UVa Course Catalog (Unofficial, Lou's List)
Complete Catalog of Courses in American Studies    
Class Schedules Index Course Catalogs Index Class Search Page
These pages present data mined from the University of Virginia's student information system (SIS). I hope that you will find them useful. — Lou Bloomfield, Department of Physics
African-American and African Studies
AAS 1010Introduction to African-American and African Studies I (4)
Offered
Fall 2024
This introductory course surveys the histories of people of African descent in Africa, the Americas, and the Caribbean from approximately the Middle Ages to the 1880s. Emphases include the Atlantic slave trade and its complex relationship to Africa; the economic systems, cultures, and communities of Africans and African-Americans in the New World, in slavery and in freedom; the rise of anti-slavery movements; and the socio-economic systems that replaced slavery in the late 19th century.
AAS 1020Introduction to African-American and African Studies II (4)
This introductory course builds upon the histories of people of African descent in Africa, the Americas, and the Caribbean surveyed in AAS 1010. Drawing on disciplines such as Anthropology, History, Religious Studies, Political Science and Sociology, the course focuses on the period from the late 19th century to the present and is comparative in perspective. It examines the links and disjunctions between communities of African descent in the United States and in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa. The course begins with an overview of AAS, its history, assumptions, boundaries, and topics of inquiry, and then proceeds to focus on a number of inter-related themes: patterns of cultural experience; community formation; comparative racial classification; language and society; family and kinship; religion; social and political movements; arts and aesthetics; and archaeology of the African Diaspora.
AAS 1559New Course in African and African American Studies (1 - 4)
Offered
Fall 2024
New course in the subject of African American Studies.
Course was offered Fall 2023, Fall 2016, Spring 2010
AAS 2224Black Femininities and Masculinities in the US Media (3)
This course, taught as a lower-level seminar, will address the role the media has played in creating images and understandings of 'Blackness' in the United States, particularly where it converges with popular ideologies about gender.
AAS 2559New Course in African and African American Studies (3)
New course in the subject of African and African American Studies
AAS 2700Festivals of the Americas (3)
Communities throughout the Caribbean, and South, Central and North America celebrate festivals which are rooted in religious devotion, and which serve to mark sacred time and and to assert claims about religious, ethnic, and national identities. The class will read ethnographic accounts and listen to musical recordings of signature religious festivals--such as Saint Patrick's Day in Boston, Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and Carnival in Brazil.
Course was offered Fall 2013, Fall 2012, Fall 2011, Fall 2009
AAS 3200Martin, Malcolm and America (3)
An intensive examination of African-American social criticism centered upon, but not limited to, the life and thought of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. We will come to grips with the American legacy of racial hatred and oppression systematized in the institutions of antebellum chattel slavery and post-bellum racial segregation and analyze the array of critical responses to, and social struggles against, this legacy.
AAS 3231Rise and Fall of the Slave South (3)
A history of the American South from the arrival of the first English settlers through the end of Reconstruction in 1877. Cross-listed with HIUS 3231.
AAS 3456The Supreme Court and the Civil Rights Movement (3)
This course explores the role of the United States Supreme Court in defining the legality of racial distinctions in the United States in the post-Civil War era. Special attention is paid to the role of the court's landmark 1954 decision, Brown v. Board of Education. The class will be taught in a discussion format based upon assigned readings.
AAS 3500Intermediate Seminar in African-American & African Studies (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
Reading, class discussion, and written assignments on a special topic in African-American and African Studies Topics change from term to term, and vary with the instructor. Primarily for fourth-year students but open to others.
AAS 3559New Course in African and African American Studies (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
New course in the subject of African and African American Studies.
AAS 3652African American History since 1865 (3)
This course surveys the major political, economic, and cultural developments in black America from the end of the Civil War to the present. Through an engagement with various primary and secondary texts, and multimedia, students examine African Americans' endeavors to build strong families and communities, create socially meaningful art, and establish a political infrastructure capable of bringing into existence a more just and humane world.
AAS 4109Civil Rights Movement and the Media (3)
Course examines the crucial relationship between the Civil Rights Movement and mass media from 1950s through early 1970s, looking at a variety of media forms: Hollywood cinema, network television, mainstream newspapers, photojournalism, the black press, and news as primary documents that can tell us something about American race relations during this period and how the nation responded to challenges posed by a powerful social change movement.
AAS 4500Advanced Seminar in African-American and African Studies (3)
Reading, class discussion, and research on a special topic in African-American and African Studies culminatiing in the composition of a research paper. Topics change from term to term, and vary with the instructor. Primarily for fourth-year students but open to others.
AAS 4501Advanced Research Seminar in History & AAS (4)
Offered
Fall 2024
Reading, class discussion, and research on a special topic in African-American and African Studies culminating in the composition of a research paper. Topics change from term to term, and vary with the instructor. Primarily for fourth-year AAS and History students--double majors and others. Crosslisted with the History major seminar.
AAS 4559New Course in African and African American Studies (1 - 4)
New course in the subject of African and African American Studies.
Course was offered Summer 2022, Spring 2015, Spring 2014
AAS 4570Advanced Research Seminar in African-American & African Studies (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
Reading, class discussion, and research on a special topic in African-American and African Studies culminating in the composition of a research paper. Topics change from term to term, and vary with the instructor. Primarily for fourth-year students but open to others.
AAS 4845Black Speculative Fiction (3)
This course seeks to explore the world of African American 'speculative' fiction. This genre of writing largely includes science fiction, fantasy fiction, and horror. In this class, we will read, watch, and discuss narratives by black writers of speculative fiction to better understand the motivation, tone, and agenda in the work of black writers. We will also consider the role of black culture and representation in the larger field.
Course was offered Spring 2011, Spring 2010
American Studies
AMST 1050Slavery and Its Legacies (3)
This course examines the history of slavery and its legacy at UVA and in the central Virginia region. The course aims to recover the experiences of enslaved individuals and their roles in building and maintaining the university, and to contextualize those experiences within Southern history.
AMST 1060The Aftermath of Slavery at UVA and in Virginia (3)
This course examines the post-1865 history at UVA and in the region, recovering the experiences of African Americans in building community in the face of racism, and also contextualizing those experiences within U.S. history. The course situates that local history in political and cultural context, tracing the advent of emancipation, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, desegregation, civil rights change, and even twenty-first century racism and inequality.
Course was offered Spring 2022
AMST 1559New Course in American Studies (1 - 4)
New Course in the subject of American Studies
AMST 2001Introduction to American Studies (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
This course introduces students to American Studies, the interdisciplinary study of US culture. Students will be exposed to the three main categories of American Studies methods, historical analysis, close analysis, and fieldwork and to a broad variety of cultural forms, including films, photographs, music, sermons, journalism, fiction, speeches, court decisions, government documents, and web-based materials including social media sites.
AMST 2130Narratives of Girlhood (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
This course treats a range of contemporary English language literatures about girlhood. Our comparative analyses of texts will pay particular attention to their play with genre and their use of literary devices -- e.g., structure, voice, point of view, dialogue, temporality, language ¿ to render narratives about girlhood in contexts of (im)migration, loss, displacement, violence, revolution, war, and trauma.
AMST 2155Whiteness & Religion: Religious Foundations of a Racial Category (3)
This class examines the role religion plays in defining a racial category known as whiteness. By reading cultural histories and ethnographies of the religious practices of various communities, we will examine how groups now classified as white (Irish, Italians, Poles, Jews, etc.) and religious images (depictions of Jesus and the Virgin Mary) "became white" and the role that religious practice played in this shift in racial classification.
Course was offered Spring 2017
AMST 2210Arts of the Harlem Renaissance (3)
Studies the literature, painting, photography and prints produced by New York artists based in Harlem in the 1920s and 1930s, and examines their relation to concurrent social, cultural, and aesthetic issues.
AMST 2231Native Americans in Popular Culture (3)
This course interrogates American Indian people in pop culture. Students historicize and analyze the representation of American Indians across such media as print, photography, cinema, music, and more recently in the twenty-first century, social media. This course asks students to think about the ways American Indian people have not only contributed to pop culture, but the desire for American Indians as cultural objects.
AMST 2233Contemporary Native American Literature (3)
In this course we use contemporary Native American literature, authored by individuals from diverse tribal backgrounds, as an accessible avenue to better understand the history of federal Indian policy, its complexity, legal construct, and the ways federal Indian policy influences the lives of American Indian people.
AMST 2321Latinx Fiction and Film (3)
This course explores the diverse and also converging experiences of Latinos in the US. We will read contemporary novels and poetry by Latinx authors from different Latinx groups (Chicano, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Dominican, Central American and South American). We will discuss reasons for migration, concepts of the "border" and the impact of bilingualism on group identity. We will view films that depict the Latinx experience in the US.
Course was offered Spring 2022, Fall 2018
AMST 2420Cultural Landscapes of the United States (3)
This course introduces the study of everyday landscapes as cultural spaces that illuminate the history of social and political developments in the U.S. It encourages a broad understanding of landscape across genres-painting, photography, fiction, journalism. Particular focus will be paid to the political economy of landscapes to explore the connections between landscape and public policy from multiple vantage points.
AMST 2460Language in the U.S. (3)
Through diverse academic/theoretical readings and spoken, written, and visual material, students will learn to analyze, evaluate, and construct arguments as related to critical linguistic and cultural analysis of primary and secondary source material. This course examines complex relationships among American language and cultural practices, American history, race, gender, and class ideologies, and social identities.
Course was offered Fall 2017, Spring 2016
AMST 2470Disney (3)
This discussion course examines the cultural role of Disney and its effects on the visual arts in the 20th and 21st centuries. It considers a range of material to interrogate how Disney as both a corporation and a cultural icon promotes and reinforces national ideals. Presented both chronologically and thematically, students engage with aesthetic, ideological and theoretical concerns regarding history, identity, space/place, and popular culture.
Course was offered Spring 2017
AMST 2500Major Works for American Studies (3)
Topics vary according to instructor. The goal of the course is to introduce students to interdisciplinary work in American Studies by juxtaposing works across disciplinary boundaries and from different methodological perspectives.
AMST 2559New Course in American Studies (1 - 4)
Offered
Fall 2024
New Course in subject of American Studies.
AMST 2660Spiritual But Not Religious: Spirituality in America (3)
What does "spiritual but not religious" mean, and why has it become such a pervasive self-description in contemporary America? This interdisciplinary course surveys spirituality in America, with a particular eye for the relationship between spirituality and formal religion, on the one hand, and secular modes of understanding the self, such as psychology, on the other.
AMST 2753Arts and Cultures of the Slave South (4)
This interdisciplinary course covers the American South to the Civil War. While the course centers on the visual arts- architecture, material culture, decorative arts, painting, and sculpture- it is not designed as a regional history of art, but an exploration of the interrelations between history, material and visual cultures, foodways, music and literature in the formation of Southern identities.
AMST 3001Theories and Methods of American Studies (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
This seminar course will introduce majors to various theories and methods for the practice of American Studies. The three goals of the seminars are (1) to make students aware of their own interpretive practices; (2) to equip them with information and conceptual tools they will need for advanced work in American Studies; and (3) to provide them with comparative approaches to the study of various aspects of the United States. Prerequisites: American Studies Major
AMST 3050Critical Ethnic Studies (3)
This core seminar is an introduction to key issues and methods in the comparative and critical study of ethnicity and race. The course highlights an interdisciplinary approach to the studies of systematic oppression in the United States, and the global implication of these structures. We will consider how Ethnic Studies presents a progressive intellectual challenge to global and local configurations of power in the name of global justice.
AMST 3180Introduction to Asian American Studies (3)
An interdisciplinary introduction to the culture and history of Asians and Pacific Islanders in America. Examines ethnic communities such as Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Korean, Asian Indian, and Native Hawaiian, through themes such as immigration, labor, cultural production, war, assimilation, and politics. Texts are drawn from genres such as legal cases, short fiction, musicals, documentaries, visual art, and drama.
AMST 3200African American Political Thought (3)
This course explores the critical and the constructive dimensions of African American political thought from slavery to the present. We will assess the claims that black Americans have made upon the polity, how they have defined themselves, and how they have sought to redefine key terms of political life such as citizenship, equality, freedom, and power.
AMST 3221Hands-On Public History: Slavery and Reconstruction (3)
"Public history" is delivered to a non-academic audience, often at historic sites, museums, archives, and on digital platforms. Some films, podcasts, fiction, and poetry might also be considered public history. This course uses all of those formats to investigate how the history of slavery and Reconstruction are presented to the public. Collaboration with local community groups and field trips to historic sites are key components of this class.
AMST 3222Hands-On Public History: Slavery and Reconstruction, Part II (3)
Hands-On Public History is designed as a year-long course. This course continues the curriculum of AMST 3221.
Course was offered Spring 2022
AMST 3250MotherLands: Landscapes of Hunger, Futures of Plenty (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
This course explores the legacy of the "hidden wounds" left upon the landscape by plantation slavery along with the visionary work of ecofeminist scholars and activists daring to imagine an alternative future. Readings, guest lectures, and field trips illumine the ways in which gender, race, and power are encoded in historical, cultural, and physical landscapes associated with planting/extraction regimes such as tobacco, mining, sugar, and corn.
AMST 3280Introduction to Native American Studies: (Mis)Representations (3)
An intro to the broad field of Native Studies, this class focuses on themes of representation and erasure. We read Indigenous scholars and draw from current events, pop culture, and historical narrative to explore complex relationships between historical and contemporary issues that Indigenous peoples face in the US. We examine the foundations of Native representations and their connections to critical issues in Native communities.
Course was offered Fall 2022, Fall 2021
AMST 3300Introduction to Latinx Studies (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
AMST 3300 offers students close study of significant texts and other cultural forms representing the perspective and contributions of the main Latinx populations in the United States--including those of Puerto Rican, Chicano, Dominican, Central American and Cuban American origin--in historical context and within a theoretical, analytical framework.
Course was offered Fall 2022, Fall 2020
AMST 3321Race and Ethnicity in Latinx Literature (3)
This course examines the construction of race and ethnicity in Latinx literature by examining key texts by individuals from varying Latinx groups in the US. We will examine how US-American identity shapes Latinx notions of race and how the authors' connections with Latin America and the Caribbean do the same. We will explore from a hemispheric perspective how race and ethnicity are depicted in Latinx literature and culture.
