6.1 DEPARTMENT OF
AMERICAN STUDIES (AMS)
Professor Lynne Adrian, Chairperson
Office: 101 ten Hoor Hall
The master of arts program in American studies is designed to enable
students to study American culture from a broad, interdisciplinary
perspective, combining basic cultural studies with advanced
professional training. Drawing upon the graduate resources of the
University at large, students develop individually tailored programs
of coursework that reflect their own special interests. Students may
pursue an academic track or a professional track. Our graduates have
used the M.A. in American studies as preparation for positions in
journalism, public relations, library service, historical
preservation, community organizing, private foundations, law, and
education.
Admission Requirements
A student interested in pursuing a master's degree in American
studies must first apply for admission to the Graduate School and
satisfy the school's minimum requirements as stated in this catalog.
Each applicant should submit an acceptable score on either the
general test of the Graduate Record Examination or the Miller
Analogies Test in support of his or her application.
The dean of the Graduate School will then forward the student's
records and application to the Department of American Studies for
evaluation. Although a basic undergraduate background in American
culture (literature, history, and political thought) is preferable,
it is not a prerequisite for admission to the program.
General Degree Requirements
Students should refer to the Graduate Handbook of the Department
of American Studies for additional information.
Plan I. The student
earns a minimum of 24 semester hours of credit in coursework and
completes a thesis.
Plan II. The student earns a minimum of 30 semester hours
of credit in coursework.
Under either plan, the student's
program must include the following 21 hours of American studies
courses: AMS 585, AMS 586,
AMS 587, AMS 595,
AMS 596, AMS 597, and 6
hours of seminars. A student may take up to 9 hours outside the
department, choosing a single disciplinary or cognate area
(literature, history, broadcast and film, women's studies,
journalism, the South, etc.) or two minor areas. Most students,
however, choose a focus within American studies.
Comprehensive Examinations
Under either Plan I or Plan II, each candidate for the master of
arts degree in American studies will write a comprehensive
examination designed to reflect the individual's program. The
comprehensive examination is intended as an integrating,
synthesizing experience that enables the student to draw together
the various component areas of his or her course of study. The
results of the examination should attest to the student's
acquisition of an interdisciplinary perspective, as well as an
understanding of American culture as a whole.
Course Descriptions
AMS 500 Internship. Three hours. Pass/fail.
An internship opportunity that combines independent study and
practical field work focusing on a particular problem or topic
related to American culture and experience. Recent examples include
internships in museum management, historic preservation,
archaeological research, television production, category fiction,
promotion of academic programs, documentary television, academic
public relations, with Alabama Heritage and Louisville magazines,
and with the Paul Bryant Museum.
AMS 501 African-American Experience. Three hours.
An investigation of the influence of Africa and the people of
African descent on the development of American cultural experience,
from the emergence of the Atlantic world and the slave trade to the
freedom struggles of the late 20th century. The course will explore
insights from various disciplines and examine several kinds of
cultural artifacts (for example, music such as gospel, blues, jazz,
and hip hop; the written and spoken word; sculpture, painting, and
photography; the built environment in rural and urban contexts;
religious and political economic ideas and phenomena) as well as
engage canonical and cutting-edge works of cultural scholarship
related to Africans in the Americas. Topics covered include the
establishment of plantation societies and racialized chattel
enslavement; the creation of African-American culture within the USA
; Afro-centricity and the theory of African-Americans as
Omni-American; the South as black national territory; and late
capitalist challenges to black identity. Offered spring semester.
AMS 502 Special Topics in African-American Studies. Three
hours.
Research and discussion of selected African-American topics.
AMS 505:506 Directed Study. One to three hours each semester.
Prerequisite: Sponsorship by a faculty member.
AMS 530 Special Topics. One to three hours.
Selected American topics in American studies offered by AMS faculty
members or Americanists from related departments. Recent example:
Women in America.
AMS 531 Studies in Popular Culture. Three hours.
Research and discussion of selected topics in American popular
culture: literature, music, network broadcasting, advertising, film,
and drama.
AMS 532 Studies in the Arts. Three hours.
Research and discussion of selected topics in literature, film,
painting, photography, and architecture, and the role of the artist
in 19th- and 20th-century America.
AMS 533 Studies in American Thought. Three hours.
Research and discussion of selected topics in American intellectual
history: the law, nature and the city, religion and the state,
liberalism and conservatism, Utopianism, and science and society.
AMS 534 Studies in the South. Three hours.
Research and discussion of selected topics in Southern culture:
ethnicity, regional consciousness, women in the South, and change
and continuity.
AMS 535 Studies in Ethnicity, Class, and Gender. Three hours.
Research and discussion of selected topics in ethnicity, class, and
gender in America.
AMS 536 Studies in Social Experience. Three hours.
