American Cultures: Investigating America

3 units

How does one study American culture? This course teaches students how to critically analyze U.S. culture and society and introduces them to the history, methodologies, frameworks, and key questions that have shaped and continue to inform this interdisciplinary field. In this course, we ask probing questions to uplift marginalized voices and experiences as part of an expansive definition of American identity. In this course students study how knowledge and understandings about society and culture are produced and learn approaches to analyzing, curating and interpreting cultural objects and theorizing cultural phenomena. We examine the concept and idea of America in local, regional, national, and international contexts and continuums; we explore the lived experiences of diverse American communities within and across cultural and literal borders. This course is offered in tandem with L98 238S American Cultures: Investigating St. Louis by offering both a national and a local lens with which to view American culture, and students are strongly encouraged to enroll in both courses. Through a case study approach, the course engages questions related to the construction of ethnic and racial identities in the U.S.; race and class; social thought and social issues; mass media and popular culture; landscape, borders, and belonging; citizenship and nationhood; language as culture; and American exceptionalism.