Course was offered Spring 2023, Spring 2018
AMST 3323Hemispheric Latinx Literature and Culture (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
This course offers a survey of Latinx literature and film from a hemispheric perspective. Engaging texts from colonial times to the present day, we explore how the histories of the US, Latin America, Europe, Africa and Asia come together to produce novels, poems, essays and films that are now referred to as distinctly Latinx.
Course was offered Fall 2022, Spring 2021, Spring 2019
AMST 3354Race and Media (3)
We explore issues related to white supremacy, anti-blackness, mixed-race, settler colonialism, immigrant and transqueer phobia, and the production of racial difference. We examine these topics within their historical context and explore representations across all forms of visual culture, predominantly television but with reference to advertising, film, music, and digital media.
AMST 3355Border Media (3)
In this course we consider the depiction of the U.S.-Mexico border from the perspective of popular and mass media cultures. We examine the border as a site of cultural exchanges, resistance and critical negotiation; interchanges that impact the construction of race, ethnicity, sexuality and gender from both sides of the border.
Course was offered Fall 2017
AMST 3407Racial Borders and American Cinema (3)
This class explores how re-occurring images of racial and ethnic minorities such as African Americans, Jews, Asians, Native Americans and Latino/as are represented in film and shows visual images of racial interactions and boundaries of human relations that tackle topics such as immigration, inter-racial relationships and racial passing.
Course was offered Spring 2023, Spring 2019
AMST 3422Point of View Journalism (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
This course analyzes 'point-of-view' journalism as a controversial but credible alternative to the dominant model of 'objectivity' in the U.S. news media. It will survey point-of-view journalists from Benjamin Franklin to the modern blog.
AMST 3425American Material Culture (3)
This course will introduce you to the study of material culture, the physical stuff that is part of human life. Material culture includes everything we make and use, from food and clothing to art and buildings. This course is organized into six sections, the first introducing the idea of material culture, and the other five following the life cycle of an object: material, making, designing, selling, using.
Course was offered Spring 2019
AMST 3427Gender, Things, and Difference (3)
This class explores how material culture, the physical stuff that is part of human life, is used to help to construct and express gendered and other forms of difference. We will look at how bodies and clothes shape our understanding of our own and others' identities, how we imbue objects with gender, how the food we cook and eat carries cultural meanings, and how the design of buildings and spaces structures gender.
Course was offered Spring 2023, Spring 2021, Spring 2020
AMST 3460Reading America at Home and Abroad (3)
This course explores ideas of America, as they are constructed both at "home" in the United States, and "abroad," in and through a number of global locales. It considers a range of representations, in literature, art, film and music, and also the everyday life of American culture. In asking how America has seen itself and how others have seen America, we will effectively theorize the concepts of both nation and globality.
Course was offered Fall 2015
AMST 3463Language and New Media (3)
This course takes an interdisciplinary approach to the investigation of how language both shapes and is shaped by American society with a focus on New Media. Draws on critical and analytical tools and socio-cultural theories to examine this dynamic relationship in Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, texting, Instagram, YouTube, and more.
Course was offered Spring 2019
AMST 3465America and the Global South in Literature and Film (3)
Students in this course will examine and interpret conceptions of America from the point of view of novelists, filmmakers, journalists, and scholars in the Global South. American and Global South landscapes will be a focus of the class, as will images, artifacts, and material culture that reveal Global South views of the United States.
Course was offered Spring 2018
AMST 3470Race, Gender, and Empire: Cultures of US Imperialism (3)
In this course we emphasize how U.S. power has been exercised in the world with focus on intersections of cultural, political, and economic power. We analyze how power is produced and contested through language and media, and how hegemonic discourses -- the dominant and most powerful blocs defining U.S. society and empire -- are produced. We are equally concerned with cracks and contradictions in these discourses, and people who challenge them.
AMST 3471American Cinema (3)
This course provides an introduction to film studies through an examination of American film throughout the 20th & 21st centuries. We will learn basic film techniques for visual analysis, and consider the social, economic, and historical forces that have shaped the production, distribution & reception of film in the US Examples will be drawn from various genres: melodrama, horror, sci-fi, musical, Westerns, war films, documentary, animation, etc.
Course was offered Spring 2024, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
AMST 3491Rural Poverty in Our Time (3)
This course will use an interdisciplinary format and document based approach to explore the history of non-urban poverty in the US South from the 1930s to the present. Weaving together the social histories of poor people, the political history of poverty policies, and the history of representations of poverty, the course follows historical cycles of attention and neglect during the Great Depression, the War on Poverty, and the present.
AMST 3500Topics in American Studies (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
Topics vary according to instructor.
Course was offered Spring 2024, Fall 2021
AMST 3559New Course in American Studies (1 - 4)
Offered
Fall 2024
New Course in the subject of American Studies
AMST 3610Asian Americans & Popular Culture (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
Asian Americans and Popular Culture surveys a history of Asian American racialization, experiences, and subject formation in the United States through film, comics, TV, theatre, music, public protest, sports, and social media. Students will learn how to analyze and develop creative work to respond to and re/frame debates on the politics of representation, exoticization, cultural appropriation, transnationalism, hybridity, and US immigration laws.
AMST 3630Vietnam War in Literature and Film (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
In the US, Vietnam signifies not a country but a lasting syndrome that haunts American politics and society, from foreign policy to popular culture. But what of the millions of Southeast Asian refugees the War created? What are the lasting legacies of the Vietnam War for Southeast Asian diasporic communities? We will examine literature and film (fictional and documentary) made by and about Americans, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Laotians, and Hmong.
Course was offered Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021, Fall 2016
AMST 3641Native America (3)
This course will introduce students to deep history of Native North America. Using primary and secondary sources, we will cover such topics as mutually beneficial trade and diplomatic relations between Natives and newcomers; the politics of empire; U.S. expansion; treaties and land dispossession; ecological, demographic, and social change; pan-Indian movements; legal and political activism; and many, many others.
Course was offered Spring 2018, Spring 2015, Fall 2013
AMST 3710Mapping Black Landscapes (3)
Students will learn to use digital mapping and narratives as tools of reparative history. The class will partner with community organizations documenting Black history in Virginia. Students will do research in historical archives and public records; interview community members; and participate in field work. Readings will address ethical aspects of doing community history and explore approaches to the history of slavery and Reconstruction.
Course was offered Spring 2024
AMST 3740Cultures of Hip-Hop (3)
This course explores the origins and impacts of American hip-hop as a cultural form in the last forty years, and maps the ways that a local subculture born of an urban underclass has risen to become arguably the dominant form of 21st-century global popular culture. While primarily focused on music, we will also explore how forms such as dance, visual art, film, and literature have influenced and been influenced by hip-hop style and culture.
AMST 3790Moving On: Migration in/to the US (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
This class examines the history of voluntary, coerced, and forced migration in the U.S., tracing the paths of migrating groups and their impact on urban, suburban, and rural landscapes. We'll dig for cultural clues to changing attitudes about migration over time. Photographs, videos, books, movies, government records, poems, podcasts, paintings, comic strips, museums, manifestos: you name it, we'll analyze it for this class.
Course was offered Fall 2023, Fall 2022
AMST 3880Literature of the South (3)
Analyzes selected works of literature by major Southern writers. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.engl.virginia.edu/courses.
Course was offered Fall 2021, Fall 2020, Fall 2018, Fall 2017
AMST 4321Caribbean Latinx: Cuba, Puerto Rico and the DR (3)
In this course we will read texts by Latinx writers from Puerto Rico, Cuba and the Dominican Republic. We will explore how their works speak to issues of race, colonialism and imperialism based on their individual and shared histories. We will discuss their different political histories and migration experiences and how these in turn impact their literary and artistic productions in the US.
AMST 4351Aural Histories: Edison to Auto-Tune (3)
This is a course about the role of technology and technological innovation in the production and consumption of 20th and 21st century music. We will begin with the invention of the phonograph and the birth of the recording industry and continue up through the present day.
Course was offered Spring 2020
AMST 4401Literature of the Americas (3)
This course explores a wide range of (broadly defined) fictions from and about the Americas, from writings by Columbus and the conquistadors through modern and contemporary novels, novellas, and short stories. Students consider the intersection of fiction and history through topics that include New world "discovery" and conquest; borderlands and contact zones; slavery and revolution; and the haunting of the global present by the colonial past.
Course was offered Fall 2019, Fall 2017
AMST 4403Transamerican Encounters (3)
This comparative, interdisciplinary course focuses on the encounter between the U.S. and the wider Americas as represented in literature, history, and film. Working across a range of historical periods, it explores the varied international contexts underpinning narratives of U.S. national identity and history. It also considers how cultural forms access histories and perspectives outside of official accounts of the past and present.
AMST 4410Censorship (3)
This course examines the social, legal, aesthetic, and theoretical issues raised by censorship of art, mass media, literature, film, and music in the U.S. While censorship is usually associated with explicit sexuality, we will also look at cases involving racial stereotyping, violence, social disorder, and religion. Our cases will center around novels, art, film, music, mass media, and other cultural phenomena.
Course was offered Fall 2015
AMST 4430Documentary Film and the South (3)
This course explores how documentary filmmakers have represented the US South from the 1930s through the end of the twentieth century and the place of films made in and about the region in the history of documentary film. Students will conduct original research, shape their findings into paper, and make their own documentary short about a topic of their choosing.
AMST 4440Visions of Apocalypse in American Culture (3)
This course examines how Americans have envisioned the end of the world. Through religious and cultural history and contemporary cultural studies, it considers the ways social, political, and economic tensions are reflected in visions of the apocalypse. It explores the impact of imagined futures on previous generations, and how religious and secular ideologies of apocalypticism have shaped social movements, politics, and popular culture.
Course was offered Spring 2016
AMST 4462Harlem Stories (3)
Harlem has been many things to many people - capital of a global African diaspora, an early instance of Italian and Jewish immigrant communities, home to an important "el barrio," a representative site of contemporary gentrification and, above all, a place for racial and ethnic minoritization. This course will explore many of those lived and symbolic Harlems from the early twentieth century to the present.
Course was offered Fall 2022
AMST 4470American Film Noir (3)
This seminar examines the phenomenon of American Film Noir produced during the 1940s and 50s. Using urban culture to frame debates about films noir, it explores the ways in which "the city" is represented as a problematic subject and a frequent resource immediately before and after World War II. The course also discusses the influences of early twentieth-century photography, American Scene art, and Abstract Expressionist painting.
AMST 4472Hollywood Cinema's Golden Age: The 1930s (3)
This course examines American cinema produced in Hollywood during the 1930s. While the Great Depression serves as an important backdrop to our investigation, we will interrogate how issues such as ethnic/racial representation, shifting gender roles, sexuality, and urbanity are mediated in popular cinema in this decade. The course also considers the studio system, the Hayes Code, stardom, and changes within narrative and film techniques.
Course was offered Fall 2017
AMST 4474Stardom and American Cinema (3)
This course examines the role of stardom and star performance in American cinema from the silent era to the present. Using social history, cultural studies and film criticism theory, we will explore topics such as the cultural patterns of stardom, constructions and subversions of star identity, and the ways in which issues of race, class, gender, and sexuality affect the star image both inside and outside cinema.
AMST 4500Fourth-Year Seminar in American Studies (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
This seminar is intended to focus study, research, and discussion on a single period, topic, or issue, such as the Great Awakening, the Civil War, the Harlem Renaissance, the Great Depression, or the 1960s. Topics vary.
AMST 4559New Course in American Studies (1 - 4)
Offered
Fall 2024
New Course in the subject of American Studies.
AMST 4893Independent Study in Asian Pacific American Studies (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
An elective course for students in the Asian Pacific American Studies minor. Students will work with an APAS core faculty member to support the student's own research. Topics vary, and must be approved by the APAS Director. 
AMST 4993Independent Study (1 - 3)
Offered
Fall 2024
An elective course for American Studies majors who have completed AMST 3001-3002. Students will work with an American Studies faculty member to support the student's own research. Topics vary, and must be approved by the Program Director. Prerequisite: AMST 3001, 3002, Instructor Consent.
AMST 4998Distinguished Majors Program Thesis Research (3)
Students spend the fall semester of their 4th years working closely with a faculty advisor to conduct research and begin writing their Distinguished Majors Program (DMP) thesis.
AMST 4999Distinguished Majors Thesis Seminar (3)
This workshop is for American Studies majors who have been admitted to the DMP program. Students will discuss the progress of their own and each other's papers, with particular attention to the research and writing processes. At the instructor's discretion, students will also read key works in the field of American Studies. Prerequisites: admission to DMP.
AMST 5232Oral History Workshop: A Hands-On Approach to Researching the Past (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
The course is run as a workshop, a space for students to learn oral history methodologies in a hands-on manner. In partnership with local/regional organizations, students will learn to conduct interviews and related research, which may include completing historical surveys, doing genealogical work, & completing archival or database research. Students will learn new skills while helping expand historical archives and knowledge of regional history.
Course was offered Fall 2023
AMST 5500Graduate Topics in American Studies (3)
Various topics offered in American Studies at the graduate level
Course was offered Spring 2024
AMST 5559New Course in American Studies (1 - 4)
Offered
Fall 2024
New Course in the subject of American Studies.
Course was offered Spring 2023, Fall 2022, Spring 2020
AMST 5710Mapping Black Landscapes (3)
Students will hone their digital mapping and digital narrative skills and learn how to use them as tools of reparative history. The class will partner with community organizations documenting Black history. Students will do research in archives and public records; interview community members; and participate in fieldwork. In addition, students will do a focused set of readings by members of the Black Geographers movement.
Course was offered Spring 2024
AMST 7559New Courses in American Studies (3)
First and one-time graduate course offerings in American Studies.
AMST 8001Approaches to American Studies (3)
This course introduces graduate students to the field of American Studies, the interdisciplinary study of US culture. Students will be exposed to a variety of influential theoretical and methodological interventions that have occurred over the field's history, and will also be introduced to some of the principal intellectual, political, and professional issues they will face while pursuing a career in the field.
