American Movies as American Studies: An Introduction to American Studies
AMST 177
Fall 2020
| Section:
01
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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: Student Option |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (AMST)(CSCT) |
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Past Enrollment Probability: 50% - 74% |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
Examination and Assignments:
Our class will meet live each week via ZOOM on Mondays from 7:10 to 8:30 PM. Before each meeting I'll send the class a one-hour Teaching Video I'll ¿produce"¿this is required reading--and in that Teaching Video I'll outline pertinent background and some critical stakes of the movie we'll soon be discussing together. In the Teaching Video I'll also unpack just a few scenes from the weekly movie (but we¿ll be unpacking a great deal when we meet). The syllabus will be scaled-down somewhat: one movie per week and sometimes brief readings, many of which are journalism (and theoretically provocative), and illuminate contemporary events (short readings will include some ¿Concept Files¿ on cultural theory that I've composed for you). The two books we'll read are the short I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO (which, along with the movie we¿ll be seeing, I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO [2016], features the cultural writings of James Baldwin) and Michelle Alexander, THE NEW JIM CROW: MASS INCARCERATION IN THE AGE OF COLORBLINDNESS (2011). Starting in the fourth week, each student will write a weekly two-page double-spaced Critical Engagement: Movie and Teaching Video essay focused on the movie and Teaching Video (there are no long essays and no final exam). Thus students will receive a lot of feedback on the development of their writing and critical thinking. Also, each student will team up with one or more students--two times or more--to raise questions and facilitate our collective unpacking of movie scenes and/or reading. It¿s possible that I may have a Teaching Assistant who will confer with the students who are formulating/raising questions about the movie and facilitating our collective unpacking in our live meeting. Our meeting from 7:10-8:30 will concentrate on student discussion. Our class is more of a ¿concept album¿ than a ¿greatest hits¿ course: the movies will be in critical conversation with and will build on one another, and the concerns they raise will very much intersect with what¿s happening right now.
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Examinations and Assignments:
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Most movies will be streamed with no fee. In very few instances, students will have to access to Netflix or rent (small fee) access to another platform to stream a film |
| Instructor(s): Pfister,Joel Times: .M..... 07:10PM-10:00PM; Location: ONLINE; |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 30 | | SR major: 5 | JR major: 5 | | |
| Seats Available: 0 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 0 | JR non-major: 0 | SO: 12 | FR: 8 |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 11 | 1st Ranked: 0 | 2nd Ranked: 3 | 3rd Ranked: 0 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 8 |
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