American Studies (AMST)
* AMST 0028b / HIST 2140b / WGSS 0028b, US Queer History Talya Zemach-Bersin
This interdisciplinary course offers a critical overview of queer history in the United States from the colonial era to the present, exploring the lives and experiences of LGBTQ individuals and emphasizing the broader historical evolution of ideas about sex, sexuality, and gender that constitute the ever-changing landscape of queer history. Through an intersectional lens, students analyze how gender, sexuality, race, and class have shaped LGBTQ identities, cultures, and political movements. Drawing heavily from primary sources including historical texts, literature, visual culture, and popular media, we investigate how queer lives and experiences have been represented, constructed, and contested across time. HU
TTh 4pm-5:15pm
* AMST 0097a / ER&M 0097a, Food, Race, and Migration in United States Society Quan Tran
Exploration of the relationship between food, race, and migration in historical and contemporary United States contexts. Organized thematically and anchored in selected case studies, this course is comparative in scope and draws from contemporary work in the fields of food studies, ethnic studies, migration studies, American studies, anthropology, and history. SO
TTh 2:35pm-3:50pm
AMST 1110a / EDST 1110a / SOCY 1012a, Foundations in Education Studies Lauren Carpenter
Introduction to key issues and debates in the U.S. public education system with a focus on the nexus of education theory and research, policy and pedagogy. The course emphasizes social, scientific, economic, and political forces that shape approaches to schooling and education reform, and it includes theoretical and practical perspectives from practitioners, policymakers, and scholars. SO 0 Course cr
TTh 11:35am-12:50pm
AMST 1197a / ARCH 2600a / HIST 1125a / HSAR 3219a / URBN 1101a, American Architecture and Urbanism Staff
An introduction to the field of American architecture and urbanism: the study of buildings, architects, designs, styles, and urban landscapes, viewed in economic, political, social, and cultural contexts. Organized chronologically, from pre-Colonial times to the present, as well as thematically, the course studies the formation and meaning of the built environment in America. The many topics encountered along the way include the public and private investment in the built environment; history of housing in America; transportation and infrastructure; architectural practice; and the social and political nature of city building and urban change. Attention also paid to the transnational nature of American architecture—the role of colonialism, the global exchange of architectural ideas, and the international careers of some architects. We will take advantage of our local setting, New Haven, as a cross-section of American architectural and urban history and a storehouse of key examples of building types, urban landscapes, and architectural styles. Upon completion, students should be expected to grasp the basic periods, trends, and processes in American architectural history and their connection to urban patterns. This course aims to give students the tools to appreciate and interpret the built environments that surround them, from impressive monuments to ordinary structures HU 0 Course cr
TTh 11:35am-12:25pm
AMST 1199a / EVST 1199a / HIST 1199a / HSHM 2070a, American Energy History Staff
The history of energy in the United States from early hydropower and coal to present-day hydraulic fracturing, deepwater oil, wind, and solar. Topics include energy transitions and technological change; energy and democracy; environmental justice and public health; corporate power and monopoly control; electricity and popular culture; labor struggles; the global quest for oil; changing national energy policies; the climate crisis. HU 0 Course cr
HTBA
AMST 2200b / HUMS 1650b / SOCY 2300b / WGSS 2200b, Topics in Human Sexuality Joseph Fischel
In 1970, Yale professors and sexuality scholars Lorna and Philip Sarrel introduced what came to be their wildly popular lecture, “Topics in Human Sexuality.” The course, offered at the height of the sexual revolution and shortly after Yale University admitted women undergraduates, was multipurpose: to teach students about pressing, contemporary social problems around sex, gender, and sexuality; to help students learn about their bodies, sexualities, and relationships; to direct students to resources and information about their sexual and reproductive health; and to advance the mission of a liberal arts education, namely, the cultivation of well-rounded, critically engaged, curious, participatory young citizens. This iteration of the course is inspired by the Sarrels’ ambitions, even if we are unlikely to realize them in full. The course is offered in the spirit