AMST 8570Studies in American Culture (3)
Topics vary from year to year
Course was offered Spring 2022
AMST 8993Independent Study in American Studies (1 - 3)
Offered
Fall 2024
A single semester of independent study under faculty supervision for students doing intensive research on a subject not covered in the usual courses. Requires approval by a faculty member who has agreed to supervise a guided course of reading and substantial written exercise, a detailed outline of the research project, and authorization by the Director of the AMST program.
Course was offered Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Fall 2019
Anthropology
ANTH 2153North American Indians (3)
Ethnological treatment of the aboriginal populations of the New World based on the findings of archaeology, ethnography, linguistics, biological anthropology, and social anthropology.
ANTH 2250Nationalism, Racism, Multiculturalism (3)
Introductory course in which the concepts of culture, multiculturalism, race, racism, and nationalism are critically examined in terms of how they are used and structure social relations in American society and, by comparison, how they are defined in other cultures throughout the world.
ANTH 2360Don Juan and Castaneda (3)
Analyzes the conceptual content in Castaneda's writings as an exploration of an exotic world view. Focuses on the concepts of power, transformation, and figure-ground reversal.
ANTH 2365Art and Anthropology (3)
The course emphasizes art in small-scale (contemporary) societies (sometimes called ethnic art or "primitive art"). It includes a survey of aesthetic productions of major areas throughout the world (Australia, Africa, Oceania, Native America, Meso-America). Included are such issues as art and cultural identity, tourist arts, anonymity, authenticity, the question of universal aesthetic cannons, exhibiting cultures,and the impact of globalization.
ANTH 2500Cultures, Regions, and Civilizations (3)
Intensive studies of particular world regions, societies, cultures, and civilizations.
ANTH 2560Hierarchy and Equality (3)
Provides an anthropological perspective on relations of inequality, subordination, and class in diverse societies, along with consideration of American ideas of egalitarianism, meritocracy, and individualism. Specific topics will be announced prior to each semester.
Course was offered Fall 2017, Fall 2016
ANTH 2589Topics in Archaeology (3)
Topics to be announced prior to each semester, dealing with archaeology.
ANTH 2590Social and Cultural Anthropology (3)
Topics to be announced prior to each semester, dealing with social and cultural anthropology.
ANTH 3155Anthropology of Everyday American Life (3)
Provides an anthropological perspective of modern American society. Traces the development of individualism through American historical and institutional development, using as primary sources of data religious movements, mythology as conveyed in historical writings, novels, and the cinema, and the creation of modern American urban life. Prerequisite: ANTH 1010 or instructor permission.
ANTH 3175Native American Art: The Astor Collection (3)
This is an upper-level anthropology course which is intended to engage students in the study of Native American art as well as the history and current debate over the representation of Native American culture and history in American museums. After a thorough review of the literature on those topics, the class focuses specifically on the Astor collection owned by the University of Virginia.
Course was offered Spring 2014, Spring 2012, Spring 2010
ANTH 3450Native American Languages (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
Introduces the native languages of North America and the methods that linguists and anthropologists use to record and analyze them. Examines the use of grammars, texts and dictionaries of individual languages and affords insight into the diversity among the languages.
ANTH 3603Archaeological Approaches to Atlantic Slavery (3)
This course explores how archaeological and architectural evidence can be used to enhance our understanding of the slave societies that evolved in the early-modern Atlantic world. The primary focus is the Chesapeake and the British Caribbean, the later exemplified by Jamaica and Nevis. The course is structured around a series of data-analysis projects that draw on the Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery (http://www.daacs.org).
Course was offered Fall 2017, Fall 2013, Fall 2010
ANTH 3830North American Archaeology (3)
Surveys the prehistoric occupations of several areas of North America emphasizing the eastern United States, the Plains, California, and the Southwest. Topics include the date of human migration into the New World, the economy and organization of early Paleo-Indian populations, and the evolution of organization and exchange systems.
Course was offered Fall 2017, Fall 2014, Fall 2012, Fall 2011
ANTH 3870Archaeology of Virginia (3)
Reviews the current state of archaeological and ethnohistoric research in Virginia. Emphasizes the history and culture of Native Americans in Virginia from the earliest paleoindian cultures to the period of European colonization.
ANTH 3890Archaeology of the American Southwest (3)
The northern section of the American Southwest offers one of the best contexts for examining the evolution of local and regional organization from the prehistoric to the historic period. Readings and discussion focus on both archaeological and ethnographic studies of the desert (Hohokam), mountain (Mogollon), and plateau (Anasazi/Pueblo) cultures.
ANTH 5885Archaeology of Colonial Expansions (3)
Exploration of the archaeology of frontiers, expansions and colonization, focusing on European expansion into Africa and the Americas while using other archaeologically-known examples (e.g., Roman, Bantu) as comparative studies. Prerequisite: For undergraduates, ANTH 4591 senior seminar or instructor permission.
Architectural History
ARH 3701Early American Architecture (3)
American architecture from the first European contact to the death of Jefferson. Lectures and field trips.
ARH 4500Special Topics in Architectural History (1 - 3)
Topical offerings in architectural history.
History of Art
ARTH 2471Art Since 1945 (3 - 4)
Surveys art production and theory in the U.S. and Europe since World War II. Relationships between artistic practice and critical theory are stressed in an examination of movements ranging from abstract expressionism to neo-geo.
ARTH 2745African American Art (3)
This course surveys the visual arts (painting, sculpture, photography, prints, mixed media and textiles) produced by those of African descent in the United States from the Colonial period to the present. Presented both chronologically and thematically, the class interrogates issues of artistic identity, gender, patronage and the aesthetic influences of the African Diaspora and European and Euro-American aesthetics on African American artists.
Course was offered Fall 2015, Fall 2012
ARTH 2751American Art to the Civil War (3 - 4)
This lecture course will examine the visual arts (painting, sculpture, photography, prints) of the United States from establishment of the nation to and through the Civil War. Particular attention will be paid to the cultural, political and social issues that provide a contextual framework for the interpretation and analysis of these works of art.
Course was offered Fall 2013
ARTH 2752America! Art, Identity, Politics (3 - 4)
This lecture course will examine the importance of identity and politics in the visual arts (painting, sculpture, photography, prints) of the United States from the Civil War to World War II. Particular attention will be paid to the cultural, political and social issues that frame the production and reception of images.
ARTH 2753Arts & Cultures of the Slave South (4)
This interdisciplinary course covers the American South to the Civil War. While the course centers on the visual arts 'architecture, material culture, decorative arts, painting, and sculpture' it is not designed as a regional history of art, but an exploration of the interrelations between history, material and visual cultures, foodways, music and literature in the formation of Southern identities.
Drama
DRAM 3070African-American Theatre (3)
Presents a comprehensive study of 'Black Theatre' as the African-American contribution to the theatre. Explores the historical, cultural, and socio-political underpinnings of this theatre as an artistic form in American and world culture. Students gain a broader understanding of the relationship and contributions of this theatre to theatre arts, business, education, lore, and humanity. A practical theatrical experience is a part of the course offering. Prerequisite: Instructor permission
DRAM 3600Modern American Drama (3)
Studies representative twentieth-century American dramas in the context of theatre history. Prerequisite: Instructor permission
DRAM 4559New Course in Drama (1 - 4)
New course in the subject of drama.
Course was offered Spring 2014, Fall 2013
English-Literature
ENGL 2504Major Authors of American Literature (3)
Studies major works in American literature before 1900. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.engl.virginia.edu/courses.
ENGL 2570Modern American Authors (3)
Surveys major American writers of the twentieth century. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.engl.virginia.edu/courses.
Course was offered Spring 2020
ENGL 2572Black Writers in America (3)
Topics in African-American writing in the US from its beginning in vernacular culture to the present day; topics vary from year to year. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.engl.virginia.edu/courses.
ENGL 2900Women and Media in the Global South (3)
This course examines women and media in the Middle East, South Asia, and North Africa through the lenses of new media, journalism, feminism, and gender studies, with cross-cultural comparisons to the U.S.
ENGL 3430American Literature to 1865 (3)
Surveys American literature from the Colonial Era to the Age of Emerson and Melville. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.engl.virginia.edu/courses.
Course was offered Spring 2020
ENGL 3434The American Renaissance (3)
Analyzes the major writings of Poe, Emerson, Hawthorne, Melville, Whitman, Thoreau, and Dickinson. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.engl.virginia.edu/courses.
ENGL 3436Sex and Sentiment (3)
Focuses on the rise of sentimental novels and sensational novels between the American Revolution and the Civil War. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.engl.virginia.edu/courses.
ENGL 3440African-American Literature I (3)
Analyzes the earliest examples of African-American literature, emphasizing African cultural themes and techniques that were transformed by the experience of slavery as that experience met European cultural and religious practices. Studies essays, speeches, pamphlets, poetry, and songs. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.engl.virginia.edu/courses.
ENGL 3545Studies in American Literature before 1900 (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
Topics vary. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.engl.virginia.edu/courses.
Course was offered Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2020, Fall 2019
ENGL 3570Studies in American Literature (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
Studies the work of one or two major authors. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.engl.virginia.edu/courses.
ENGL 3572Studies in African-American Literature and Culture (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
Intensive study of African-American writers and cultural figures in a diversity of genres. Includes artists from across the African diaspora in comparative American perspective. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.engl.virginia.edu/courses.
Course was offered Fall 2022, Fall 2021, Fall 2020, Fall 2019
ENGL 3645Musical Fictions (3)
Over the course of the semester, we will explore the genre of the contemporary musical novel in order to better understand why writers and readers are so intrigued by the figure of the musician as a literary trope. Pairing close listening and music theory with close readings of seminal blues, jazz, reggae, mambo, calypso and rock novels set in the US, UK, Jamaica, Trinidad, France and Germany.
ENGL 3671Modern Drama I (3)
A two-semester survey of European and American modern drama, with some attention to works from other regions. The first half covers the late nineteenth century to World War II; the second focuses on drama from the post-war period to the present. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.engl.virginia.edu/courses.
ENGL 3672Modern Drama II (3)
A two-semester survey of European and American modern drama, with some attention to works from other regions. The first half covers the late nineteenth century to World War II; the second focuses on drama from the post-war period to the present. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.engl.virginia.edu/courses.
ENGL 3701American Literature Since 1865 (3)
Surveys American literature, both prose and poetry, from the Civil War to the present. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.engl.virginia.edu/courses.
ENGL 3710Literature of the South (3)
Analyzes selected works of poetry and prose by major Southern writers. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.engl.virginia.edu/courses.
Course was offered Fall 2021, Fall 2020
ENGL 3722African-American Literature II (3)
Continuation of ENAM 3130, this course begins with the career of Richard Wright and brings the Afro-American literary and performing tradition up to the present day. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.engl.virginia.edu/courses.
ENGL 3730American Literature of the Twentieth Century (3)
Studies the major poetry and fiction. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.engl.virginia.edu/courses.
Course was offered Spring 2021
ENGL 3740Introduction to Asian American Studies (3)
An interdisciplinary introduction to the culture and history of Asians and Pacific Islanders in America. Examines ethnic communities such as Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Korean, Asian Indian, and Native Hawaiian, through themes such as immigration, labor, cultural production, war, assimilation, and politics. Texts are drawn from genres such as legal cases, short fiction, musicals, documentaries, visual art, and drama. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.engl.virginia.edu/courses.
ENGL 3760American Poetry (3)
Studies theme and technique in major American poets. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.engl.virginia.edu/courses.
ENGL 3762Major African-American Poets (3)
Examines poems representative of the African American literary traditions. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.engl.virginia.edu/courses.
ENGL 3780Faulkner (3)
An intensive study of the works of William Faulkner in the contexts of American literature, southern literature, and international modernism.
ENGL 3783American Short Novel (3)
Examines American short novels since 1840 by such authors as Poe, Melville, James, Jewett, Crane, Larsen, Faulkner, Reed, MacLean, Auster, and Chang. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.engl.virginia.edu/courses.
Course was offered Spring 2022
ENGL 3924Vietnam War in Literature and Film (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
In the US, "Vietnam" signifies not a country but a lasting syndrome that haunts American politics and society, from foreign policy to popular culture. But what of the millions of Southeast Asian refugees the War created? What are the lasting legacies of the Vietnam War for Southeast Asian diasporic communities? We will examine literature and film (fictional and documentary) made by and about Americans, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Laotians, and Hmong.
Course was offered Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
ENGL 4500Seminar in English Literature (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
Limited enrollment. Topics vary. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.engl.virginia.edu/courses.
ENGL 4560Seminar in Modern and Contemporary Literature (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
Limited enrollment. Topics vary from year to year. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.engl.virginia.edu/courses.
ENGL 4570Seminar in American Literature since 1900 (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
Limited enrollment. Topics vary from year to year. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.engl.virginia.edu/courses.
ENGL 4710Fictions of Black Identity (3)
This class will examine novels, essays, critical works that address the meanings of blackness in an American context. We will explore the notion that Black identity is a fiction, not necessarily in the sense of falsity, but in its highly mediated, flexible, and variable condition. Among the questions to consider: how does one make and measure Black identity? What is the value of racial masquerade? For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.engl.virginia.edu/courses. Prerequisite: third year, fourth year, AAS or English major or minor.
ENGL 4720Black Speculative Fiction (3)
This course seeks to explore the world of African American 'speculative' fiction. This genre of writing largely includes science fiction, fantasy fiction, and horror. In this class, we will read, watch, and discuss narratives by black writers of speculative fiction to better understand the motivation, tone, and agenda in the work of black writers. We will also consider the role of black culture and representation in the larger field. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.engl.virginia.edu/courses. Prerequisite: third year, fourth year, English major or minor, AAS major or minor.
