The Major

The following is a partial list of courses in the Africana Studies Department that American Studies students have drawn upon to build their majors. New courses are constantly being developed. Students are therefore expected to have an ongoing dialogue with their advisor about elective possibilities.

AFRS BC2006 Introduction to the African Diaspora. 3 points.

Interdisciplinary and thematic approach to the African diaspora in the Americas: its motivations, dimensions, consequences, and the importance and stakes of its study. Beginning with the contacts between Africans and the Portuguese in the 15th century, this class will open up diverse paths of inquiry as students attempt to answer questions, clear up misconceptions, and challenge assumptions about the presence of Africans in the 'New World.'

AFRS BC3110 The Africana Colloquium: Caribbean Women. 4 points.

Prerequisites: Students must attend first day of class and admission will be decided then. Enrollment limited to 18 students. Priority will be given to Africana majors and CCIS students (Africana Studies, American Studies and Women's Studies majors; minors in Race and Ethnic Studies).

AFRS BC3120 History of African-American Music. 3 points.

Survey interrogates the cultural and aesthetic development of a variety of interconnected musical genres - such as blues, jazz, gospel, soul, funk, R&B, hip-hop, classical and their ever changing same/names - viewed as complex human activities daringly danced at dangerous discourses inside and outside the American cultural mainstreams.

AFRS BC3121 Black Women in America. 4 points.

Examines the roles of black women in the U.S. as thinkers, activists and creators during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Focusing on the intellectual work, social activism and cultural expression of African American women, we examine how they understood their lives, resisted oppression and struggled to change society. We will also discuss theoretical frameworks (such as "double jeopardy," or "intersectionality") developed for the study of black women. The seminar will encourage students to pay particular attention to the diversity of black women and critical issues facing Black women today. This course is the same as WMST BC3121.

The following is a partial list of courses in the Music Department that American Studies students have drawn upon to build their majors. New courses are constantly being developed. Students are therefore expected to have an ongoing dialogue with their advisor about elective possibilities.

MUSI V2010 Rock. 3 points.

Prerequisites: HUMA W1123 or the equivalent.

Historical survey of rock music from its roots in the late 1940s to the present day.

MUSI UN2016 Jazz. 3 points.

The musical and cultural features of jazz, beginning in 1900. 

MUSI V2020 Salsa, Soca, and Reggae: Popular Musics of the Caribbean. 3 points.

A survey of the major syncretic urban popular music styles of the Caribbean, exploring their origins, development, and sociocultural context.

MUSI V3420 The Social Science of Music. 3 points.

An introduction to the field of ethnomusicology in the context of the intellectual history of music scholarship.  

MUSI W4420 Music and Property. 3 points.

This courses raises the questions: 1) What does it mean to "own" music?, 2) In what senses can music be conceptualized as "property?"; and 3) How do divergent understandings of music's status as "property" shape contemporary debates and discourses in the particular areas of disputes over "illegal downloading" of copyrighted music and the "repatriation" of Native American musical recordings as "cultural property?" Several relevant major recent statements will be considered and responses discussed. Case studies from ethnomusicological, anthropological, media studies and legal literatures engage issues of appropriation, the role of new technologies in shifting the terrain of musical ownership will be studied. Hands-on look at the Columbia Center for Ethnomusicology's ongoing projects to repatriate historic recordings of Native American music (currently 'owned' by Columbia University) to the Navajo and Iñupiat tribes.

MUSI W4507 The New Thing: Jazz 1955-1980. 3 points.

An examination of the new jazz that emerged shortly after the middle of the 20th century.  The seminar will include the work of musicians such as Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Don Cherry, Anthony Braxton, Carla Cley, Albert Ayler, and the Arts Ensemble of Chicago; the economics and politics of the period; parallel developments in other arts; the rise of new performance spaces, recording companies, and collectives; and the accomplishments of the music and the problems it raised for jazz performance and criticism.

MUSI GU4540 Histories of Post-1960's Jazz. 3 points.

Prerequisites: HUMA W1123 or the equivalent.

Historiographical issues surrounding the performance of jazz and improvised musics after 1960. Topics include genre and canon formation, gender, race, and cultural nationalisms, economics and infrastructure, debates around art and the vernacular, globalization, and media reception. Reading knowledge of music is not required.

The following is a partial list of courses in the Urban Studies Department that American Studies students have drawn upon to build their majors. New courses are constantly being developed. Students are therefore expected to have an ongoing dialogue with their advisor about elective possibilities.