of a critical sexuality education, critical as in 1) theory- rather than practicum-driven, but nonetheless 2) urgent. As political movements that endanger transgender children, suppress sexual expression, and rescind reproductive rights gain traction, the course offers candid, careful focus on: abortion, sexual education, queer and trans kids, pornography, university sexual politics, hooking up, and breaking up. Along the way, we watch a season of Netlfix’s “Sex Education” together. The class (nonexclusively) focuses on social and political problems in the contemporary United States, and examines those problems by drawing upon scholarship in Gender & Sexuality Studies, American Studies, Sociology, Psychology, and Public Law. HU, SO 0 Course cr
TTh 10:30am-11:20am
* AMST 2201a, Interdisciplinary Approaches to American Studies Lisa Lowe
This seminar is both a history of and practical guide to the interdisciplinary American Studies field. Students read examples from the established academic disciplines of history, sociology, political science, economics, natural science and literature, alongside varieties of American Studies scholarship, to analyze the methods, objects, criteria, protocols and practices that comprise the interdisciplinary field. HU
MW 2:35pm-3:50pm
* AMST 2218a / WGSS 2218a, Sex, Gender, and American Moderns Deb Vargas
What did being “modern” mean to those whose marginalized aesthetics negotiated sexual, racial, regional, national, and gender norms in the first half of the twentieth-century United States? This course functions as an intensive immersion into the creeds and concerns of recent scholarship regarding modes of U.S. modernity as the field overlaps with current forays into sexuality and gender studies. Via painting, photography, print culture, a “homosexual comedy,” oral history and other resources, we discuss the popularization of heteronormativity in US sex manuals; the emergence of LGBTQ subcultures within and without urban East Coast environments; queer feminist agency through experimental photography in Provincetown; slumming and sensationalism in the Chicago Loop; and modern crip intimacies in Connecticut. Students meet the artists of the PaJaMa collective; James Weldon Johnson’s Ex-Colored Man; avant-garde Pacific Rim poets such as José Garcia Villa; a Nepali American surrealist; and a bohemian of the Harlem Renaissance whose drawings are held at the Beinecke. HU
HTBA
AMST 2228b / GLBL 2201b / HIST 1128b, Origins of U.S. Global Power David Engerman
This course examines the causes and the consequences of American global power in the “long 20th century,” peeking back briefly into the 19th century as well as forward into the present one. The focus is on foreign relations, which includes but is not limited to foreign policy; indeed, America’s global role was rooted as much in its economic and cultural power as it was in diplomacy and military strength. We study events like wars, crises, treaties, and summits—but also trade shows and movie openings. Our principal subjects include plenty of State Department officials, but also missionaries, business people, and journalists. We pay close attention also to conceptions of American power; how did observers in and beyond the United States understand the nature, origins, and operations of American power? HU 0 Course cr
MW 10:30am-11:20am
* AMST 2232b / ER&M 3686b / WGSS 2232b, Latine Queer Trans Life Deb Vargas
This course provides an introduction to Latinx queer trans* studies. We approach the field of Latinx queer trans* studies as an ongoing political project that emerges from social justice activism, gay/lesbian/queer/trans studies, critical race feminism, cultural practitioners, among other work. We pay particular attention to the keywords “trans,” “queer,” “Chicanx,” and “Latinx” by placing them in productive tension with each other through varied critical genealogies. HU, SO
M 1:30pm-3:25pm
* AMST 2233b / ER&M 3536b / HIST 2196b / WGSS 2235b, Another “Other” – Introducing Critical Theories and Histories of Disability Jiya Pandya
What is disability? How has its definition changed over time? How do people “become” disabled and how does one inhabit a disabled body? In what ways has the disabled body become a site for enacting imperial, national, and resistant politics? Where and how are alternate, radical visions of health being developed? This introductory course in Disability Studies poses answers to these and other related questions through an overview of key texts and debates in the growing field of disability studies. Students learn about the transnational history of disability and disability rights, think about the intersections of disability, race, sexuality, gender, and citizenship, and engage with questions of accessibility and activism that already exist in spaces around you.