ENGL 5700Contemporary African-American Literature (3)
This course for advanced undergraduates and master's-level graduate students surveys African-American literature today. Assignments include works by Evreett, Edward Jones, Tayari Jones, Evans, Ward, Rabateau, and Morrison
Enviromental Thought and Practice
ETP 4810Class Race & the Environment (3)
Focuses on the intersections among class, race and the environment. The course goals are to achieve an understanding of central environmental policy issues, to consider what 'class' and 'race' mean, and to examine the distribution of environmental hazards across people of different classes and races. (Cross listed with PLAP 4810)
History-African History
HIAF 4501Seminar in African History (4)
The major seminar is a small class (not more than 15 students) intended primarily but not exclusively for history majors who have completed two or more courses relevant to the topic of the seminar. Seminar work results primarily in the preparation of a substantial (ca. 25 pp. in standard format) research paper. Some restrictions and prerequisites apply to enrollment. See a history advisor or the director of undergraduate studies.
History-European History
HIEU 2102Modern Jewish History (3)
Survey of Jewish history from the seventeenth century to the present, primarily in Europe, but with further treatment of Jewish life in the U.S. and Israel. Major topics include Jewish historical consciousness; patterns of emancipation; religious adjustment; the role of women; anti-Semitism; Zionism; the American Jewish experience; the Holocaust; the establishment of Israel; and Jewish life in Europe after the Holocaust.
History-Latin American History
HILA 2001Colonial Latin America, 1500-1824 (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
Introduces major developments and issues in the study of Latin American history from Native American societies on the eve of the Spanish Conquest to the wars of national independence in the early 19th century.
HILA 2002Modern Latin America, 1824 to Present (3)
Introduces the history of Latin America from national independence in the early 19th century to the present.
HILA 3051Modern Central America (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
Studies the history of Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, and El Salvador from 19th century fragmentation, oligarchic, foreign, and military rule, to the emergence of popular nationalisms.
HILA 3061History of Modern Brazil (3)
Explores Brazilian history from Independence to the present day. Through an interdisciplinary and comparative approach, the course examines the legacy of slavery, the importance of popular culture, and debates over national identity in the making of a distinctively ambiguous Brazilian 'modernity,' broadly understood.
HILA 3071History of Colonial Brazil (3)
This three-hundred level class will provide students from the History department with the intellectual tools to understand the History of early Brazil in a comparative and transnational way. The class places Brazil in the broader context of Atlantic, underlining contacts with Africa and establishing comparisons with other colonial experiences throughout the Atlantic from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries.
Course was offered Spring 2011
HILA 3111Public Life in Modern Latin America (3)
Introduces the forces shaping the emerging nations of Latin America since independence, emphasizing the dynamic reproduction of hierarchies that correspond to the patrimonial, aristocratic, and populist legitimization of social, cultural, and political relations in city life.
HILA 4501Seminar in Latin American History (4)
The major seminar is a small class (not more than 15 students) intended primarily but not exclusively for history majors who have completed two or more courses relevant to the topic of the seminar. Seminar work results primarily in the preparation of substantial (ca. 25 pp. in standard format) research paper. Some restrictions and prerequisites apply to enrollment. See a history advisor or the director of undergraduate studies.
HILA 4511Colloquium in Latin American History (4)
The major colloquium is a small class (not more than 15 students) intended primarily but not exclusively for history majors who have completed two or more courses relevant to the topic of the colloquium. Colloquia are most frequently offered in areas of history where access to source materials or linguistic demands make seminars especially difficult. Students in colloquia prepare about 25 pages of written work distributed among various assignments. Some restrictions and prerequisites apply to enrollment. See a history advisor or the director of undergraduate studies.
History-General History
HIST 3162War and Society in the Twentieth Century (3)
This class will explore the impact of war upon society during the twentieth century, including World Wars I and II; conflicts in Korea and Vietnam; wars of national liberation and decolonization; and small-scale 'counter-insurgency' conflicts. Topics covered include: popular mobilization for war;civil liberties in wartime; civilian casualties; the ethics of violence; genocide; technology; and cultural production in wartime societies.
HIST 3201History, Museums, and Interpretation (3)
Overview of the issues and challenges involved in historical interpretation at public history sites, primarily in the United States. Includes a review of general literature on public history, exploration of diverse sources frequently used, and analysis of some recent public history controversies.
HIST 5920History of Documentary Photography (3)
Examines the history of documentary photography, the work of some of the most significant documentary photographers of the past and the present, and the ethical and theoretical issues which surround documentary practice.
History-United States History
HIUS 1501Introductory Seminar in U.S. History (3)
Introduces the study of history intended for first- or second-year students. Seminars involve reading, discussing, and writing about different historical topics and periods, and emphasize the enhancement of critical and communication skills. Several seminars are offered each term. Not more than two Introductory Seminars may be counted toward the major in history.
HIUS 1559New Course in United States History (1 - 4)
This course provides the opportunity to offer a new topic in the subject area of United States history.
Course was offered Fall 2017
HIUS 2001American History to 1865 (3)
Studies the development of the colonies and their institutions, the Revolution, the formation and organization of the Republic, and the coming of the Civil War.
HIUS 2002American History Since 1865 (4)
Studies the evolution of political, social, and cultural history of the United States from 1865 to the present.
HIUS 2003Slavery and Freedom at UVA and in Virginia: History and Legacies (3)
This course examines the history of slavery and its legacies at UVA and in the region, recovering the experiences of enslaved individuals and their roles in building/maintaining the university, & contextualizing those experiences within U.S. history. It also puts that history into political context, tracing the rise of sectional tensions, secession, the advent of emancipation, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, desegregation, and civil rights change.
Course was offered Fall 2019, Fall 2018
HIUS 2051War and the Making of America to 1900 (3)
This course examines warfare and military developments in America from the colonial period to 1900. Major topics include debates over the role of the military in society; the motivations and experiences of soldiers; interaction between the military and civilian spheres; the development of a professional army and navy; and the social and cultural context, impact, and legacies of warfare.
HIUS 2052America and War Since 1900 (3)
This is a course on war and the American experience during the last century-plus. It is a sequel to HIUS 2051, which covers U.S. military history from 1600 to 1900. This part of the course includes the how and why of traditional military history but goes further, tackling issues in intelligence or technology or economics -- from the rise of intelligence agencies to the growth of a military-industrial complex.
Course was offered Fall 2019, Fall 2018, Fall 2017, Fall 2016
HIUS 2053American Slavery (3)
This course will introduce students to the history of slavery in the United Sates.
HIUS 2061American Economic History (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
Studies American economic history from its colonial origins to the present. Cross-listed as ECON 2060.
HIUS 2071American Power and Energies - A History of the United States (3)
America today is a high-energy society. For over a century, the United States has also wielded vast economic, political, and military power. How do energy sources relate to social, corporate, or political power? This course examines that question across the history of the United States. It draws from political, business, technological, and environmental history to chart the growth, effects, and limits of power in its varied forms.
HIUS 2101Technologies of American Life (3)
From Thomas Edison to Elon Musk, we've all heard stories of heroic inventors. In this course you'll explore a different history of technology: how it's shaped the ordinary lives of Americans, and how ordinary Americans shaped our common technologies. By viewing technology from the bottom-up, you'll learn how to question and challenge the powerful stories about technology that surround us today.
Course was offered Spring 2024, Spring 2022
HIUS 2201US Immigration Law and Policy in Historical Perspective (3)
This course will trace the origins of today's immigration policy debates by providing students with a comprehensive overview of American immigration law and policy from the eighteenth century to the present. The course will also explore how state and federal policies impacted a wide array of immigrants, including the Irish, Chinese, and Mexican arrivals of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Course was offered Spring 2024
HIUS 2401History of American Catholicism (3)
Historical survey of American Catholicism from its colonial beginnings to the present. Cross-listed as RELC 2401.
Course was offered Fall 2015, Fall 2014, Fall 2011, Fall 2010
HIUS 2559New Course in United States History (1 - 4)
Offered
Fall 2024
This course provides the opportunity to offer a new topic in the subject area of United States history.
HIUS 2711American Environmental History (3)
Explores the historical relationship between people and the environment in North America from colonial times to the present. Topics include the role of culture, economics, politics, and technology in that relationship. Cross-listed as STS 2060. Prerequisite: First-year writing course (e.g., STS 1010, ENWR 1510).
HIUS 3011Colonial British America (3)
This course tells the story of British America from an Atlantic perspective. The thirteen colonies that formed the United States were once part of a larger empire that spanned eastern North America and the Caribbean. From 1500 to 1800, cross-cultural encounters among Africans, Native Americans, and Europeans created a dynamic new world. Key topics trade, religion, agriculture, slavery, warfare, and the origins of the American Revolution.
HIUS 3012War and Empire in Colonial America (3)
This course examines colonial American warfare, imperial competition, and encounters with Native Americans with a special focus on historical geography and the history of cartography. We will debate ethical question relating to the expansion of European empires in North America and the Caribbean, including Indian land rights, the costs of slavery, the deportation of populations in wartime, and justifications for the American Revolution.
HIUS 3031The Era of the American Revolution (3)
Studies the growth of ideas and institutions that led to American independence, the creation of a union, and a distinct culture.
HIUS 3051The Age of Jefferson (3)
This course uses Thomas Jefferson as a lens to explore the post revolutionary era in the United States (ca. 1776-1830), with a focus on race and slavery, trans-nationalism, imperialism, and legal/constitutional developments.
HIUS 3071The Coming of the Civil War (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
Examines the period from roughly 1815 to 1861 focusing on the interaction between the developing sectional conflict and the evolving political system, with the view of explaining what caused the Civil War.
HIUS 3072The Civil War and Reconstruction (3)
Examines the course of the Civil War and Reconstruction in detail and attempts to assess their impact on 19th century American society, both in the North and in the South.
HIUS 3081History of the American Deaf Community (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
This new course will examine the history of deaf people in the United States over the last three centuries, with particular attention to the emergence and evolution of a community of Deaf people who share a distinct sign language and culture. We will read both primary texts from specific periods and secondary sources. We will also view a few historical films. Prerequisite: none (though a previous class in History or ASL is recommended)
HIUS 3131From Lincoln to Roosevelt: America in the Gilded Age (3)
Analyzes the distinct characteristics of American modernity as they emerge in the period from the end of reconstruction to the Great Depression. Explores the creation of big business and large-scale bureaucratic organizations. Includes the first military-industrial complex of World War I, the invention of R & D, the growth of research universities, and the modern organization of knowledge. Describes the landscape of new large urban hinterlands; analyzes the difficult encounters of class, ethnicity, race, and gender both at home and at work; and studies the changing leisure patterns of a consumer culture.
HIUS 3132Race, Gender, and Empire: Cultures of U.S. Imperialism (3)
In this course we emphasize how U.S. power has been exercised in the world with focus on intersections of cultural, political, and economic power. We analyze how power is produced and contested through language and media, and how hegemonic discourses -- the dominant and most powerful blocs defining U.S. society and empire -- are produced. We are equally concerned with cracks and contradictions in these discourses, and people who challenge them.
HIUS 3141Civil Society in Twentieth Century U.S. (3)
Tocqueville famously described the U.S. of the 1830s as a society of voluntary associaitons in a weak state. In the 21st century, commentators point instead to the weight of big government. How did a diverse American civil society of associations, churches, noprofit organizations, and philanthropic institutions approach the great conflicts of the twentieth century at home and abroad? What kind of partnership with government did they have?
Course was offered Spring 2012, Fall 2010
HIUS 3142Viewing the South (3)
History is the study of change over time. This course will examine the ways popular culture -movies, television, and fiction writing- depicting the American South have changed over time. Because this course will emphasize images the course is called "Viewing the South." Each week the class will screen assigned films, read works of short fiction and of cultural history, and write short essays. There will be a essay-type final exam.
Course was offered Summer 2018
HIUS 3150Salem Witch Trials: History and Literature (3)
The seminar will examine the historical scholarship, literary fiction, and primary source materials relating to the infamous Salem witch trials of 1692 and enable students to work with all the original sources. Prerequisites: Restricted to Religious Studies, American Studies, English, SWAG, and History Majors.
HIUS 3151Modernizing, Moralizing and Mass Politics: US, 1900-1945 (3)
The development of modern America is explored by considering the growing interdependence between its politics, economy, culture, and social structure in the first half of the 20th century.
HIUS 3161Viewing America, 1940 to 1980 (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
Built around news reels, photographs, television, films, and reviews, this course explores how Americans viewed some of the major events and trends in the post-war period.
HIUS 3162Digitizing America (3)
This class will explore the history of the United States from 1980 to the present through the lens of the information revolution that occurred during this period. We will examine the origins of the technological changes like the mainframe computer, merged media, the emergence of the internet, and the impact that they had on the economy, politics and social interaction.
HIUS 3171US Since 1945: People, Politics, Power (3)
Surveys post World War II U.S. politics uncovering the links between long range social and economic phenomenon (suburbanization, decline of agricultural employment, the rise and fall of the labor movement, black urbanization and proletarianization, economic society and insecurity within the middle class, the changing structure of multinational business) and the more obvious political movements, election results, and state policies of the last half century.
HIUS 3172America in Vietnam (3)
This course will cover the history of American involvement in Vietnam from 1945 through 1975. It will offer a detailed study of U.S. political, economic, cultural, and military policy through a wide range of scholarship on the U.S. engagement with Vietnam, focusing on the war's impact in Southeast Asia and in the United States.
HIUS 3173The Vietnam War in American Film (3)
This course will examine landmark films on the Vietnam War from the 1960s through the present. Lectures and discussion focusing on between 8 and 10 films, which students will watch as part of class, will explore the history and themes depicted in these films, highlighting directorial viewpoints, the contexts in which the films were produced and received, their historical accuracy, and their impact on the legacy of the war in American culture.
HIUS 3191American Jewish History (3)
This course examines the 350-year history of the Jewish people in colonial North American and the United States. It surveys the social, religious, cultural, and political life of Jews and the comparative dimension with other minority groups and Jewish communities across the world.
Course was offered Fall 2020, Summer 2020
HIUS 3221Hands-On Public History (3)
This course introduces the issues and debates that have shaped public history as a scholarly discipline, but the focus of the course will be on the contemporary practice of public history. Students will all be awarded internships at local or regional historic sites, archives, museums, and databases for the duration of the semester. Readings and field trips will provide a foundation for students' hands-on engagement with public history.