URBS V3420 Introduction to Urban Sociology. 3 points.

Examines the diverse ways in which sociology has defined and studied cities, focusing on the people who live and work in the city, and the transformations U.S. cities are undergoing today. Sociological methods, including ethnography, survey research, quantitative studies, and participant observation will provide perspectives on key urban questions such as street life, race, immigration, globalization, conflict, and redevelopment.

URBS UN3546 Junior Colloquium: Contemporary Urban Issues. 4 points.

Evaluation of current political, economic, social, cultural and physical forces that are shaping urban areas.

URBS V3550 Community Building and Economic Development. 4 points.

Community building has emerged as an important approach to creating an economic base, reducing poverty and improving the quality of life in urban neighborhoods. In this course, students examine the methods, strategies, and impact of community building on the economic, social, and political development of urban neighborhoods.

URBS V3920 Social Entrepreneurship. 4 points.

Introduction to the main concepts and processes associated with the creation of new social enterprises, policies, programs, and organizations; criteria for assessing business ventures sponsored by non-profits and socially responsible initiatives undertaken by corporations; specific case studies using New York City as a laboratory. 

The following is a partial list of courses in the Theatre Department that American Studies students have drawn upon to build their majors. New courses are constantly being developed. Students are therefore expected to have an ongoing dialogue with their advisor about elective possibilities.

THTR V2002 New York Theatre. 3 points.

Students attend a variety of performances as well as a weekly lab meeting. Emphasis on expanding students' critical vocabulary and understanding of current New York theatre and its history. Section on contemporary New York theatre management and production practices.

ENTH BC3139 Modern American Drama and Performance. 4 points.

Modern American drama in the context of theatrical exploration, cultural contestation, performance history, and social change. Playwrights include Crothers, Glaspell, O'Neill, Odets, Wilder, Stein, Williams, Miller, Hansberry, Albee, Fornes, Kennedy, Mamet, Parks, and Ruhl.

ENTH BC3144 Black Theatre. 4 points.

Exploration of Black Theater, specifically African-American performance traditions, as an intervening agent in racial, cultural, and national identity. African-American theatre artists to be examined include Amiri Baraka, Kia Corthron, W.E.B. Du Bois, Angelina Grimke, Langston Hughes, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Adrienne Kennedy, Suzan-Lori Parks, Adrian Piper, and August Wilson. Fulfills one (of two) required courses in dramatic literature for Theatre/Drama and Theatre Arts major.

The following is a partial list of courses in the Spanish and Latin American Cultures Department that American Studies students have drawn upon to build their majors. New courses are constantly being developed. Students are therefore expected to have an ongoing dialogue with their advisor about elective possibilities.

SPAN UN3350 Hispanic Cultures II: Enlightenment to the Present. 3 points.

This course surveys cultural production of Spain and Spanish America from the eighteenth to the twenty-first centuries. Students will acquire the knowledge needed for the study of the cultural manifestations of the Hispanic world in the context of modernity. Among the issues and events studied will be the Enlightenment as ideology and practice, the Napoleonic invasion of Spain, the wars of Spanish American independence, the fin-de-siècle and the cultural avant-gardes, the wars and revolutions of the twentieth century (Spanish Civil War, the Mexican and Cuban revolutions), neoliberalism, globalization, and the Hispanic presence in the United States. The goal of the course is to study some key moments of this trajectory through the analysis of representative texts, documents, and works of art. Class discussions will seek to situate the works studied within the political and cultural currents and debates of the time. All primary materials, class discussion, and assignments are in Spanish. This course is required for the major and the concentration in Hispanic Studies.

The following is a partial list of courses in the Sociology Department that American Studies students have drawn upon to build their majors. New courses are constantly being developed. Students are therefore expected to have an ongoing dialogue with their advisor about elective possibilities.

SOCI UN2208 Culture in America. 3 points.

The values and meanings that form American pluralism. The three sections explore taste, consumption, and art; moral conflict, religion and secularism; identity, community and ideology. Examples range widely: Individualism, liberalism and conservatism; Obama's "transracial" endeavor; the food revolution; struggles over family and sexuality; multiculturalism; assimilation and immigration.

SOCI V3208 Unity and Division in the Contemporary United States: A Sociological View. 4 points.