M 1:30pm-3:25pm
* AMST 2239a / EDST 1235a / WGSS 2239a, Education and the Culture Wars Talya Zemach-Bersin
Examination of the historical development and politics of the “culture wars” with a focus on how battles over the “soul of America” have focused on the American education system. Conflict over "American values” issues like abortion, gay marriage, and religion are compounded by legal battles over federal funding and school choice. Study of interdisciplinary readings from law, politics, history, and cultural studies. EDST 1110 recommended.
T 4pm-5:55pm
* AMST 2246a / ENGL 2826a / PLSC 2846a, The Media and Democracy Joanne Lipman
In an era of "fake news," when the media is under attack, misinformation is at epidemic levels, and new technologies are transforming the way we consume news, how do journalists hold power to account? What is the media’s role in promoting and protecting democracy? Students explore topics including objectivity versus advocacy, and hate speech versus First Amendment speech protections. Case studies span from 19th century Yellow Journalism to the #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter movements, to the rise of AI journalism and social media “news influencers.” SO
T 1:30pm-3:25pm
* AMST 2255b / CPSC 2155b, Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, and Society Julian Posada
This seminar examines the development and implementation of artificial intelligence technologies across a broad array of social contexts, incorporating historical, cultural, economic, legal, and political perspectives. The course provides an in-depth study of contemporary AI, from its historical development and varied definitions to current issues, emphasizing the relationship between power dynamics and ethical considerations. After establishing a foundation in theories and the study of ethics and power, the course delves into diverse aspects of AI, including the implications of human labor and material infrastructures in the development of the technology, concerns related to bias and discrimination, and its impacts on the environment. The concluding module applies these discussions to real-world scenarios, exploring how to address ethical and societal issues through legal and human rights frameworks, governance and regulation, and grassroots initiatives. This course is ideal for both computer science and engineering students seeking a socio-humanistic perspective on artificial intelligence, and humanities and social sciences students interested in the societal implications of AI. HU, SO
M 4pm-5:55pm
* AMST 2262a / ER&M 3000a, Comparative Ethnic Studies Ximena Lopez Carrillo
Introduction to the methods and practice of comparative ethnic studies. Examination of racial formation in the United States within a transnational framework. Legacies of colonialism, slavery, and racial exclusion; racial formation in schools, prisons, and citizenship law; cultural politics of music and performance; social movements; and postcolonial critique. SO
W 4pm-5:55pm
* AMST 2265a / CPSC 2265a, Topics in Critical Computing Julian Posada and Teddy Kim
This course introduces the social, cultural, and political contexts shaping the contemporary development and use of computing and information technology. Through structured discussions, lectures, and collaborative activities, participants will explore computing's historical evolution, ethical and societal implications, and tangible impacts, including its reliance on transnational infrastructures and environmental effects. Emphasis will be placed on analyzing computer-related social issues through theoretical and critical approaches, empirical research, and governance frameworks, as well as both technical and social strategies for addressing key challenges. The course is designed for students from diverse academic backgrounds across all divisions, aiming to develop a nuanced understanding of computation's intersection with broader social systems and to equip them with tools to engage with critical issues in the rapidly shifting digital landscape. HU, SC
M 1:30pm-3:25pm
* AMST 2286a / AFAM 3820a / ENGL 3820a / HUMS 2410a, James Baldwin's American Scene Staff
In-depth examination of James Baldwin's canon, tracking his work as an American artist, citizen, and witness to United States society, politics, and culture during the Cold War, the Civil Rights era, and the Black Arts Movement. HU 0 Course cr
HTBA
* AMST 3037b / ER&M 4049b / HIST 3737b / HSHM 4460b, Globalizing Disability: Histories and Theories from the Non-West Jiya Pandya