Course was offered Spring 2016
HIUS 3231Rise and Fall of the Slave South (3)
A history of the American South from the arrival of the first English settlers through the end of Reconstruction in 1877. Cross-listed with AAS 3231. 
HIUS 3232The South in the Twentieth Century (3)
Studies the history of the South from 1900 to the present focusing on class structure, race relations, cultural traditions, and the question of southern identity.
HIUS 3261History of the American West (3)
The course examines the relationships of environment and culture and of native and settler peoples in transforming North America west of the Mississippi River, 1750 to present. We will explore the expansion of the United States; its environmental consequences; and the emergence of a mythic culture casting violence as heroic.
Course was offered Spring 2024, Spring 2022, Spring 2020
HIUS 3262Witnessing Slavery: Interpreting Slave Testimony in U.S. History (3)
Course examines the history of slaves and slavery in 18th and 19th century America as revealed by the testimony of slaves themselves. We will study the important roles slavery and changing notions of race have played in U.S. history, the enduring legacy of African culture , the dynamic agency of African Americans in the face of racism and violence, and how they developed their own notions of work, family, culture, community, and power.
Course was offered Spring 2014
HIUS 3281Virginia History to 1900 (3)
A survey that studies the development of Virginia institutions from colonial times to the Gilded Age, emphasizing the decades before and immediately following the Civil War.
HIUS 3282History of Virginia, 1900 to 2018 (3)
History is the study of continuity and changes over time. This course will examine social, political, and economic continuities and changes in Virginia from 1900 to 2018.
HIUS 3301The History of UVa in the Twentieth Century (3)
Studies the local, regional, and national trends effecting higher education, relating these trends specifically to the University of Virginia. Students are active participants in recovering the institution's history through oral interviews with alumni, faculty, and administrators and through serious archival work.
Course was offered Spring 2012
HIUS 3401Development of American Science (3)
Studies the history of the development of American science from the colonial period to the present, emphasizing the process of the professionalization of American science and on the relationships between the emergent scientific community and such concerns as higher education and the government.
Course was offered Spring 2015, Spring 2014
HIUS 3411American Business (3)
Surveys the rise of the modern corporate form of American business and an analysis of the underlying factors which shaped that development.
HIUS 3451History of Urban America (3)
Studies the evolution of the American city from colonial times to the end of the nineteenth century. Emphasizes both the physical growth of the system of cities and the development of an urban culture, including comparisons with European and Asian cities.
HIUS 3455History of U.S. Foreign Relations to 1914 (3)
Studies American foreign relations from colonial times to 1914.
HIUS 3456America in the World since 1914 (3)
Studies American foreign relations from 1914 to the present.
HIUS 3471History of American Labor (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
Surveys American labor in terms of the changing nature of work and its effect on working men, women, and children. Emphasizes social and cultural responses to such changes, as well as the organized labor movement.
HIUS 3481American Social History to 1870 (3)
Topics include demographic change, the emergence of regional social orders, the shaping of American religion, the impact of the industrial revolution, and the development of important elites.
HIUS 3482United States Social History Since 1870 (3)
Topics include the development of a predominantly urban society, with particular emphasis on sources of stability, class and stratification, ethnic patterns, religious identities, social elites, and education.
HIUS 3490From Motown to Hip-Hop (3)
This survey traces the history of African American popular music from the late 1950s to the current era. It examines the major sonic innovations in the genres of soul, funk, and hip-hop over the course of the semester, students will examine how musical expression has provided black women and men with an outlet for individual expression, community building, sexual pleasure, political organizing, economic uplift, and interracial interaction
HIUS 3491Rural Poverty in Our Time (3)
This course will use an interdisciplinary format and document based approach to explore the history of non-urban poverty in the US South from the 1930s to the present. Weaving together the social histories of poor people, the political history of poverty policies, and the history of representations of poverty, the course follows historical cycles of attention and neglect during the Great Depression, the War on Poverty, and the present.
HIUS 3501Introductory History Workshop (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
Required for history majors, to be completed before enrollment in the Major Seminar. Introduces a variety of approaches to the study of history, methods for finding and analyzing primary and secondary sources, and the construction of historical arguments. Workshops are offered on a variety of topics each term.
HIUS 3523Disco and Disillusionment: The United States in the 1970s (3)
This lecture provides both a chronological and thematic approach to the history of 1970s America. Class will focus on significant shifts in American politics, culture, and society. The course will encourage us to think more deeply about the fate of liberalism in post-1960s America, the rise of ethnic identity and its impact on the rights revolution, gender and the politics of sexuality, religion and the rise of the South, Nixon and Watergate.
Course was offered Spring 2019
HIUS 3559New Course in United States History (3)
This course provides the opportunity to offer a new topic in the subject area of United States history.
HIUS 3611Gender & Sexuality in AM, 1600-1865 (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
Studies the evolution of women's roles in American society with particular attention to the experiences of women of different races, classes, and ethnic groups.
HIUS 3612Gender & Sexuality in America, 1865 to Present (3)
Studies the evolution of women's roles in American society with particular attention to the experiences of women of different races, classes, and ethnic groups.
HIUS 3620All Politics is Local (3)
The history of local government and local politics in shaping American life. Course examines issues, themes, and problems of local democracy in historical and contemporary contexts. Class meetings combine lectures and discussions. Course includes local civic engagement component.
Course was offered Spring 2024
HIUS 3621Coming of Age in America: A History of Youth (3)
This course will explore the historical experience of young people and the meaning of youth from the colonial period to the late twentieth century. We will analyze how shifting social relations and cultural understandings changed what it meant to grow up. Topics to be explored include work, family, sexuality, education, political involvement, and popular culture.
HIUS 3641American Indian History (3)
From the post-Ice Age migrations to the Americas to current developments in tribal sovereignty, this survey course will include such topics as mutually beneficial trade and diplomatic relations between Natives and newcomers; the politics of empire; U.S. expansion; treaties and land dispossession; ecological, demographic, and social change; pan-Indian movements; and legal and political activism. 
Course was offered Spring 2018, Spring 2015, Fall 2013
HIUS 3651Afro-American History to 1865 (3)
Studies the history of black Americans from the introduction of slavery in America to the end of the Civil War.
HIUS 3652Afro-American History since 1865 (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
Studies the history of black Americans from the Civil War to the present.
HIUS 3654Black Fire (3)
This course examines the history and contemporary experiences of African Americans at the University of Virginia from the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to the present era.
HIUS 3671African American Freedom Movement, c 1945-Present (3)
This course examines the history and legacy of the African American struggle for civil rights in twentieth century America. It provides students with a broad overview of the civil rights movement -- the key issues, significant people and organizations, and pivotal events -- as well as a deeper understanding of its scope, influence, legacy, and lessons for today
HIUS 3752The History of Early American Law (3)
Studies the major developments in American law, politics, and society from the colonial settlements to the Civil War. Focuses on legal change, constitutional law, legislation, and the common law from 1776 to 1860.
HIUS 3753The History of Modern American Law (3)
Studies the major developments in American law, politics, and society from the era of Reconstruction to the recent past. Focuses on legal change as well as constitutional law, legislation, and the common law.
HIUS 3756American Legal Thought since 1880 (3)
A survey of American legal thought from Holmes to Posner. Emphasizes theories of property, contract, tort, corporations and administrative law in Legal Realism, Legal Process Jurisprudence, Law and Economics, and Critical Legal Studies.
Course was offered Spring 2014
HIUS 3851Intellectual and Cultural History of the United States to 1865 (3)
Analyzes the traditions of thought and belief in relation to significant historical events and cultural changes from the 17th century to the Civil War.
Course was offered Spring 2012, Spring 2011
HIUS 3852Intellectual and Cultural History of the United States since 1865 (3)
Analyzes the main traditions of thought and belief in the relationship to significant historical events and cultural changes from the Civil War to the present.
HIUS 3853From Redlined to Subprime: Race and Real Estate in the US (3)
This course examines the history of housing and real estate and explores its role in shaping the meaning and lived experience of race in modern America. We will learn how and why real estate ownership, investment, and development came to play a critical role in the formation and endurance of racial segregation, modern capitalism, and the built environment.
HIUS 4160History Behind the Headlines (4)
This course takes advantage of the nationally known academic experts, journalists, and policy-makers who come through UVa's Miller Center of Public Affairs each week. Based on the work of these visiting scholars, students will consider the historical background of some of our most pressing policy and public affairs issues. Assignments will include extensive weekly readings, a few short op-eds, and a lengthy original research essay.
Course was offered Spring 2014, Spring 2013, Spring 2012
HIUS 4260Voices of the Civil War (3)
This course uses the writings of participants to examine major themes relating to the American Civil War. Assigned texts will illuminate, among other topics: (1) Why the war came; (2) How it evolved from a struggle for Union to one for Union and emancipation; (3) How the conflict affected civilians on both sides; (4) Why soldiers fought; and (5) How men and women on each side remembered the war and how those memories influence current perceptions.
Course was offered Spring 2018
HIUS 4501Seminar in United States History (4)
Offered
Fall 2024
The major seminar is a small class (not more than 15 students) intended primarily but not exclusively for history majors who have completed two or more courses relevant to the topic of the seminar. The work of the seminar results primarily in the preparation of a substantial (ca. 25 pp. in standard format) research paper. Some restrictions and prerequisites apply to enrollment. See a history advisor or the director of undergraduate studies.
HIUS 4511Colloquium in United States History (4)
The major colloquium is a small class (not more than 15 students) intended primarily but not exclusively for history majors who have completed two or more courses relevant to the topic of the colloquium. Colloquia are most frequently offered in areas of history where access to source materials or linguistic demands make seminars especially difficult. Students in colloquia prepare about 25 pages of written work distributed among various assignments. Some restrictions and prerequisites apply to enrollment. See a history advisor or the director of undergraduate studies.
Course was offered Fall 2023, Fall 2020
HIUS 4559New Course in United States History (1 - 4)
Offered
Fall 2024
This course provides the opportunity to offer a new topic in the subject area of United States history.
HIUS 4591Topics in United States History (3)
Topics courses are small, discussion-oriented classes available to any student with sufficient background and interest in a particular field of historical study. Offered irregularly, they are open to majors or non-majors on an equal basis.
HIUS 4993Independent Study in United States History (1 - 3)
In exceptional circumstances and with permission of a faculty member any student may undertake a rigorous program of independent study designed to explore a subject not currently being taught or to expand upon regular offerings. Independent Study projects may not be used to replace regularly scheduled classes. Enrollment is open to majors or non-majors. Note: These courses are open only to Human Biology majors.
HIUS 5000African-American History to 1877 (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
This course will introduce graduate students to the differing interpretations, methodologies, and analyses of African-American History to 1877.
Course was offered Fall 2021, Spring 2020
HIUS 5022Economic Culture in Early America (3)
This discussion-based colloquium, open to advanced undergraduate and graduate students, examines economic life in colonial and Revolutionary America. Our readings--on topics that include market agriculture, transatlantic commerce, and the slave trade--will features works of history that describe economic behaviors and, at the same time, interpret production, trade, and consumption in cultural terms.
Course was offered Spring 2016
HIUS 5081Turning Points in U.S. History: Micro-Analytic Methods (3)
The course has two main objects. The first is to linger over several turning points in the history of the United States. The second is work on `micro-analytic' methods to use in studying such critical episodes.
HIUS 5232Oral History Workshop: A Hands-On Approach to Researching the Past (3)
The course is run as a workshop, a space for students to learn oral history methodologies in a hands-on manner. In partnership with local/regional organizations, students will learn to conduct interviews and related research, which may include completing historical surveys, doing genealogical work, & completing archival or database research. Students will learn new skills while helping expand historical archives and knowledge of regional history.
Course was offered Fall 2023
HIUS 5559New Course in United States History (1 - 4)
This course provides the opportunity to offer a new topic in the subject area of United States history.
HIUS 6010Settlement of Am West, ca 1848-1900 (1)
This course will examine the settling of the American West. Roughly 5 decades the course covers are some of the most turbulent in Am History-the Civil War, Indian Wars, and coming of railroads and millions pouring into land across the Mississippi.
Course was offered Spring 2011
HIUS 6011Learning History (1)
This course is the 2nd in a series which will explore what it means to be a teacher leader in history education. There are 3 goals 1) planning and implementation successful history learning experiences, 2) continuing conversation about sharing effective instructional approaches, 3) introduction to observing instruction/reflecting on instruction.
Course was offered Summer 2011
HIUS 6012Responding to Crises of Modernity: the US in the Progressive Era (1)
This course will explore how industrilization, urbanization, immigration, and technological changes of the late 19th and early 205h centruies led to a strong and diverse wave of reform in the roughly 2 decades preceding US entry into WWI. This course is restricted to Center for the Liberal Arts students.
HIUS 6014The Progressive Era, the New Deal and the Transformation of American Democ (1)
This course will explore the first 4 decades of the 20th centruy, when a diverse array of government officials, academics, social activitists, and crusading journalists instigated changes in the ideas, institutions, and policies that shaped American politics
Course was offered Spring 2013
HIUS 6015Leadership in History (1)
This course is the third in a series that will explore what it means to be a teacher leader in history education
HIUS 6016Hearing the Civil Rights Movement (1)
This course explores key moments in the civil rights movement through sound and film recordings, related to them.
HIUS 6017The Other Liberalism: The United States in Vietnam (1)
This course will cover the history of American involvement in Vietnam from 1945 thru 1975
HIUS 6018America and the Sixties (1)
This course will address those events and people crucial to understanding 1960's America. From the promise of a Kennedy presidency to the Great Society of Lyndon B. Johnson to the quagmire of the Vietnam War, participants will consider not only American participation in Vietnam, but the impetus behind the war to eradicate poverty, and the important people, orgs, and battles in the cursade to end racial and social injustice.
HIUS 6019The Paradox of Prosperity (1)
This course will explore how the growth of America into a dynamic nation was fraught with paradoxes and how paradox ironically inspired Americans from a variety of fields and walks of life to believe they could meet and conquer any challenge which might emerege.