Conflict and unity in the U.S: the tensions of individualism and communalism; the schism between blue and red states; culture war; the careers of racism and anti-Semitism; identity politics and fragmentation; immigration and second eneration identities; the changing status of whiteness and blackness; cultural borrowing and crossover culture.

SOCI V3220 Masculinity: A Sociological View. 3 points.

Prerequisites: One introductory course in Sociology is suggested.

Examines the cultural, political, and institutional forces that govern masculinity. Focuses on various meanings of "being a man" and the effects these different types of masculinity have on both men and women. Explores some of the variation among men and relationships between men and women.

SOCI V3227 The Sociology of U.S. Economic Life. 3 points.

Prerequisites: One introductory course in sociology is recommended.

Examines the social forces that shape market behavior: ideologies of liberalism and conservatism; the culture of commodities and consumption; income, class, and quality of life; the immigrant economy; life in financial institutions; the impact of the global economy.

SOCI UN3235 Social Movements. 3 points.

Prerequisites: One introductory course in Sociology suggested.

Social movements and the theories social scientists use to explain them, with emphasis on the American civil rights and women's movements.  Topics include theories of participation, the personal and social consequences of social movements, the rationality of protest, the influence of ideology, organization, and the state on movement success, social movements, and the mass media.

SOCI V3247 The Immigrant Experience, Old and New. 3 points.

The immigrant experience in the United States. Topics include ideologies of the melting pot; social, cultural, and economic life of earlier immigrants; the distinctiveness of the African-American experience; recent surge of "new" immigrants (Asians, Latinos, West Indians); and changing American views of immigration.

SOCI UN3264 The Changing American Family. 3 points.

Worries and debates about the family are in the news daily. But how in fact is "the family" changing? And why? This course will study the family from a sociological perspective with primary emphasis on continuity and change and variation across different historical eras. We'll examine how the diversity of family life and constellations of intimacy and care are shaped by gender, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and sexuality.   Discussion section (required) will engage with readings as well as events in the news/ social media of interest to students.  

SOCI W3277 Post-Racial America?. 3 points.

What is race? Is the US a post-racial society? Is such a society desirable? Is a post-racial society necessarily a just and egalitarian one? We consider these questions from ethnographic, historical, and theoretical perspectives. Topics discussed include intersectionality, multiracial identity, colorism, genetics, and the race and/or class debate.

SOCI UN3302 Sociology of Gender. 3 points.

Prerequisites: One introductory course in Sociology suggested.

Examination of factors in gender identity that are both universal (across time, culture, setting) and specific to a social context. Social construction of gender roles in different settings, including family, work, and politics. Attention to the role of social policies in reinforcing norms or facilitating change.

SOCI V3318 The Sociology of Sexuality. 3 points.

Prerequisites: Introductory course in Sociology is suggested.

Social, cultural and organizational aspects of sex in the contemporary United States, stressing the plural in sexualities: sexual revolution and post-Victorian ideologies; the context of gender and inequality; social movements and sexual identity; the variety of sexual meanings and communities; the impact of AIDS.

SOCI V3324 Poverty, Inequality, and Policy: A Sociological Perspective. 4 points.

Prerequisites: Introductory course in Sociology is suggested.

Examination of poverty, the "underclass," and inequality in the United States. Part 1: The moral premises, social theories, and political interests shaping current debates about the poor. Part 2: A more concrete analysis of the lives of the poor and the causes of family breakdown, the drug economy, welfare, employment, and homelessness.

SOCI UN3901 The Sociology of Culture. 4 points.

Prerequisites: SOCI BC1003 or equivalent social science course and permission of the instructor. 

Drawing examples from popular music, religion, politics, race, and gender, explores the interpretation, production, and reception of cultural texts and meanings. Topics include aesthetic distinction and taste communities, ideology, power, and resistance; the structure and functions of subcultures; popular culture and high culture; and ethnography and interpretation.

SOCI BC3903 Work and Culture. 4 points.

Prerequisites: Preference for Barnard Leadership Initiative participants, Juniors and Seniors. 

Sociological approaches to understanding work and culture. Theoretical underpinnings of workplace interactions, with attention to ethnographies of work across a range of organizations. Examines changes in work due to technological advances and globalization. Special emphasis on gender.

SOCI BC3909 Ethnic Conflict and Unrest. 4 points.

Prerequisites: Sophomore Standing. SOCI BC1003 or permission of the instructor. 