Is disability a universal identity? Who decides who is disabled and how they get treated? How do experiences of illness, disability, access, and care differ in different modern global contexts? Can (and should) disability – as identity, rights, and pathology – be decolonized? We tackle these and other questions in this course, which offers students insight into historical and theoretical contributions from the growing fields of disability studies and mad studies. We focus primarily on ideas and critiques that emerge from scholars and practitioners working in and on the complex geographies that are given the uneven labels of the non-West, Third World, Developing World, and Global South. Tracing histories across multiple countries and regions from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, we examine how the forces of colonialism, post-colonial nation-building, and international governance shaped the lives of people who were labeled or came to identify as disabled. Structured thematically, we read historical, anthropological, critical theory, and cultural studies interventions into topics such as global medicine, humanitarianism, rights, war, welfare, and mental health. Even as we read widely, we center disability (and its intersections with race, gender, sexuality, and class) as a political methodology and a form of radical embodiment. Students from all disciplinary backgrounds may take this class, which both works alongside and builds on WGSS 2235’s broader introduction to disability studies. WR, HU
HTBA
* AMST 3300a / WGSS 3350a, The Invention of Love Igor De Souza
This course proposes a historical, theoretical, and cultural investigation of what we call “romantic love,” the kind of love we tend to associate with courtship, with relationships that include a sexual-erotic component, and with marriage. We begin with Denis de Rougemont’s controversial thesis that romantic love was invented around the 1200s in the courtly culture of Southern France. We examine manifestations of romantic love in medieval Arab cultures as precedents to the invention of courtly love. In the second part of our course, we turn to modern humanistic theories about romantic love. Among the questions that critical theorists and philosophers have posed, we consider: How is love related to desire? Is sexual desire an indispensable component of romantic love? Is romantic love ultimately a selfish, exclusionary act, or is it about renouncing the self, losing the self in the other? In the third part of our course, we apply the insights of parts 1 and 2 to discuss case studies of romantic love in the contemporary United States. In this section, we explore reining assumptions between romantic love and: marriage; monogamy; dating; the digital environment; queerness; age; and transnationalism.
T 1:30pm-3:25pm
* AMST 3302a / ER&M 3512a / HSHM 4930a / WGSS 3312a, Technology, Race and Gender Kalindi Vora
In this course, we discuss technology and the politics of difference through a survey of topics including artificial intelligence, digital labor (crowdsourcing), and robotics and computer science. Materials for study include humanistic and social scientific critique, ethnographies of technology, technical writing and scientific papers, as well as speculative art practices including design, visual art and fiction. What assumptions and politics of imagination govern the design and development of new technologies? What alternative imaginaries, politics, or even speculations, can be identified with a feminist analytic lens? The seminar also includes a practicum component where we practice the politics of speculation through writing and design projects. To do this we study everything from active STEM projects at Yale to speculative fiction and film to think about how structures of race, gender, sexuality, ability, nation, and religious difference inform how we "speculate" or imagine the future through the ways we design and build technological worlds in practice and in fiction. HU, SO
W 1:30pm-3:25pm
* AMST 3303a or b / EP&E 247 / ER&M 3530a or b / FILM 2980a or b / SAST 2620a or b, Digital War Madiha Tahir
From drones and autonomous robots to algorithmic warfare, virtual war gaming, and data mining, digital war has become a key pressing issue of our times and an emerging field of study. This course provides a critical overview of digital war, understood as the relationship between war and digital technologies. Modern warfare has been shaped by digital technologies, but the latter have also been conditioned through modern conflict: DARPA (the research arm of the US Department of Defense), for instance, has innovated aspects of everything from GPS, to stealth technology, personal computing, and the Internet. Shifting beyond a sole focus on technology and its makers, this class situates the historical antecedents and present of digital war within colonialism and imperialism. We will investigate the entanglements between technology, empire, and war, and examine how digital war—also sometimes understood as virtual or remote war—has both shaped the lives of the targeted and been conditioned by imperial ventures. We will consider visual media, fiction, art, and other works alongside scholarly texts to develop a multidiscpinary perspective on the past, present, and future of digital war. none HU, SO