HIUS 6029Cold War Battle for Hearts and Minds (1)
The seminar will explore the internationa, intellectual, idealogical and cultural aspects of superpower struggle that consumed much of the 20th Century. It will trace East-West competition from roots to WWII and extends study past 1991 into Cold War World.
Course was offered Spring 2011
HIUS 6030Voices of the Civil Rights Movement (1)
Explores key moments in Civil Rights Movement thru sounds and fil recording related to them. Among topcs are rhetoric of Rev King Jr. residencies of Kennety, Johnson and Nixon and reaction from the White House to severl civil rights crises.
Course was offered Spring 2011
HIUS 6031The Origins of the US Welfare State (1)
Explore emergence and development of U.S. welfare state. Assess meaning of term "welfare state" in an American context: what counts as part of the welfare state, who is included in its benefits, and what rights--and obligations--does it suggest?
HIUS 6032Methods Teaching (1)
Provides teachers with overview of effective approaches to planning and implementing successful history learning experiences for students. Emphasis will be placed on exploring the relationship between educational theory and development of practical teaching techniques for every day use in the classroom.
Course was offered Summer 2011
HIUS 6033Collaboration and Identity in Early America (1)
Participants will study the question of America from the founding and through the legacy of Jamestown and examine the collaborative effort that went into the formulation of America's founding documents, the Declaration of Independence and Constitution.
Course was offered Summer 2011
HIUS 6034Meeting Challenges of World History Survey (1)
This short course will alert teachers of social studies in all grades to resources and approaches on which they might draw, considered in context of the intellectual challenges of transcending the, inevitably modern (and thus implicity euro-centric) approaches to the subject that will prevail in available materials.
HIUS 6035The Progressive Era and the Reform Impulse (1)
This course will explore how the Progressive Era brought together diverse groups of people who sought to address and redeem the injustices of the Gilded Age and reform an America that marginalized many of its citizens, including, women, blacks, and the poor.
HIUS 6036Methods Course in Teaching History (1)
This class provides teachers with an overview of effective approaches to planning and implementing successful history learning experiences for students. Emphasis will be placed on exploring the relationship between educational theory and the development of practical teaching techniques for every day use in the history classroom.
HIUS 6037Methods Course in Teaching History (1)
This class provides teachers with an overview of effective approaches to planning and implementing successful history learning experiences for students. Emphasis will be placed on exploring the relationship between educational theory and the development of practical teaching techniques for every day use in the history classroom.
HIUS 6038The Executive Branch and National Policy (1)
This course will explore the impact of the executive branch on domestic and foreign policy making in the United States with an emphasis on developments during 1960s. It will focus on a range of topics, including health, care, civil rights and the war in Vietnam. In addition to exploring executive policy making in these areas, it will also address interactions between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches.
HIUS 6175Law in American History: The Twentieth Century (3)
A survey of law in American history in the twentieth century. Some topics to be covered include jurisprudence and legal education from Legal Realism through "aw and"; regimes of mass media law; the emergence of administrative law; and several chapters on constitutional jurisprudence from 1930 to 2000, including foreign relations, equal protection, free speech, and due process.
HIUS 6240Constitutional Law II: Poverty (3)
This course will explore the Supreme Court's flirtation with constitutional protection for poor people during the 1960s and 1970s. We will place the Court's efforts in the context of the civil rights movement and ongoing concerns about race. Finally, we will discuss the demise of such protections, the reasons for it, and the recent developments in constitutional interest in poverty, income inequality, and their relationship to racial inequality.
Course was offered Spring 2023, Spring 2022, Spring 2021
HIUS 6301Legal History of the Founding Era (3)
This class explores the legal world of the late eighteenth century, from the period just before the Revolution to the ratification of the Constitution. Among other topics, the class covers debates over the economic and political conditions that shaped the constitutional moment, and the implications of those debates for constitutional interpretation.
Course was offered Spring 2020
HIUS 6559New Course in United States History (1 - 4)
This course provides the opportunity to offer a new topic in the subject area of United States history.
Course was offered Fall 2020, Spring 2020
HIUS 7002Introductory Colloquium in American History (6)
American history from 1607 to the present, emphasizing various approaches and current problems in recent historiography.
Course was offered Spring 2011, Spring 2010
HIUS 7011Colloquium in US History to 1877: Teaching the American History Survey (3)
This course is designed to help students craft an undergraduate course on the first half of the US Survey. Through both reading and discussion, we will focus on the big questions of the period and consider the various ways in which one might convey a narrative(s). Attention will be given to pedagogy and content, with emphasis on best practices in the classroom. Students will design their own course with a syllabus, assignments, and lectures.
Course was offered Spring 2022
HIUS 7021Comparative Cultural Encounters in North America, 1492-1800 (3)
This course examines Spanish, French, Dutch, and British encounters with the native peoples of North America during the initial centuries of colonization: 1492-1800. It combines the "Atlantic" approach to early America with a "Continental" approach that accords dynamism and agency to native peoples in their interplay with colonizers.
HIUS 7031Colonial British America (3)
This colloquium offers an introduction to themes, regions, and debates in the history of colonial and Revolutionary America. It will focus on colonization, development, and cultural encounter in early North America, West Indies, and the Atlantic World in the early modern period, ca. 1600-1800, from a variety of historical approaches.
HIUS 7041The Early American Republic, 1783-1830 (3)
Reading and discussion in national political history from 1789 to 1815.
HIUS 7051Antebellum America (3)
Studies selected problems and developments in the period 1830-1860 through reading and discussion.
HIUS 7055Law in American History II: From Reconstruction Through the 1920s (3)
A survey of selected topics in American legal history from Reconstruction through the 1920s. Among the topics covered are civil rights in the Reconstruction era, law and the opening of the transcontinental west, foreign relations law, immigration law and policy, tort law, the treatment of crimes, legal education, and the internal work, due process cases, race relations cases, and free speech cases of the Supreme Court.
Course was offered Spring 2019
HIUS 7057Judicial Role in American History (3)
A survey of leading American Supreme Court judges from Marshall through the Burger Court. The course consists of lectures and readings, along with discussions of topics on contemporary issues. The course also provides an overview of the two hundred-plus year history of the Court and its role in the American constitutional system.
HIUS 7061Black Intellectual and Cultural Production since the 1960s (3)
We'll explore the intellectual and cultural production of the civil rights/Black power era and its enabling and uneasy relationship with other social movements, incl. feminism and gay liberation, disability rights, the anti-apartheid movement, and demands for economic justice/redress/reparations. A guiding premise in the course will be tensions within the movement giving rise to subsequent Black thought and activism.
Course was offered Spring 2023, Fall 2009
HIUS 7071Civil War and Reconstruction (3)
Studies selected problems and developments through reading and discussion.
Course was offered Spring 2012, Spring 2010, Fall 2009
HIUS 7072Civil War And The Constitution (3)
This course will examine the constitutional history of the United States from 1845 to 1877, paying attention to how the U.S. Constitution shaped the Civil War, and also to how the war left its mark on the Constitution.
HIUS 7073Writing Legal History (3)
Students in this course will write a 40 page paper based on original research in legal history. During class sessions, students will be introduced to the basics of the discipline of legal history and learn how to incorporate these ideas into their own original projects. Additionally, students will meet individually with the instructor to discuss the progress of their research over the course of the semester.
Course was offered Fall 2019, Spring 2019
HIUS 7082Foundational Texts of the 19th Century US (3)
This course will acquaint students with foundational texts relating to 19th-Century U.S. history. The primary goal is to provide a sound understanding of books, essays, and other documents that often are mentioned but too seldom read carefully. The readings will convey crucial insights into the political, social, cultural, military, and economic history of the century--though they are not intended to offer comprehensive coverage of the era.
HIUS 7101Early American Military History (3)
Introduces the military history of the American colonies and the U.S. between 1689-1815. Topics include the history of early conflicts with the Indians; the colonial wars; the American Revolution; and the War of 1812. Explores the significance of warfare for the emerging republican culture of the U.S., focusing on the social contexts of war as these have been revealed in the 'new military history.'
HIUS 7131The Emergence of Modern America, ca. 1870-ca. 1930 (3)
Studies the distinctive characteristics of American modernity as they emerged in the period from the end of reconstruction to the 1930s. Concentrates on the interplay between large national changes and local life as America became a world power. Investigates the reciprocal relations between society and politics, social organization and science and technology, large-scale bureaucratic organizations and the changing class structure, culture, and ideology.
Course was offered Spring 2021
HIUS 7141America Since 1930 (3)
Studies the rise and fall of domestic liberalism and the political economy that sustained it.
HIUS 7151The United States, 1945-Present (3)
An intensive reading course emphasizing historiographic approaches to synthesizing post-war America.
Course was offered Fall 2019
HIUS 7231The American South Before 1900 (3)
Surveys major themes and interpretations of the American South, especially 19th century.
HIUS 7232The South Since 1900 (3)
A colloquium on selected themes in 20th century southern history.
Course was offered Spring 2016, Fall 2012
HIUS 7261American Political Development in Action (3)
Readings drawn from the leading works in this field that span history, political science, and sociology. Students will also attend colloquia where works in progress will be presented by leading scholars.
Course was offered Spring 2019, Spring 2015, Fall 2012
HIUS 7451Urban History (3)
Reading and discussion of primary and secondary sources focused on different topics annually.
HIUS 7471American Labor History (3)
Readings and discussion on U.S. working class, including its institutions, consciousness, social composition, politics.
HIUS 7481Approaches to Social History (3)
Study of the relationships between social history and other disciplines through readings and discussions about broad interpretative problems in 19th and 20th century American society.
HIUS 7559New Course in United States History (1 - 4)
This course provides the opportunity to offer a new topic in the subject area of United States history.
HIUS 7611Women's History (3)
Readings and discussion on selected topics in the history of women in the U.S.
HIUS 7621Topics in United States Gender History (3)
This colloquium will survey foundational and cutting-edge scholarship on the social construction of femininity and masculinity in U.S. history, from the colonial era to 1900. We will explore how gender conventions take shape, and how they are perpetuated and contested. Our readings reconsider key events in women's and gender history such as the Salem witch trials and Seneca Falls convention.
Course was offered Spring 2023, Fall 2017, Fall 2015
HIUS 7641The American West Since 1850 (3)
This is a graduate readings seminar in which students will become familiar with the major issues in the history of the American West including, but not limited to, American Indians, the environment, and the federal presence in the region.
HIUS 7651The History of United States Foreign Relations (3)
Colloquium on selected themes and topics in the history and historiography of U.S. foreign relations.
Course was offered Fall 2011, Fall 2009
HIUS 7652Constitutional History I: From the Revolution to 1896 (3)
The history and historiography of American constitutional development from the revolution to 1896.
HIUS 7653Constitutional History II: The Twentieth Century (3)
The history and historiography of American constitutional development in the context of social, political, and cultural change in the twentieth century.
Course was offered Fall 2014
HIUS 7654Civil Rights from Plessy to Brown (3)
Studies in the role of law and lawyering in the political, social, and cultural history of civil rights struggles from 1896 to 1954.
HIUS 7655American Legal History (3)
Intensive study along topical and chronological lines of the ways in which fundamental legal forms (federalism or property or contract) have shaped (and been shaped by) American politics and society from the eighteenth century to the recent past.
HIUS 7656Crime & Punishment in American History (3)
Studies in the history of American criminal justice
Course was offered Spring 2014, Spring 2013
HIUS 7657Colloquium in Modern US History -- Conservatism and the Right (3)
Studies selected aspects and problems in the history of American thought.
HIUS 7658Nineteenth-Century American Social and Cultural History (3)
Reading and discussion of primary and secondary sources.
HIUS 7659Twentieth Century US Cultural Hisory (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
This readings course introduces graduate students to the theory, methods, and historiography of cultural history through a survey of key texts in twentieth century US history.
HIUS 8002Topics in United States Political History Since 1840 (3)
Graduate seminar to facilitate research papers on aspects of U.S. political history since 1840.
Course was offered Spring 2011, Spring 2010
HIUS 8021Research Seminar in Early American History (3)
This course offers JD/MA and PhD students an opportunity to research and write an article-length research essay of publishable quality on a topic in the history of early America, ca. 1500-1877. Research will be conducted with the guidance of the intended dissertation adviser. A revised version of essay can be submitted to fulfill the master's essay requirement for students in U.S. History.
HIUS 8022Research Seminar in Modern American History (3)
This course offers MA/JD and PhD students an opportunity to research and write an article-length research essay of publishable quality on a topic in the history of modern America, ca. 1877-present. Research will be conducted with the guidance of the dissertation adviser. A revised version of the essay can be submitted to fulfill the master's essay requirement of students in U.S. History. Prerequisite: PhD students History or permission of instructor
Course was offered Spring 2014, Spring 2013, Spring 2012
HIUS 8041The Age of Jefferson (3)
Intensive study of different aspects of problems of this period of American history by means of discussions, readings, and research papers.
Course was offered Fall 2011, Spring 2011, Spring 2010
HIUS 8051Antebellum America (3)
Research on selected topics in the period 1830-1860.
HIUS 8141American History, 1929-1945 (3)
A research seminar in which students write a major paper on some aspect of American history during this period. Prerequisite: Graduate status; at least one upper-division undergraduate course, including this period or a relevant graduate course.
HIUS 8230The Nineteenth-Century South (3)
Research on selected topics in the history of the American South during the eras of slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the New South.
Course was offered Spring 2011
HIUS 8235Topics in Modern Southern History (3)
A research seminar. Prerequisite: HIUS 7232 or instructor permission.
HIUS 8451The History of United States Foreign Relations (3)
A research seminar.
Course was offered Spring 2012, Spring 2010
HIUS 8452History of the American Administrative State (3)
This course will explore the development of the American administrative state from the nineteenth century through the present. This course will engage political and theoretical debates over the bureaucratic state's role, and its implications for democracy and inequality. Readings will include work by historians, social scientists, and legal academics.
Course was offered Fall 2023
HIUS 8559New Course in United States History (1 - 4)
This course provides the opportunity to offer a new topic in the subject area of United States history.
Course was offered Spring 2022, Spring 2012, Fall 2010
HIUS 8755American Legal History (3)
Directed research in selected areas of American legal history.