Post-1965 immigration in the U.S. has prompted conflicts between new immigrant groups and established racial and ethnic groups. This seminar explores ethnic conflict and unrest that takes place in the streets, workplace, and everyday social life. Focus is on sociological theories that explain the tensions associated with the arrival of new immigrants.

SOCI W3936 Sociology and the Public. 4 points.

Prerequisites: Sociological Imagination (SOCI V1202) or The Social World (SOCI W1000) (not required).

This course explores how sociologists address pressing public concerns. With a focus on contemporary American issues, we will discuss: (1) how particular problems are identified; (2) what resolutions are put forth, who is likely to achieve them, and how; (3) what the audience is (and should be) for such work.

The following is a partial list of courses in the Religion Department that American Studies students have drawn upon to build their majors. New courses are constantly being developed. Students are therefore expected to have an ongoing dialogue with their advisor about elective possibilities.

RELI V2505 Intro to Judaism. 3 points.

A historical overview of Jewish belief and practice as these have crystallized and changed over the centuries. Special attention to ritual and worship, the forms of religious literature, central concepts, religious leadership and institutions, Israel among the nations.

RELI V2645 Religion in Black America: An Introduction. 3 points.

Undergraduate lecture course introducing students to the study of African American religion. While there are no required prerequisites for the course, prior coursework in religious studies or African American history is helpful. This course progresses as a historical survey and is intended to introduce students to important themes in African American (thus American) religious history (i.e. migration, urbanization, nationalism) through a rich engagement with the religious practices and traditions of black communities. Primary attention is given to Afro-Protestantism in North America; however, throughout the course attention is directed to religious diversity and varying religious traditions/practices in different diasporic locales. While this is a lecture course, students are expected to arrive each week having completed assigned readings and prepared to make informed contributions to class discussions (as class size allows). By the end of the semester students will be expected to possess a working knowledge of major themes/figures/traditions in African American religious life, as well as key questions that have shaped the study thereof.

RELI V3602 Religion in America I. 3 points.

Survey of American religion from the Civil War to the present, with the emphasis on the ways religion has shaped American history, culture, identity.

RELI V3603 Religion in America II. 3 points.

Survey of American religion from the Civil War to the present, with an emphasis on the ways religion has shaped American history, culture, and identity.

RELI V3604 Religion in the City. 3 points.

Uses the city to address and investigate a number of central concepts in the study of religion, including ritual, community, worldview, conflict, tradition, and discourse.  We will explore together what we can learn about religions by focusing on place, location, and context.

RELI V3610 Religion in American Film. 3 points.

Exploration of relationships between religion and popular film with particular attention to the way religious narratives and symbols in film uphold and critique norms of race, class and gender in the formation of American societal institutions (political structures, economy, family and community organization).

RELI V3650 Religion and the Civil Rights Movement. 3 points.

Examination of the role of religion in the drive for civil rights during the 1950s and 1960s. The course will look at the role of activists, churches, clergy, sermons, and music in forging the consensus in favor of civil rights.

RELI V3651 Evangelicalism. 3 points.

Survey of evangelicalism, "America's folk religion," in all of its various forms, including the holiness movement, fundamentalism, pentecostalism, the charismatic movement, neoevangelicalism, the sanctified tradition, and various ethnic expressions. The course will examine the origins of evangelicalism, its theology, and the cultural and political involvement of American evangelicals.

RELI W4610 Science, Nature, and Religion in 20th Century America. 4 points.

Examination of the relationship between scientific and religious ideas, with particular reference to American culture in the twentieth century. Explores the impact of such events as the Scopes trial and the popular faith in science and technology of the religious attitudes and beliefs of 20th-century Americans.

RELI W4614 Defining Marriage: A History of Marriage in the United States. 4 points.

This seminar examines the changing purpose and meaning of marriage in the history of the United States from European colonization through contemporary debates over gay marriage.  Topics include religious views of marriage, interracial marriage, and the political uses of the institution.

RELI W4620 Religious Worlds of New York. 4 points.

This seminar teaches ethnographic approaches to studying religious life with a special focus on urban religion and religions of New York. Students develop in-depth analyses of religious communities using these methods. Course readings address both ethnographic methods and related ethical and epistemological issues, as well as substantive topical issues of central importance to the study of urban religion, including transnationalism and immigration, religious group life and its relation to local community life, and issues of ethnicity, race and cosmopolitanism in pluralistic communities.

