion of selected topics in the American West as period, place, experience, and imagination:discovery and exploration; physical and cultural transformation; and value, ethic, and ideal.AMS 538 Studies in African-American Culture. Three hours.Research and discussion of selected topics in African-American culture.AMS 540 Sexuality and Culture. Three hours.This course examines sexuality as a category of historical and cultural analysis. With an interdisciplinary focus onrepresentation in film, science, visual culture, literature, and politics, we will investigate how sexual categories andidentities are produced and contested over time. The course emphasizes the complex intersection of sexuality withrace, gender, class, and region to reveal the deep linkages among them as locations of power, oppression, andresistance. Students will become familiar with a range of theoretical and methodological approaches to the study ofsexuality, including cultural studies, history, and critical theory.AMS 550 Women in America. Three hours.A lecture/discussion course on the role of women in American culture which concentrates on the major social andcultural contributions of women from all backgrounds and walks of life. Key questions involve the historic role ofwomen in America and how their status reflects the structure of society as a whole. Most of the readings focus on thetwentieth century and the relationships between individual women and the cultural networks in which they participateand help create.AMS 585 American Experience, 1620–1865. Four hours.An exploration of the formative years of the American cultural experience, from early European encounters with theNew World to the attainment of continental nationhood. The course will draw upon insights from many disciplines andwill include several kinds of cultural evidence (for example: literature, art, and photography; religious, political, andsocial thought and behavior; and economic, technological, and geographical development) as well as consideration ofrecent major synthetic works of cultural scholarship. Topics covered include the growth of colonial societies; theRevolutionary movement and the political foundations of the American Republic ; the Market Revolution and the riseof middle-class culture; the antebellum South and the emerging West; and the origins and evolution of Americancultural diversity. Offered fall semester.AMS 586 American Experience, 1865–1960. Four hours.An exploration of the development of the American cultural experience since 1865, focusing on the major material