HTBA
* AMST 3304a or b / ANTH 3304a or b / ER&M 3304a or b / HUMS 3304a or b / SOCY 3104a or b, Ethnography & Journalism Madiha Tahir
While each is loathed to admit it, journalism and ethnography are cousins in some respects interested in (albeit distinct) modes of storytelling, translation, and interpretation. This methods course considers these shared grounds to launch a cross-comparative examination. What can the practies of each field and method—journalism and ethnography—tell us about the other? How do journalists and ethnographers engage ideas about the truth? What can they learn from each other? Students spend the first four weeks studying journalistic methods and debates before shifting to ethnographic discussions, and finally, comparative approaches to writing; data and evidence; experience and positionality. HU, SO
HTBA
* AMST 3309a / AFAM 2359 / BLST 2359a / EDST 1255a, Education and Empire Talya Zemach-Bersin
This course offers an introduction to the transnational history of education in relation to the historical development of the U.S. empire both at home and abroad. By bringing together topics often approached separately—immigration, education, race, colonialism, and the history of U.S. empire—we interrogate the ways that education has been mobilized to deploy power: controlling knowledge, categorizing and policing differences, administering unequal paths to citizenship/belonging, forcing assimilation, promoting socio-economic divides, and asserting discipline and control. EDST 110 recommended. HU
W 4pm-5:55pm
* AMST 3314a / ER&M 3514a / WGSS 3306a, Gender and Transgender Greta LaFleur
Introduction to transgender studies, an emergent field that draws on gender studies, queer theory, sociology, feminist science studies, literary studies, and history. Representations of gender nonconformity in a cultural context dominated by a two-sex model of human gender differentiation. Sources include novels, autobiographies, films, and philosophy and criticism. RP
MW 1:05pm-2:20pm
* AMST 3316b / HIST 3156b, Capitalism, Labor, & Class Politics in Modern U.S. Jennifer Klein
History of American capitalism from the mid-19th century through the 21st century. This course examines different modes of capitalist accumulation and creation of landscapes, territories, boundaries. Readings address how regionalism, race, and class power shaped the development of American capitalism. We consider the continuum of free and coerced labor well after the end of slavery in the U.S. We read about indigenous communities, the environment, energy politics, and on-going struggles with the state. This mix of labor history, social theory, intellectual history, business history, social history, and geography also impel us to imagine the workings of American capitalism beyond the borders of the nation—to think about how capitalists and workers move through space and reshape space; the exchange of workers, ideas, technologies, and resources across national, imperial, and oceanic boundaries. WR, HU
HTBA
* AMST 3339a / ER&M 4050a, Bad Bunny: Musical Aesthetics and Politics Albert Laguna
This course examines the music of Bad Bunny as a point of departure for developing our skills as close listeners attentive to how cultural production creates interpretive avenues for understanding how aesthetics, history, and politics intersect. Topics include the history of Puerto Rico and its colonial past and present (tourism, debt crisis, hurricanes); the evolution of musical forms (bomba, plena, salsa, reggaeton) and their travels across the Americas; and the Puerto Rican diaspora in New York City. none HU
W 9:25am-11:20am
* AMST 3349a / TDPS 4303a, Technologies of Movement Research Emily Coates
An interdisciplinary survey of creative and critical methods for researching human movement. Humans move to communicate, to express emotions, to commune, to protest, to reflect and embody the natural world. Drawing on an array of artistic projects and scholarship in dance and performance studies, art, anthropology, sociology, philosophy, cognitive science, and the history of science, we consider case studies that take up movement as both the object and method of inquiry. Class time and assignments include moving, reading, and watching. All physical capabilities are welcome; no prior experience in dance required. Limited enrollment. See Syllabus page on Canvas for application.