RELI W4640 Religion in the American Public Sphere. 4 points.

Introduction to questions surrounding the relationships between religion and the public sphere in the United States. Approaches topics of civil religion, church-state relations, religious pluralism in the public sphere, and the role of congregations in local communities using sociological theories and methods.

RELI W4645 American Protestant Thought. 4 points.

Looks at the relation between inquiry and imagination in selected religious writers and writers on religion in the American Protestant tradition. How does imagination serve inquiry? What are the objects of inquiry in these writings? Most of these authors reflect explicitly on imagination and inquiry, in addition to providing examples of both at work on religious topics.

RELI W4660 Religious History of New York. 4 points.

Survey of religious life in New York City, from the English conquest of 1684 through changes to the immigration laws in 1965.

RELI W4670 Native American Religions. 4 points.

Examines the varieties of Native American religions and spirituality, from contact to the present, including a look at the effects of European religions on Native American traditions.

RELI W4721 Religion and Social Justice. 4 points.

Examines current debates on three topics (religious reasons in public discourse, human rights, and democracy). Also looks briefly at some uses of the Exodus story, focusing on Michael Walzer's study of its political uses, Edward Said's criticism of Walzer's use of it in connection with contemporary Israel, and its role in debates among African Americans in the nineteenth century.

RELI W4803 Religion Vs. The Academy. 4 points.

Today we hear heated debates about the proper aims of education in relation to those of religion. The impact of the David Project's "Columbia Unbecoming" on the Department of MESAAS and the university as a whole (2008) is a case in point. More recently (2014), in response to threatened legal action from the Hindu right, Penguin Press of India has withdrawn Wendy Doniger's book "The Hindus" from circulation, generating an international controversy. This course focuses on case studies from India and the United States-sometimes parallel, sometimes divergent, sometimes overlapping. Wendy Doniger and Gurinder Singh Mann will be guests.

RELI W4805 Secular and Spiritual America. 4 points.

Are Americans becoming more secular or more spiritual (not religious), or both? What are the connections between secularism and what is typically called non-organized religion or the spiritual in the United States?  We will address these questions by looking at some of the historical trajectories that shape contemporary debates and designations (differences) between spiritual, secular and religious.

The following is a partial list of courses in the Political Science Department that American Studies students have drawn upon to build their majors. New courses are constantly being developed. Students are therefore expected to have an ongoing dialogue with their advisor about elective possibilities.

POLS UN1201 Introduction To American Government and Politics. 4 points.

Lecture and discussion. Dynamics of political institutions and processes, chiefly of the national government. Emphasis on the actual exercise of political power by interest groups, elites, political parties, and public opinion.

POLS BC3254 First Amendment Values. 3 points.

Prerequisites: POLS W1201 or an equivalent. Not an introductory course. Not open to students who have taken the colloquium POLS BC3302.

Examines the first amendment rights of speech, press, religion and assembly. In-depth analysis of landmark Supreme Court rulings provides the basis for exploring theoretical antecedents as well as contemporary applications of such doctrines as freedom of association, libel, symbolic speech, obscenity, hate speech, political speech, commercial speech, freedom of the press and religion. (Cross-listed by the American Studies Program.)

POLS V3313 American Urban Politics. 3 points.

Patterns of government and politics in America's large cities and suburbs: the urban socioeconomic environment; the influence of party leaders, local officials, social and economic notables, and racial, ethnic, and other interest groups; mass media, the general public, and the state and federal governments; and the impact of urban governments on ghetto and other urban conditions. As of academic year 2016-2017, this course is now POLS 3213.

POLS BC3331 Colloquium on American Political Decisionmaking. 4 points.

Prerequisites: POLS W1201 or the equivalent.  

Readings on decisionmaking, policy analysis, and the political setting of the administrative process. Students will simulate an ad hoc Cabinet Committee assigned to prepare a presidential program to deal with aspects of the foreign aid program involving hunger and malnutrition. (Cross-listed by the American Studies Program and by the Athena Center for Leadership Studies.)

POLS BC3332 Colloquium on Exploring Political Leadership in the U.S.. 4 points.

Prerequisites: POLS W1201 or the equivalent.  

Exploration of the effect of political leadership on political outcomes in the United States, with special attention to how individual characteristics, like personality, political style, ideology, gender, race and class, interact with the political environment in shaping political outcomes. (Cross-listed by the American Studies Program and by the Athena Center for Leadership Studies.)