HIUS 8756Lawyers in American Public Life (3)
Reading and biographical research on the legal profession and the role of lawyers in American government and politics since 1789.
Course was offered Spring 2012
HIUS 9021Tutorial in Transnational US History (3)
Seminar rethinks United States history (18th century-present) by moving beyond the geographical boundaries of the nation. Thematic readings focus on way in which transnational and comparative scholarship is reshaping American historiography. Our goal is to better understand how assumptions and certainties of 'America' have been called into question by transnational history. Course is intended to help prepare students for general exams.
HIUS 9023Tutorial in Early American History to 1763 (3)
The course examines the historiography of colonial British America and the Atlantic world from the late sixteenth century through the late eighteenth century. It surveys scholarship on the imperial and Atlantic contexts of early modern colonization and focuses on the regional histories of settlement and development in North America and the Caribbean with a special focus on Native Americans and African Slavery.
HIUS 9024Tutorial in US Enviornmental History (3)
This course will survey the history and historiography of environmental policy and ecological change in the 20th century United States, with a focus on governmental and societal response to disaster, and the dynamic relationship between public understanding of health and environmental risks and emergence of new technologies.
HIUS 9025Tutorial in Post-World War II U.S. Political History (3)
This course will survey the history and historiography of American politics and political economy from 1945 to the present. Readings and meetings will address major themes in American political history, including: liberalism and conservatism, education, housing, suburbanization and the urban crisis, racial inequality, and the culture wars.
HIUS 9026African American History since 1865 (3)
Course readings include a selection of field-defining works of African American history, from Reconstruction to the modern U.S. civil rights movement. Themes to be discussed include African American leadership, African American political behavior, analyses of the political economy of race, literary and cultural production, Black nationalism, mass social movements, the criminal justice system, and African American gender politics.
Course was offered Fall 2020, Fall 2019
HIUS 9027Tutorial in Foundational Texts in 19th-Century United States History (3)
This course acquaints students with foundational texts relating to 19th-Century U.S. history. The primary goal is to provide a sound understanding of books, essays, and other documents that often are mentioned but too seldom read carefully. The readings will convey crucial insights into political, social, cultural, military, diplomatic, and economic history .
Course was offered Spring 2018, Spring 2017, Spring 2016
HIUS 9030Tutorial in Race, Religion, the Law and the Struggle for Justice in the US (3)
This course examines the ways in which the U.S. legal system and American religion have shaped and challenged African Americans' conceptions of freedom and justice in the United States from the post-emancipation period to the present.
Course was offered Spring 2019, Spring 2018, Spring 2017
HIUS 9031Tutorial in U.S. Labor History (3)
This graduate tutorial introduces students to some of the major interventions and debates in the field of U.S. Labor history over the past 30 years. How the U.S. working-class has been divided along ethnic, racial, gender and regional lines will be a major focus of our readings and discussions.
Course was offered Spring 2020, Fall 2017
HIUS 9034Topics in Modern American History (3)
This tutorial is designed to achieve two somewhat contradictory objectives: 1) ground the interests of those taking it in the broader literature relevant to their scholarly interests in the period covered (Reconstruction through the 1990s), and 2) ensure that they acquire a knowledge of twentieth-century U.S. History sufficient to teach undergraduate courses in this field at the college level.
Course was offered Spring 2020
HIUS 9035Tutorial in American Economic History (3)
A graduate tutorial devoted to close analysis of key issues in American Economic History from 1750 to 1940.
Course was offered Spring 2024, Spring 2020
HIUS 9036Tutorial in Capitalism and Slavery (3)
This graduate tutorial will introduce graduate students to the history and historiography of capitalism and slavery in the United States. Each student will complete a 20-25 page historiographical essay on a topic relevant to their potential dissertation topic.
Course was offered Fall 2020
HIUS 9037US Urban History (3)
This course will survey scholarship in US urban history. It is intended for graduate students who intend to specialize in this sub-field and/or conduct research that engages themes in urban history and historiography, broadly conceived.
Course was offered Spring 2021
HIUS 9070Tutorial in Civil War and Reconstruction (3)
A course devoted to the era of the American Civil War with emphasis on the period 1861-1865. The lecture portion of the course will address such questions as why the war came, why the United States won, and how the war affected various elements of American society. The seminar portion of the tutorial will examine 15 books. Each student will write a 25-page historiographical essay on a topic to be determined in consultation with the instructor.
Course was offered Spring 2018, Spring 2017
HIUS 9559New Course in United States History (1 - 4)
This course provides the opportunity to offer a new topic in the subject area of United States history.
Course was offered Fall 2018, Fall 2016
General Linguistics
LNGS 2220Black English (3)
Introduces the history and structure of what has been termed Black English Vernacular or Black Street English. Focuses on the sociolinguistic factors that led to its emergence, its present role in the Black community, and its relevance in education and racial stereotypes.
Course was offered Spring 2014, Spring 2011
LNGS 2240Southern American English (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
An examination of the structure, history, and sociolinguistics of the English spoken in the southeastern United States.
Media Studies
MDST 3105Latina/o Media Studies (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
This course is designed to introduce students to critical analyses of media texts, media industries, and media audiences that help explain the social, political, economic, and cultural locations of Latinas/os in America.
MDST 3140Mass Media and American Politics (3)
Examines the role of mass media in the political process including such topics as print and broadcast news, media and election campaigns, political advertising, and media effects on public opinion and political participation.
MDST 3205New Latin American Cinema (3)
This course provides a historical and critical perspective on Latin American Cinema (LAC), with an emphasis on LAC's relationship to Third Cinema, revolutionary cinema, and contemporary progressive filmic cinematic forms and traditions.
Course was offered Spring 2018, Spring 2014
MDST 3306Sexuality, Gender, Class and Race in the Teen Film (3)
The focus of this class will be on viewings and analyses of films featuring images of teens produced between 1930 and the present, focusing on the following questions: what is adolescence (and how has it been defined in American film)? What is the range of experience that characterizes American adolescence across gender, race, and class lines? How does it make sense to think about the social influence of films on individuals and society?
MDST 3402War and the Media (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
This course examines media coverage of American wars from World War I to the present. Study of the evolution in media coverage of war provides an ideal vantage point for understanding the changing nature of warfare in the 20th and 21st centuries, war's impact on American society, and the ways in which political elites have attempted to mobilize public support for foreign conflicts. Prerequisite: MDST 2000 or instructor permission.
MDST 3406The Wire: Understanding Urban America Through Television at Its Best (3)
This class explores HBO's The Wire as an examination of race, class, and economic change in urban America. We examine the series as a creative work which balances a commitment to realism with the demands of television drama. Students will view episodes of The Wire and read material on urban America, the changing contours of television, and the series itself. Requisites: Permission of Instructor
MDST 3502Special Topics in Film Genre (3)
This course will offer historical and critical perspectives on a selected film genre each semester. Genres might include Noir, war, romance, musicals, gangster, New Wave, etc.
MDST 3505Special Topics in Diversity and Identity in Media (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
This course will offer historical, comparative, and critical perspectives on issues of diversity and identity in media studies. Topics may include the relationship between media and underrepresented groups, media use in identity construction, masculinity and feminine role models in media, media power, etc. Prerequisite: MDST Major and Minors or Instructor Permission
MDST 3630Screening Terrorism (3)
This course examines contemporary cinematic & televisual representations of terrorism. It aims to do the following: to promote critical awareness of the ways in which terrorism is depicted on screen, particularly in the post-9/11 world; to encourage exploration of the complex ways in which real acts of terror involve performance & theatrics; to address the ethics and responsibilities of film and TV in re-creating acts of terror on screen.
MDST 3640American Gangster Film (3)
This course offers in-depth examination of American gangster films, tracing the genre's development from early silent film to the present. It investigates the extensive influence the genre has had on the nature of the American film industry and explores how the representation of gangster life on screen articulates crucial anxieties, frustrations, and desires circulating in American society at the time of the film's creation.
MDST 4105Media and Citizenship (3)
This course provides a critical perspective on the relationships of media to citizenship. It asks questions central to explaining the role of media in political and national life, including the following: What notions of national and political membership are forwarded by mainstream media? What media spaces are viable for the political agency of racial, sexual, and economic minorities and how do these spaces work?
Course was offered Fall 2017, Fall 2012
MDST 4108Media, Drugs, and Violence in Latin America (3)
This course will give you a critical understanding of the complex relationships between social violence, drug cartels, media, and Latin American nations. Together we will wrestle with the way Mexican, Colombian, and Brazilian drug violence has impacted and shaped new artistic forms and media practices that confront or, complexly, support the violence.
Course was offered Spring 2016, Fall 2014, Fall 2013
MDST 4559New Course in Media Studies (3)
This course provides the opportunity to offer a new course in the subject of Media Studies.
Music
MUSI 2070Popular Musics (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
Scholarly and critical study of music circulated through mass media. Specific topic for the semester (e.g. world popular music, bluegrass, country music, hip-hop, Elvis Presley) announced in advance. No previous knowledge of music required.
MUSI 2080American Music (3)
Scholarly and critical study of music of the Americas, with attention to interaction of music, politics, and society. Specific topics announced in advance. Prerequisite: No previous knowledge of music required.
MUSI 2120History of Jazz Music (3 - 4)
Survey of jazz music from before 1900 through the stylistic changes and trends of the twentieth century; important instrumental performers, composers, arrangers, and vocalists. No previous knowledge of music required.
MUSI 3120Jazz Studies (3)
Introduction to jazz as an advanced field of study, with equal attention given to historical and theoretical approaches. Prerequisite: MUSI 3310 or comparable fluency in music notation, and instructor permission.
MUSI 4510Cultural and Historical Studies of Music (3)
Selected topics, announced in advance, exploring the study of music within cultural and historical frameworks. Prerequisite: Instructor permission.
MUSI 4512Studies in Jazz Literature (3)
Topics, announced in advance, exploring the world of jazz music. Prerequisite: MUSI 3120 or instructor permission.
Course was offered Fall 2013
MUSI 4525Topics in Ethnomusicology (3)
Addresses specific issues and cultural areas according to the interests of the students and instructor. Prerequisite: Instructor permission.
Course was offered Spring 2021, Fall 2018, Spring 2016
Urban and Environmental Planning
PLAN 1010Introduction to Urban and Environmental Planning (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
Analyzes community and environmental planning in the United States; the planning process; and sustainable communities.
PLAN 3310Divided America: Racism, Planning, and Policy in the City, 1945-1965 (3)
As the nation grapples with disparate impact of health, education, safety and mobility for people of color, historical context is critical. This interdisciplinary course focuses on the two decades after World War Two that cemented the racial wedge in the nation. Using planning history and the legal decisions, the course begins with the Armistice and concludes with the signing of the Civil Rights Bill of 1965 that outlawed voting discrimination.
PLAN 3500Special Topics in Planning (1 - 3)
Topical offerings in planning.
Politics-American Politics
PLAP 2250American Political Tradition (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
This course explores the theoretical ideas that informed the creation and development of America's political system and considers some of the major contemporary challenges to the maintenance of American liberal democracy. Topics to be treated include the political thought of the American Founders, the place of religion in public life, the nature of written constitutions and the role of America in the world.
PLAP 2500Special Topics in American Politics (3)
Special Topics in American Politics.
PLAP 3190Judicial Process and Policy-Making (3)
Survey of empirical and, to a lesser extent, normative questions concerning actors and institutions in American judicial politics. Topics include the selection of judges, judicial decision making, the legal profession, the impact of court decisions, and the role of judges in a democracy. Prerequisite: PLAP 1010 or permission of instructor.
PLAP 3270Public Opinion and American Democracy (3)
This course examines public opinion and its place in American democracy. We study the psychological and political roots of citizens' opinions, as well as the relationship between public opinion and political campaigns, the media, and government. This class replaces PLAP 2270 there fore you will not get credit for the course twice.
PLAP 3350American Congress (3)
Focuses on the contemporary organization and workings of the United States Congress. Emphasizes elections, the committee system, political parties, staff, and the law-making process, as well as the role of Congress in the national policy making system.
PLAP 3370Workshop in Contemporary American Electoral Politics (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
Provides students with the opportunity to be directly involved with the research, programming, operations, and outreach of the University's non-profit, non-partisan Center for Politics. Includes projects focused on state and national politics, political history, civic engagement, voter behavior, media and politics, campaign finance and political analysis. Prerequisite: instructor permission.
PLAP 3700Racial Politics (3)
Examines how attributions of racial difference have shaped American Politics. Topics include how race affects American political partisanship, campaigns and elections, public policy, public opinion, and American political science. Prerequisite: One course in PLAP or instructor permission.
PLAP 3810Constitutional Interpretation: Separation of Powers and Federalism (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
Studies the legislative, executive, and judicial branches and the functional and territorial distribution of powers as reflected by Supreme Court decisions. Includes the nature of the judicial process. (No CR/NC enrollees.)
PLAP 3820Civil Liberties and Civil Rights (3)
Studies judicial construction and interpretation of civil rights and liberties reflected by Supreme Court decisions. Includes line-drawing between rights and obligations. (No CR/NC enrollees.)
PLAP 4180Political Advertising and American Democracy (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
Explores the role of political advertising in American democracy. Examines ad messages as strategic political communications, analyzing both classic and contemporary ads. Explores the effects (if any) of political advertising on citizens' attitudes and behavior.
PLAP 4360Campaigns and Elections (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
Reviews and analyzes the techniques and technologies of modern American election campaigns. Enrollment is limited. Prerequisite: Instructor permission.
PLAP 4500Special Topics in American Politics (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
Investigates a selected issue in American government or American political development. Prerequisite: One course in PLAP or instructor permission.
PLAP 4601Democracy in America (3)
Democracy in America
PLAP 4810Class, Race, and the Environment (3)
Focuses on the intersections among class, race and the environment. The course goals are to achieve an understanding of central environmental policy issues, to consider what 'class' and 'race' mean, and to examine the distribution of environmental hazards across people of different classes and races. (Cross listed with ETP 4810)
PLAP 4841Seminar in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (3)
Explores the vexatious lines between the rights of individuals and those of the state in democratic society, focusing on such major issues as freedom of expression and worship; separation of church and state; criminal justice; the suffrage; privacy; and racial and gender discrimination. Focuses on the judicial process. Prerequisite: Instructor permission.