T 9:25am-11:20am
* AMST 3350a / ER&M 3519a / SAST 4750a / TDPS 3029a, Drama in Diaspora: South Asian American Theater and Performance Shilarna Stokes
South Asian Americans have appeared on U.S. stages since the late nineteenth century, yet only in the last quarter century have plays and performances by South Asian Americans begun to dismantle dominant cultural representations of South Asian and South Asian American communities and to imagine new ways of belonging. This seminar introduces you to contemporary works of performance (plays, stand-up sets, multimedia events) written and created by U.S.-based artists of South Asian descent as well as artists of the South Asian diaspora whose works have had an impact on U.S. audiences. With awareness that the South Asian American diaspora comprises multiple, contested, and contingent identities, we investigate how artists have worked to manifest complex representations of South Asian Americans onstage, challenge institutional and professional norms, and navigate the perils and pleasures of becoming visible. No prior experience with or study of theater/performance required. Students in all years and majors welcome. HU
T 4pm-5:55pm
* AMST 3356a / RLST 2150a, Celebrity, Politics, Power Supriya Gandhi
This course uses celebrity to think about American political power. Informed by American studies, gender studies, and religious studies, the course considers celebrity a way to talk about how popularity is an embodied and spiritualized appraisal. The bibliography on celebrity and politics is not a robust one, despite the fact that winning elections requires popularity and in the last twenty years of American politics some conscientiousness of the skill sets celebrities mastered seems a precondition for electoral success. The course assembles a range of scholarly and archival resources to think about what it means to achieve celebrity, and how it is a political form of public life. Of particular interest is how to think about the construction of magic and charisma, and how those very idioms often contribute to accusations of mesmerism and manipulation. Written assignments focus students on developing celebrity as an applied knowledge for social media development and political progress. HU
W 9:25am-11:20am
* AMST 3361a / ER&M 3561a, Comparative Colonialisms Lisa Lowe
Settler colonialism, slavery, racialized immigration, and imperial war have been integral to the emergence of the U.S. nation, state, and economy, and the consequences of these histories continue today. In this interdisciplinary undergraduate seminar, we examine the relevance of these historical and ongoing formations to the founding and development of the United States, giving attention to the independence of each, as well as to their differences, convergences, and contestations. We consider the strengths and limits of different analytic frames for understanding these histories of colonialism, enslavement, capitalism, and empire. We approach the study through readings in history, anthropology, political economy, literature, arts, and other materials. HU
W 4pm-5:55pm
* AMST 3365a / EP&E 4399a / ER&M 3695a, Platforms and Cultural Production Julian Posada
Platforms—digital infrastructures that serve as intermediaries between end-users and complementors—have emerged in various cultural and economic settings, from social media (Instagram), and video streaming (YouTube), to digital labor (Uber), and e-commerce (Amazon). This seminar provides a multidisciplinary lens to study platforms as hybrids of firms and multi-sided markets with unique history, governance, and infrastructures. The thematic sessions of this course discuss how platforms have transformed cultural production and connectivity, labor, creativity, and democracy by focusing on comparative cases from the United States and abroad. The seminar provides a space for broader discussions on contemporary capitalism and cultural production around topics such as inequality, surveillance, decentralization, and ethics. Students are encouraged to bring examples and case studies from their personal experiences. HU, SO
M 4pm-5:55pm
* AMST 3375a / ER&M 3502a / HIST 3102a, Asian Americans and the Law in 20th C. U.S. History Mary Lui
This junior history seminar explores 20th century Asian American history through the themes of law and justice. Specifically, we examine the ways in which U.S. laws and legal institutions have defined race and belonging for Asian Americans by focusing on three topics―education, housing, and criminal justice. These broad themes allow us to understand historic changes in Asian migration, family and community formation, political organizing, and social justice activism as well as situate Asian American history in the broader context of Civil Rights struggles throughout the 20th century. The course also explores a wide array of primary sources and historical methods used to develop a research project based on Asian American encounters with the U.S. legal system. WR, HU
