Different historical periods answered this question in different, often contradictory ways. This course introduces students to the study of American cultures. Several cultures are examined to exemplify how culture is studied and discussed.
Students also develop a research theme on an American culture of their own choice.
This course explores the field of American Studies through the lens of multiculturalism. It offers a critical scrutiny of past and present scholarship about the United States as a pluralistic society. This history course use the concept of insiders and outsiders order to examine the history of Native American, Mexican American, African American, and Asian American peoples in the United States. In this course, we will explore the multiple and complex relationships of gender and education, drawing extensively on the analyses and critiques of traditional conceptions knowledge, teaching and research by feminist scholars and teachers. This course will focus on the work of a recently emerging younger generation of Asian American women writers in an attempt to locate their contribution to and troubling of the issues and aesthetics of the novel form.