POLS BC3521 Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. 3 points.

Prerequisites: POLS W1201 or the equivalent. Not an introductory-level course. Not open to students who have taken the colloquium POLS BC3326. 

Explores seminal caselaw to inform contemporary civil rights and civil liberties jurisprudence and policy.  Specifically, the readings examine historical and contemporary first amendment values, including freedom of speech and the press, economic liberties, takings law, discrimination based on race, gender, class and sexual preference, affirmative action, the right to privacy, reproductive freedom, the right to die, criminal procedure and adjudication, the rights of the criminally accused post-9/11 and the death penalty. (Cross-listed by the American Studies and Human Rights Programs.)

POLS W4316 The American Presidency. 3 points.

Prerequisites: POLS W1201 or any course that qualifies for the the introductory-level American Politics course. 

Growth of presidential power, creation and use of the institutionalized presidency, presidential-congressional and presidential-bureaucratic relationships, and the presidency and the national security apparatus.

The following is a partial list of courses in the Philosophy Department that American Studies students have drawn upon to build their majors. New courses are constantly being developed. Students are therefore expected to have an ongoing dialogue with their advisor about elective possibilities.

PHIL UN2110 Philosophy and Feminism. 3 points.

Is there an essential difference between women and men? How do questions about race conflict or overlap with those about gender? Is there a "normal" way of being "queer"? Introduction to philosophy and feminism through a critical discussion of these and other questions using historical and contemporary texts, art, and public lectures. Focus includes essentialism, difference, identity, knowledge, objectivity, and queerness.

The following is a partial list of courses in the History Department that American Studies students have drawn upon to build their majors. New courses are constantly being developed. Students are therefore expected to have an ongoing dialogue with their advisor about elective possibilities.

HIST BC1402 Survey of American Civilization Since the Civil War. 4 points.

Examines the major intellectual and social accommodations made by Americans to industrialization and urbanization; patterns of political thought from Reconstruction to the New Deal; selected topics on post-World War II developments.

HIST BC2413 The United States, 1940-1975. 3 points.

Emphasis on foreign policies as they pertain to the Second World War, the atomic bomb, containment, the Cold War, Korea, and Vietnam. Also considers major social and intellectual trends, including the Civil Rights movement, the counterculture, feminism, Watergate, and the recession of the 1970s.

HIST BC2424 Approached by Sea: Early American Maritime Culture. 3 points.

Thematically and chronologically ordered narrative of the impact of the Atlantic Ocean and its tidal tributaries upon the beginnings and subsequent development of the American colonies and of the Early American Republic. Special stress will be placed upon the physical givens and cultural implications of the coastal environment in which early Americans went about their lives.

The following is a partial list of courses in the Anthropology Department that American Studies students have drawn upon to build their majors. New courses are constantly being developed. Students are therefore expected to have an ongoing dialogue with their advisor about elective possibilities.

ANTH UN2005 Ethnographic Imagination. 3 points.

Introduction to the theory and practice of “ethnography”—the intensive study of peoples’ lives as shaped by social relations, cultural images, and historical forces. Considers through critical reading of various kinds of texts (classic ethnographies, histories, journalism, novels, films) the ways in which understanding, interpreting, and representing the lived words of people—at home or abroad, in one place or transnationally, in the past or the present—can be accomplished.  

ANTH UN3300 Pre-Columbian Histories of Native America. 3 points.

This course explores 10,000 years of the North American archaeological record, bringing to light the unwritten histories of Native Americans prior to European contact. Detailed consideration of major pre-Columbian sites is interwoven with the insight of contemporary native peoples to provide both a scientific and humanist reconstruction of the past.

ANTH BC3868 Ethnographic Field Research in New York City. 4 points.

A seminar-practicum on field research in New York City. Exploration of anthropological field research methods followed by supervised individual field research on selected topics in urban settings.

ANTH V3950 Anthropology of Consumption. 4 points.

Examines theories and ethnographies of consumption, as well as the political economy of production and consumption. Compares historic and current consumptive practices, compares exchange-based economies with post-Fordist economies. Engages the work of Mauss, Marx, Godelier, Baudrillard, Appadurai, and Douglas, among others.

ANTH V3954 Bodies and Machines: Anthropologies of Technology. 4 points.