Politics-International Relations
PLIR 4380America in a World Economy (3)
Seminar focusing on politics of the international trade and monetary systems, emphasizing third world industrialization, trade conflicts between the U.S. and Japan, and the global debt crisis. Prerequisite: PLIR 2050 or instructor permission.
Politics-Political Theory
PLPT 3200African-American Political Thought (3)
This course explores the critical and the constructive dimensions of African American political thought from slavery to the present. We will assess the claims that black Americans have made upon the polity, how they have defined themselves, and how they have sought to redefine key terms of political life such as citizenship, equality, freedom, and power.
PLPT 4030Democratic Theory (3)
Surveys the major contributors to democratic theory, the central problems that any democratic theory has to answer, and the criticisms leveled at the various philosophical attempts to give a firm ground for democratic practices. Prerequisite: One course in PLPT or instructor permission.
PLPT 4060Politics & Literature (3)
This seminar considers how works of fiction enhance our understanding of the terms of democratic life. The theme for the spring of 2020 is the life and afterlife of slavery in American political experience; and the central authors are Herman Melville, Ralph Ellison, and Toni Morrison.
PLPT 4070Liberalism and Its Critics (3)
Major themes in the liberal tradition of political theory. The course examines central elements of liberal political theory and traces the development of classical liberalism into contemporary welfare-state liberalism. Focus is on strengths and weaknesses of both positions, and criticisms of the overall liberal approach. Among authors covered are Locke, Mill, Hobhouse, Rawls, and Nozick.
PLPT 4305American Political Thought to 1865 (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
This course examines the development of American political thought from the Puritans through the Civil War. The questions they posed and attempted to answer are the eternal questions of all political thought, such as, what is the best form of government; what are the rights and obligations of citizens; what is the proper relationship between the state and religion.
Portuguese
PORT 4410Brazilian Cultural Production I (1500 to 1900) (3)
Studies canonical and popular Brazilian Cultural Production from the arrival of the Portuguese in 1500 to the end of the nineteenth-century.
Course was offered Fall 2016, Fall 2015, Fall 2014, Fall 2013
Religion-African Religions
RELA 2700Festivals of the Americas (3)
Readings will include contemporary ethnographies of religious festivals in the Caribbean ans South, Central, and North America, and increase their knowledge of the concepts of sacred time and space, ritual theory, and the relationships between religious celebration and changing accounts of ethnicity.
RELA 2850Afro- Creole Religions in the Americas (3)
A survey course which familiarizes students with African-derived religions of the Caribbean and Latin America
RELA 3351African Diaspora Religions (3)
This seminar examines changes in ethnographic accounts of African diaspora religions, with particular attention to the conceptions of religion, race, nation, and modernity found in different research paradigms. Prerequisite: previous course in one of the following: religious studies, anthropology, AAS, or Latin American studies
Course was offered Spring 2017, Spring 2013, Fall 2009
Religion-Christianity
RELC 2401History of American Catholicism (3)
This course engages in a historical survey of American Catholicism from colonial beginnings to the present. It especially explores the theme of how Catholicism has been enculturated in America, how Catholic faith and practice have interacted with the social, cultural, and political environment of the nation.
RELC 2559New Course in Christianity (1 - 4)
This course provides the opportunity to offer a new course in the subject of Christianity
RELC 3150Salem Witch Trials (3)
Salem Witch Trials
RELC 3804American Catholic Social and Political Thought (3)
This seminar examines American Catholic social and political thought.
RELC 4044Religion and the American Courts (3)
What is the nature of religion and its role in American society? This seminar will explore the limits of spiritual convictions in a liberal democracy which guarantees religious freedom. This course will examine: 1) the First Amendment; 2) legal methodology; and 3) the contemporary debate over whether citizens and public officials have a duty to refrain from making political and legal decisions on the basis of their religious beliefs.
RELC 5230Pentecostalism (3)
Examines the history, theology, and practices of Pentecostalism, the fastest growing Christian movement in the world, from its origins among poor whites and recently freed African Americans to its phenomenal expansion in places like South America, Asia, and Africa.
Course was offered Spring 2013, Spring 2010
Religion-General Religion
RELG 2150Religion in American Life and Thought to 1865 (3)
This course will examine American religious life and thought prior to the Civil War, including but not limited to Puritanism, the "Great Awakening," slavery, the American Revolution, reform movements, and the Civil War.
RELG 2155Whiteness & Religion: Religious Foundations of a Racial Category (3)
This class examines the role religion plays in defining a racial category known as whiteness. By reading cultural histories and ethnographies of the religious practices of various communities, we will examine how groups now classified as white (Irish, Italians, Poles, Jews, etc.) and religious images (depictions of Jesus and the Virgin Mary) "became white" and the role that religious practice played in this shift in racial classification.
Course was offered Spring 2017, Spring 2016
RELG 2160Religion in American Life and Thought from 1865 to the Present (3)
Includes American religious pluralism, religious responses to social issues, and the character of contemporary American religious life.
RELG 2370Religion After Jefferson (3)
This course explores the history of the idea of "religion" as a distinct concept, and introduces students to a crucial topic of modern public life and helps them prepare to grapple with this problem from a global perspective. A Jefferson Public Citizens course.
Course was offered Spring 2013, Fall 2011, Spring 2011
RELG 2660"Spiritual But Not Religious": Spirituality in America (3)
This course asks: what does "spiritual but not religious" mean, and why has it become such a pervasive idea in modern America? We'll study everything from AA to yoga to Zen meditation, with stops in Christian rock, Beat poetry, Abstract Expressionist painting and more. In the end, we'll come to see spirituality in America as a complex intermingling of the great world religions, modern psychology, and a crassly commercialized culture industry.
RELG 3200Martin, Malcolm, and America (3)
An analysis of African-American social criticism centered upon, but not limited to, the life and thought of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X
RELG 3360Conquests and Religions in the Americas, 1400s-1830s (3)
Beginning with Islamic-ruled Spain and the Aztec and Incan empires, the course examines historical changes in the religious practices of indigenous peoples, enslaved Africans and European settlers in Latin America and the Caribbean under European colonization and the transatlantic slave trade. Topics include: religious violence, human sacrifice, the Inquisition; missions; race, gender and sexuality; slavery, revolts, revolutions, nationalism.
RELG 3780Faulkner and the Bible (3)
This class is study of the influence of the Bible (both Hebrew and Christian canons) on the fiction of William Faulkner. We will also see how this ancient text and its heritage informed Faulkner's views on race, community, and personal identity as well.
Course was offered Fall 2014, Fall 2013, Spring 2012
RELG 3800African American Religious History (3)
This course will explore African American religious traditions in their modern and historical contexts, combining an examination of current scholarship, worship and praxis. It will examine the religious life and religious institutions of African Americans from their African antecedents to contemporary figures and movements in the US.
Course was offered Spring 2017, Spring 2016, Spring 2012
RELG 4220American Religious Autobiography (3)
Multidisciplinary examination of religious self-perception in relation to the dominant values of American life. Readings represent a variety of spiritual traditions and autobiographical forms.
Sociology
SOC 2220Social Problems (3)
Analyzes the causes and consequences of current social problems in the United States: race and ethnic relations, poverty, crime and delinquency, the environment, drugs, and problems of educational institutions.
SOC 2320Gender and Society (3)
Gender and Society
SOC 2442Systems of Inequality (3)
This course will examine various types of inequality (race, class, gender) in the US and abroad. We will discuss sociological theories covering various dimensions of inequality, considering key research findings and their implications. We will examine to what extent ascriptive characteristics impact a person's life chances, how social structures are produced and reproduced, and how individuals are able or unable to negotiate these structures.
SOC 2950"The Wire" - Sociology Through TV & Film (3)
This course uses HBO's series "The Wire" (2002-2008) as the course "text" to illustrate and analyze the intersection of economy, education, class, race, crime, and politics within the lives of the urban underclass. Special emphasis is placed upon the significance of television and film as a form of communication that illustrates the complex interplay of social structure and social problems.
Course was offered Spring 2014
SOC 3306Sexuality, Gender, Class and Race in the Teen Film (3)
The focus of this class will be on viewings and analyses of films featuring images of teens produced between 1930 and the present, focusing on the following questions: what is adolescence (and how has it been defined in American film)? What is the range of experience that characterizes American adolescence across gender, race, and class lines? How does it make sense to think about the social influence of films on individuals and society?
Course was offered Spring 2013
SOC 3410Race and Ethnic Relations (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
Introduces the study of race and ethnic relations, including the social and economic conditions promoting prejudice, racism, discrimination, and segregation.  Examines contemporary American conditions, and historical and international materials.
SOC 4100Black Community Life (3)
Study of a comprehensive contemporary understanding of the history, struggle and diversity of the African-American community.
SOC 4750Racism (3)
Racism, the disparagement and victimization of individuals and groups because of a belief that their ancestry renders them intrinsically different and inferior, is a problem in many societies. In this course we will examine the problem of racism by investigating the workings of these sociological processes theoretically, historically, and contemporaneously.
Spanish
SPAN 3420Survey of Latin American Literature I (Colonial to 1900) (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
Introduces students to the expressions and experiences of people in the early Americas. By studying primary source materials, students will enrich their knowledge of the colonial period while further developing methods of historical and literary analysis. By the end of the course, students will be able to close read primary sources, situate them within specific historical contexts, and explain their analysis in spoken and written Spanish.
SPAN 3430Survey of Latin American Literature II (1900 to Present) (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
This course provides students with a survey of Latin American literature and the context in which it developed from 1900 to the present. This course will cover how the region's cultural production has been shaped by its cultures, peoples, and historical events, the consciousness, memory, and imagination expressed within the region's literature, and how the region's representation has been shaped by who has (and has not) had access to literature.
SPAN 4310Latin American Women Writers from 1900 to the Present (3)
Study of major Latin American women writers from 1900 to the present, including poets, essayists, playwrights, and fiction writers. Discussion will focus on the literary representation of issues related to gender and culture. Prerequisite: SPAN 3010, 3300, and 3 credits of 3400-3430, or departmental placement.
SPAN 4319Borges (3)
This course offers an overview of Borges' short stories and some essays and poems. The aim is to present Borges as dominating the great shift in literary sensibility in Spanish America in the 1940s, his influence on the 'Boom' and the relevance of his work to the notions of Modernism and Post-modernism in the Anglo-Saxon sense. The course will attempt to cover not only the thematics of Borges' main works but also his innovations in technique. Study of major literary works from the 20th and 21st centuries by Mexican authors, including poetry, fiction, essay and/or theatre. Discussion will focus on literary representation, historical and gender issues relevant to this period in Mexican society. Prerequisite: SPAN 3010, 3300, and 3 credits of 3400-3430, or departmental placement
SPAN 4320Contemporary Latin-American Short Fiction (3)
Contemporary Latin-American Short Fiction Prerequisite: SPAN 3010, 3300, and 3 credits of 3400-3430, or departmental placement.
SPAN 4520Special Topics Seminar: Culture and Civilization (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 3010, 3300, and 3 credits of 3400-3430, or departmental placement
SPAN 4621Latin American Women Poets (3)
In this course we will read extensively from the poetry of the three most famous women poets of Latin America in the twentieth century: Uruguay's Delmira Agustini, Argentina's Alfonsina Storni, and Chile's Gabriela Mistral, the first Latin American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Prerequisite: SPAN 3010, 3300, and 3 credits of 3400-3430, or departmental placement
SPAN 4710Latin American Culture and Civilization (3)
Latin American Culture and Civilization
SPAN 4712Travelers in Latin America (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
In this course we will study diaries and accounts of travelers in Latin America since the first European got in contact with the continent for the first time What did they see? What did they want to see? How did the describe it? How much influence their account had in the construction of continental imaginary. We will start with el Diario of Christopher Columbus, and finish with some diaries of today. Prerequisite: SPAN 3010, 3300, and 3 credits of 3400-3430, or departmental placement
SPAN 4715Cuban Culture Through Cinema (3)
The aim of this course is to study Cuban films in the context of Cuba's history and culture. The course will include the viewing of films outside the classroom (roughly one a week), readings about the films, history, and culture. Please note that out-of-class preparation and the reading load will be significant. The format of the class will be lecture/discussion with a strong emphasis on class participation. Prerequisite: SPAN 3010, 3300, and 3 credits of 3400-3430, or departmental placement.
Spanish in Translation
SPTR 3850Fiction of the Americas (3)
In this seminar, we will study the centuries long 'conversations' between North American and Spanish American writers. Principally through short stories and some novels, we will examine their mutual fascination. Our reading list will include works by Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce, Horacio Quiroga, John Reed, Mariano Azuela, William Faulkner, Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, García Márquez, Carlos Fuentes, Margaret Atwood, Manuel Puig
Course was offered Fall 2015
Women and Gender Studies
WGS 2224Black Femininities and Masculinities in Media (3)
Addresses the role the media has played in creating images and understandings of "Blackness" in the United States, particularly where it converges with popular ideologies about gender.
WGS 3200Women, Gender and Sports (3)
This course traces the history of American female athletes from the late 1800s through the early 21st century. We will use gender as a means of understanding the evolution of the female athlete, and will also trace the manner by which issues of class and race inform sportswomen's journeys over time, particularly with regard to issues of femininity and homophobia.
WGS 3611Gender and Sexuality in the United States, 1600-1865 (3)
Offered
Fall 2024
This course explores the significance of gender and sexuality in the territory of the present-day U.S. during the period from the first European settlements to the Civil War.
WGS 3612Gender and Sexuality in the United States, 1865-Present (3)
This course explores the significance of gender and sexuality in the territory of the present-day U.S. during the period from the Civil War to the present.
WGS 4200Sex and Gender Go to the Movies (3)
This course will examine the ways in which different mass media help to define our cultural ideas about gender differences and the ways in which feminist scholars have responded to these definitions by criticizing existing media images and by creating some alternatives of their own. The course will examine the notion that the mass media might influence our development as gendered individuals and consider different forms of feminist theory.