Entertaining the Masses: An Introduction to American Studies
AMST 180
Spring 2024
| Section:
01
|
This course will explore the ways in which people living in the United States entertained themselves from colonial times to the present. From the circus to movie theaters, from pubs to video games, from hunting expeditions to football matches, from church choirs to hip hop battles, we will use mass entertainment as a window into American culture. We will question what American society has considered fun, how leisure became separate from labor, how capitalists have commodified and authorities have disciplined entertainment, how different groups created and/or appropriated different forms of entertainment. Through these questions, we will study classic and new topics of and approaches to American Studies. |
|
| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
SBS AMST |
| Course Format: Lecture / Discussion | Grading Mode: Student Option |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
|
Fulfills a Requirement for: (AMST) |
|
Past Enrollment Probability: Less than 50% |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
: Kathy Peiss, Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Turn-of-the-Century New York
Robert Rydell, All the World's a Fair: Visions of Empire at American International Expositions, 1876-1916
Stuart Hall, ¿The Spectacle of the Other¿
Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, The Invention of Tradition
Amy Kaplan, The Anarchy of Empire in the Making of US Culture
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism
|
Examinations and Assignments:
Examinations and assignments: Take-Home Essays
Classroom Activities |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
Additional requirements and/or comments: |
| Instructor(s): Saba,Roberto Times: ..T.R.. 10:20AM-11:40AM; Location: FISK208; |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 25 | | SR major: 2 | JR major: 3 | | |
| Seats Available: -2 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 2 | JR non-major: 2 | SO: 8 | FR: 8 |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 11 | 1st Ranked: 4 | 2nd Ranked: 1 | 3rd Ranked: 3 | 4th Ranked: 1 | Unranked: 2 |
|
|