Examines how bodies become mechanized and machines embodied. Studies shifts in the status of the human under conditions of capitalist commodification and mass mediation. Readings consist of works on the fetish, repetition and automaticity, reification, and late modern technoprosthesis.

ANTH UN3966 Culture and Mental Health. 4 points.

This course considers mental disturbance and its relief by examining historical, anthropological, psychoanalytic and psychiatric notions of self, suffering, and cure. After exploring the ways in which conceptions of mental suffering and abnormality are produced, we look at specific kinds of psychic disturbances and at various methods for their alleviation.

ANTH V3969 Specters of Culture. 4 points.

Pursues the spectral effects of culture in the modern. Traces the ghostly remainders of cultural machineries, circuitries of voice, and representational forms crucial to modern discourse networks through a consideration of anthropologically significant, primarily nonwestern sites and various domains of social creation - performance, ritual practice, narrative production, and technological invention. 

ANTH V3974 Lost Worlds, Secret Spaces: Modernity and the Child. 4 points.

Examines the figure of the child in modernity. Study of children and the delineation of a special time called childhood have been crucial to the modern imagination; for example, the child tended to be assimilated to the anthropological notion to the "primitive" (and vice versa), with repercussions ranging from psychoanalysis to painting, from philosophy to politics. Engages the centrality of the child through interdisciplinary readings in anthropology, history, children's literature, art criticism, educational theory, and psychology.

ANTH V3980 Nationalism. 4 points.

This course will cover the basic readings in the contemporary debate over nationalism. It will cover different disciplinary approaches and especially look at recent studies of nationalism in the formerly colonial world as well as in the industrial West. The readings will offer a mix of both theoretical and empirical studies. The readings include the following: 1) Eric Hobsbawm's Nationalism since 1780; 2) Ernest Gillner's Nations and Nationalism; 3) Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities; 4) Anthony Smith's The Ethnic Origins of Nations; 5) Linda Coley's Britons; 6) Peter Sahlins's Boundaries; and 7) Partha Chatterjee's The Nation and Its Fragments.

The following is a partial list of courses in the Human Rights Department that American Studies students have drawn upon to build their majors. New courses are constantly being developed. Students are therefore expected to have an ongoing dialogue with their advisor about elective possibilities.

HRTS BC1025 Human Rights in Theory and Practice. 3 points.

Provides a broad overview of the rapidly expanding field of human rights. Lectures on the philosophical, historical, legal and institutional foundations are interspersed with weekly presentations by frontline advocates from the U.S. and overseas.

HRTS UN3001 Introduction to Human Rights. 3 points.

Evolution of the theory and content of human rights; the ideology and impact of human rights movements; national and international human rights law and institutions; their application with attention to universality within states, including the U.S., and internationally.

The following is a partial list of courses in the Environmental Science Department that American Studies students have drawn upon to build their majors. New courses are constantly being developed. Students are therefore expected to have an ongoing dialogue with their advisor about elective possibilities.

EESC BC3040 Environmental Law. 3 points.

Process-oriented introduction to the law and its use in environmental policy and decision-making. Origins and structure of the U.S. legal system. Emphasis on litigation process and specific cases that elucidate the common law and toxic torts, environmental administrative law, and environmental regulation through application and testing of statutory law in the courts. Emphasis also on the development of legal literacy, research skills, and writing.

The following is a partial list of courses in the English Department that American Studies students have drawn upon to build their majors. New courses are constantly being developed. Students are therefore expected to have an ongoing dialogue with their advisor about elective possibilities.

ENGL BC3129 Explorations of Black Literature: Early African-American Lit. 1760-1890. 3 points.

Poetry, prose, fiction, and nonfiction, with special attention to the slave narrative. Includes Wheatley, Douglass, and Jacobs, but emphasis will be on less familiar writers such as Brown, Harper, Walker, Wilson, and Forten. Works by some 18th-century precursors will also be considered.

ENGL BC3130 The American Cowboy and the Iconography of the West. 3 points.

We will consider the image and role of the cowboy in fiction, social history, film, music, and art. Readings will include Cormac McCarthy's "The Border Trilogy.

ENTH BC3144 Black Theatre. 4 points.

Exploration of Black Theater, specifically African-American performance traditions, as an intervening agent in racial, cultural, and national identity. African-American theatre artists to be examined include Amiri Baraka, Kia Corthron, W.E.B. Du Bois, Angelina Grimke, Langston Hughes, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Adrienne Kennedy, Suzan-Lori Parks, Adrian Piper, and August Wilson. Fulfills one (of two) required courses in dramatic literature for Theatre/Drama and Theatre Arts major.