TTh 11:35am-12:50pm
* AMST 3382a / WGSS 3372a, Theory and Politics of Sexual Consent Joseph Fischel
Political, legal, and feminist theory and critiques of the concept of sexual consent. Topics such as sex work, nonnormative sex, and sex across age differences explored through film, autobiography, literature, queer commentary, and legal theory. U.S. and Connecticut legal cases regarding sexual violence and assault. SO RP
W 9:25am-11:20am
* AMST 3391a / CPLT 3891a / HUMS 3891a, Introduction to Critical Sleep Studies: The Politics of Sleep and Sleeplessness Moira Fradinger
Although we spend approximately one third of our lives asleep, since the industrial revolution and the emergence of uninterrupted city lighting, industrialized societies seem to have developed an ambivalent relation to sleep: both protected and devalued for the sake of higher standards of productive work. The devaluation of sleep, in particular, has produced, during the twentieth and the first two decades of the twenty-first centuries, an array of social, political, and medical discourses to study the impact of changing patterns of sleep and sleeplessness at the global level. This seminar studies topics in the politics and cultures of sleep and sleeplessness, which posit sleep as a human practice. As any human practice, it is framed by cultural and political settings, so that how, when, why, where, and who sleeps vary across sectors of society, across past and present and across world cultures. We study historical, literary, philosophical, sociological, political, and filmic texts. A cultural, social, and political understanding of sleep and sleeplessness can reveal how sleep has been transformed into a bodily site upon which social values are imposed, social surveillance is enacted, ideas about “normality” are instrumentalized, resulting in a demand that humans adapt to human-made changing conditions of production, rather than universally unchanging health needs. HU
HTBA
* AMST 3395a / FILM 3270a, The Documentary Tradition Charles Musser
This course examines key works, crucial texts, and fundamental concepts in the critical study of non-fiction cinema, exploring the participant-observer dialectic, the performative, and changing ideas of truth in documentary forms. HU RP
T 4pm-5:55pm, M 7pm-10pm
* AMST 3398b / ER&M 3508b / HIST 2158b, American Indian Law and Policy Ned Blackhawk
Survey of the origins, history, and legacies of federal Indian law and policy during two hundred years of United States history. The evolution of U.S. constitutional law and political achievements of American Indian communities over the past four decades. HU
T 9:25am-11:20am
* AMST 3399b, Histories and Methods of American Studies Laura Barraclough
Intended primarily for juniors in American Studies, this course serves as both an introduction to American Studies and preparation for senior essays/projects in the major. It explores the histories of American Studies as a field and examines commonly used research methods. Students chart their own entry points and pathways through American Studies by completing scaffolded assignments that draw on both primary and secondary sources. Secondary objectives include strengthening relationships with American Studies faculty and peers and deepening engagement with the undergraduate American Studies program at Yale. Juniors in the American Studies major. Other students may be admitted with instructor permission. HU
Th 9:25am-11:20am
* AMST 4422a / ER&M 3507a / HIST 3151a, Writing Tribal Histories Ned Blackhawk
Historical overview of American Indian tribal communities, particularly since the creation of the United States. Challenges of working with oral histories, government documents, and missionary records. WR, HU
Th 9:25am-11:20am
* AMST 4447b / EDST 2270b / ER&M 3567b, Contemporary Native American K-12 and Postsecondary Educational Policy Matthew Makomenaw
This course explores Native American educational policy issues, programming, funding, and success. Native American representation in policy conversations is often incomplete, complicated, or relegated to an asterisk resulting in a lack of resources, awareness, and visibility in educational policy. This course examines the challenges and issues related to Native education; however, the impetus of this course centers on the resiliency, strength, and imagination of Native American students and communities to redefine and achieve success in a complex and often unfamiliar educational environment. EDST 1110 recommended. SO