Research and discussion of selected topics in the American social
experience.
AMS 537 Studies in the West. Three hours.
Research and discussion of selected topics in the American West as
period, place, experience, and imagination: discovery and
exploration; physical and cultural transformation; and value, ethic,
and ideal.
AMS 538 Studies in African-American Culture. Three hours.
Research and discussion of selected topics in African-American
culture.
AMS 540 Sexuality and Culture. Three hours.
This course examines sexuality as a category of historical and
cultural analysis. With an interdisciplinary focus on representation
in film, science, visual culture, literature, and politics, we will
investigate how sexual categories and identities are produced and
contested over time. The course emphasizes the complex intersection
of sexuality with race, gender, class, and region to reveal the deep
linkages among them as locations of power, oppression, and
resistance. Students will become familiar with a range of
theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of sexuality,
including cultural studies, history, and critical theory.
AMS 550 Women in America. Three hours.
A lecture/discussion course on the role of women in American culture
which concentrates on the major social and cultural contributions of
women from all backgrounds and walks of life. Key questions involve
the historic role of women in America and how their status reflects
the structure of society as a whole. Most of the readings focus on
the twentieth century and the relationships between individual women
and the cultural networks in which they participate and help create.
AMS 585 American Experience, 1620–1865. Four hours.
An exploration of the formative years of the American cultural
experience, from early European encounters with the New World to the
attainment of continental nationhood. The course will draw upon
insights from many disciplines and will include several kinds of
cultural evidence (for example: literature, art, and photography;
religious, political, and social thought and behavior; and economic,
technological, and geographical development) as well as
consideration of recent major synthetic works of cultural
scholarship. Topics covered include the growth of colonial
societies; the Revolutionary movement and the political foundations
of the American Republic ; the Market Revolution and the rise of
middle-class culture; the antebellum South and the emerging West;
and the origins and evolution of American cultural diversity.
Offered fall semester.
AMS 586 American Experience, 1865–1960. Four hours.
An exploration of the development of the American cultural
experience since 1865, focusing on the major material forces and
intellectual currents that helped shape American attitudes,
assumptions, institutions, behavior, and values. The course will
draw upon insights from many disciplines and will include several
kinds of cultural evidence (for example: literature, art, and
photography; religious, political, and social thought and behavior;
and economic, technological, and geographical development) as well
as consideration of recent major synthetic works of cultural
scholarship. Topics addressed and readings assigned are chosen to
enlarge awareness of the transformation of America to a diverse,
metropolitan, industrial society. These will include the
relationship between nature and the city; the industrial revolution
and changes in the workplace; immigration; changing class and gender
relationships; the rise of leisure; and the development and triumph
of modern corporate/consumer culture. Offered spring semester.
AMS 588 Teaching Internship. One hour. Pass/fail.
Required of all American studies graduate teaching assistants
assigned to AMS 150. Includes administrative techniques and test
construction.
AMS 589 Approaches to Teaching American Studies. Three hours.
Prerequisite: Permission of the department.
A study of basic approaches to interdisciplinary teaching in
American culture at the college level, along with supervised
teaching experience.
AMS 591 American Period Seminar. Three hours.
In-depth study of a particular period or era in American historical
experience. Recent examples include the Ragtime Era, the Jazz Age,
the Great Depression, the Season of 1954–55, the '60s, contemporary
America, the Postwar Period, the Romantic Revolutionaries (1905–14),
the American Avant Garde (1893–1920), World War II: the Good War,
the South and '30s Expression, the Civil Rights movement, the '50s,
America between the Wars, the Colonial Period, the Aspirin Age,
Postmodern America, Contemporary America, and Writing West.
AMS 592 American Topics Seminar. Three hours.
Study of special topics within the American cultural experience.
Recent examples include American literary realism, women in America,
the Civil Rights movement, the picture press, music and ethnicity,
the politics of culture, regionalism in American culture, the
changing American family, homelessness in America, American
autobiography, American monuments, contemporary American folklore,
Southern popular culture, Southern iconoclasts, politics and
culture, historical memory, America by design, the other in America,
women in America, race in America, 19th-century popular culture, and
slavery and the Civil War in historic memory.
AMS 595 American Studies Colloquium, 1620–1865.
Two hours.
Corequisite: AMS 585.
Discussion of methodological and theoretical issues in American
studies.
AMS 596 American Studies Colloquium, 1865–1960. Three hours.
Corequisite: AMS 586.
Presentation of research and methods.
AMS 597 Topics in American Cultural Analysis. One hour.
Coordinating course required of M.A. candidates in their final
semester.
AMS 598 Research Not Related to Thesis. One to three hours.
Pass/fail.
AMS 599 Thesis Research. Three hours. Pass/fail. |