American Movies as American Studies: An Introduction to American Studies
AMST 177
Spring 2021 not offered
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| Course Cluster and Certificates: Social, Cultural, and Critical Theory Certificate |
Our aim is to see how movies from the 1930s to the present can help us grow as critical (and self-critical) American studies thinkers (and have fun--even as we question the effects and implications of this fun--doing it). Talkies appeared as a complex mass-cultural form of American studies, exported all over the world, precisely when the academic field of American studies emerged in the early 1930s. From the get-go, movies involved in mass-disseminating America's inventions of power have made available, in very entertaining ways, critical insight that can blow the whistle on how the reproduction of Americans and American ideologies are pulled off. Together we will explore the modern Americanization of power (hard power, soft power) and focus our exchanges on four intersecting concerns that movies can be particularly good at illuminating: (1) how culture industries (including movies) shape consciousness, needs, desires, incentives, values, and sense of belonging, and frame--limit--our vision of what constitutes problems and solutions; (2) how social critique (even movie critiques of movies) can be mass-popularized; (3) how America makes Americans, especially, into workers (even if they hate what they do and wonder about what and who they are working for) and weapons of various sorts (even if they are frightened and wonder about what and who they are fighting for and against); and (4) how and why America constructs difference (e.g., class, gender, race, individuality, national identity). This lecture/discussion course is a thinking-intensive and imagination-intensive critical project designed to engage compelling big-picture concerns--systemic matters--vital to American studies critiques. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
SBS AMST |
| Course Format: Lecture / Discussion | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (AMST)(CSCT) |
Major Readings:
Herbert Ross, dir. PENNIES FROM HEAVEN (1981)
Elia Kazan, dir. FACE IN THE CROWD (1957)
Frank Capra, dir. MEET JOHN DOE (1941)
Michael Moore, dir. CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY (2009)
Jacob Kornlbuth, dr. INEQUALITY FOR ALL (2013)
Martin Ritt, dir. NORMA RAE (1979)
Kathryn Bigelow, dir. THE HURT LOCKER (2008)
David Cronenberg, dir. A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE (2005)
Spike Lee, dir. DO THE RIGHT THING (1989)
Ryan Coogler, dir. FRUITVALE STATION (2013)
SOME READINGS (OTHERS TBA):
James Monaco, HOW TO READ A FILM: MOVIES, MEDIA, AND BEYOND (2009 edition)
Robert McChesney, "This Isn't What Democracy Looks Like" (2014)
Robert Reich, BEYOND OUTRAGE: WHAT HAS GONE WRONG WITH OUR ECONOMY AND OUR DEMOCRACY AND HOW TO FIX IT (2012)
Thomas Frank, WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS? HOW CONSERVATIVES WON THE HEART OF AMERICA (2004)
Barbara Ehrenreich, NICKEL AND DIMED: ON (NOT) GETTING BY IN AMERICA (2001)
Michelle Alexander, THE NEW JIM CROW: MASS INCARCERATION IN THE AGE OF COLORBLINDNESS (2010)
Latoya Peterson, "What I Have to Teach My Black Child That a White Parent Would Never Have to Worry About" (2014)
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Examinations and Assignments:
Three 7 page essays. Plus, each student will team up with one or more students--two times or more during the term--to raise questions and facilitate discussion about movies and/or reading. |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
There may be some movie showings scheduled for Sundays. |
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