W 9:25am-11:20am
* AMST 4462b / ER&M 4062b / WGSS 4463b, The Study of Privilege in the Americas Ana Ramos-Zayas
Examination of inequality, not only through experiences of the poor and marginal, but also through institutions, beliefs, social norms, and everyday practices of the privileged. Topics include: critical examination of key concepts like “studying up,” “elite,” and “privilege,” as well as variations in forms of capital; institutional sites of privilege (elite prep schools, Wall Street); living spaces and social networks (gated communities, private clubs); privilege in intersectional contexts (privilege and race, class, and gender); and everyday practices of intimacy and affect that characterize, solidify, and promote privilege. SO
T 1:30pm-3:25pm
* AMST 4463a / EVST 4630a / FILM 4550a / TDPS 4023a, Documentary Film Workshop Charles Musser
A yearlong workshop designed primarily for majors in Film and Media Studies or American Studies who are making documentaries as senior projects. Seniors in other majors admitted as space permits. RP
W 3:30pm-6:20pm, T 7pm-10pm
* AMST 4465a / AFAM 3375a / CPLT 3770a / FREN 3650a / HIST 2578a, Haiti in the Age of Revolutions Marlene Daut
The Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) was an event of monumental world-historical significance. This class studies the collection of slave revolts and military strikes beginning in August of 1791 that resulted in the eventual abolition of slavery in the French colony of Saint-Domingue and its subsequent independence and rebirth in January of 1804 as Haiti, the first independent and slavery-free nation of the American hemisphere. Considering Haiti's war of independence in the broader context of the Age of Revolutions, we cover topics such as enlightenment thought, natural history, the workings and politics of the printing press, and representations of the Haitian Revolution in art, literature, music, and in various kinds of historical writings and archival documents. Students develop an understanding of the relevant scholarship on the Haitian Revolution as they consider the relationship of this important event to the way it was written about both as it unfolded and in its long wake leading up to the present day. WR, HU
T 9:25am-11:20am
* AMST 4470a / AFAM 4357 / AFST 4457a / BLST 4357a / ER&M 4067a / FREN 4810a, Racial Republic: African Diasporic Literature and Culture in Postcolonial France Fadila Habchi
This is an interdisciplinary seminar on French cultural history from the 1930s to the present. We focus on issues concerning race and gender in the context of colonialism, postcolonialism, and migration. The course investigates how the silencing of colonial history has been made possible culturally and ideologically, and how this silencing has in turn been central to the reorganizing of French culture and society from the period of decolonization to the present. We ask how racial regimes and spaces have been constructed in French colonial discourses and how these constructions have evolved in postcolonial France. We examine postcolonial African diasporic literary writings, films, and other cultural productions that have explored the complex relations between race, colonialism, historical silences, republican universalism, and color-blindness. Topics include the 1931 Colonial Exposition, Black Paris, decolonization, universalism, the Trente Glorieuses, the Paris massacre of 1961, anti-racist movements, the "beur" author, memory, the 2005 riots, and contemporary afro-feminist and decolonial movements. HU
W 1:30pm-3:25pm
* AMST 4471a and AMST 4472b, Individual Reading and Research for Juniors and Seniors Greta LaFleur
Special projects intended to enable the student to cover material not otherwise offered by the program. The course may be used for research or for directed reading, but in either case a term paper or its equivalent is required as evidence of work done. It is expected that the student will meet regularly with the faculty adviser. To apply for admission, a student should submit a prospectus signed by the faculty adviser to the director of undergraduate studies.
HTBA
* AMST 4491a or b, Senior Project Greta LaFleur
Independent research and proseminar on a one-term senior project. For requirements see under “Senior requirement” in the American Studies program description.
HTBA
* AMST 4493a and AMST 4494b, Senior Project for the Intensive Major Greta LaFleur
Independent research and proseminar on a two-term senior project. For requirements see under "Senior requirement" in the American Studies program description.
HTBA