ENGL BC3179 American Literature to 1800. 3 points.

This course surveys American literature written before 1800. While we will devote some attention to the literary traditions that preceded British colonization, most of our readings will be of texts written in English between 1620 and 1800. These texts--histories, autobiographies, poems, plays, and novels--illuminate the complexity of this period of American culture. They tell stories of pilgrimage, colonization, and genocide; private piety and public life; manuscript and print publication; the growth of national identity (political, cultural, and literary); Puritanism, Quakerism, and Deism; race and gender; slavery and the beginnings of a movement towards its abolition. We will consider, as we read, the ways that these stories overlap and interconnect, and the ways that they shape texts of different periods and genres.

ENGL BC3180 American Literature, 1800-1870. 3 points.

Texts from the late Republican period through the Civil War explore the literary implications of American independence, the representation of Native Americans, the nature of the self, slavery and abolition, gender and woman's sphere, and the Civil War. Writers include Irving, Emerson, Poe, Fuller, Thoreau, Douglass, Stowe, Jacobs, Whitman, and Dickinson.

ENGL BC3181 American Literature, 1871-1945. 3 points.

This interdisciplinary course situates late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American literature within the context of historical and cultural change. Students read works by Whitman, Twain, James, Griggs, Wharton, Faulkner, and Hurston alongside political and cultural materials including Supreme Court decisions, geometric treatises, composite photography and taxidermy.

ENGL BC3182 American Fiction. 3 points.

American fiction from the 18th to the early 20th centuries.  Writers include Rowson, Hawthorne, Melville, Alcott, Twain, James, Wharton, Faulkner, Wright.

ENGL BC3183 American Literature since 1945. 3 points.

In the wake of World War II, the so-called American Century rises out of the ashes of fascism, haunted by the specter of bombs blurring the boundary between victory and defeat.  An ideological civil war ensues, punctuated by literary resistance to grand narratives and their discontents.  Authors include Ellison, O’Connor, Ginsberg, Bishop, Pynchon, Robinson, Merrill, Morrison, Didion, and Wallace.

ENGL BC3196 Home to Harlem: Literature of the Harlem Renaissance. 4 points.

In the spring of 2016, ENGL 3196y will be centered on the relationship between art, activism and social justice as this relationship was developed during the Harlem Renaissance and beyond. Exploring the cultural contexts and aesthetic debates that animated Harlem in 1920s to 1930s, the course will focus on the politics of literary and theatrical production, and explore the fashioning and performance of New Negro identity through fiction, poetry, essays, and artwork, with special attention to theater/performance. This course will partner with Harlem's National Black Theater and work toward an understanding of the relationship between art/literature and socio-political change through the NBT's spring 2016 production of Dominique Morisseau's Blood on the Root, a multi-genre performance piece on racial injustice inspired by the 2006 Jena Six case in Louisiana.

The following is a partial list of courses in the Education Department that American Studies students have drawn upon to build their majors. New courses are constantly being developed. Students are therefore expected to have an ongoing dialogue with their advisor about elective possibilities.

EDUC BC3032 Contemporary Issues in Education. 4 points.

Contemporary Issues in Education is an introduction to the range of intellectual dilemmas that are a part of American schooling through the illumination of the various social, philosophical, economic, and institutional forces that shape the learning environment. The topics serve to promote critical thought of educational dilemmas stemming from issues such as power and authority, the intersection of race, gender, socio-economic inequity, and challenges that confront students such as identity, marginalization and resiliency. This course is open to all students interested in investigating one’s best “fit” in the education realm, which may include classroom teaching, educational policy, reform, and NGO-based involvement.

EDUC BC3050 Science in the City. 4 points.

In partnership with the American Museum of Natural History students investigate science, science pedagogical methods, and ways to use New York City as a resource for science teaching and learning. Sessions will be held at Barnard and the museum. Field trips and fieldwork required. Non-science majors pre-service elementary students and first year students, welcome. Note: Students in the Childhood Urban Teaching Program may use this course as a pedagogical elective.

The following is a partial list of courses in the Economics Department that American Studies students have drawn upon to build their majors. New courses are constantly being developed. Students are therefore expected to have an ongoing dialogue with their advisor about elective possibilities.

ECON BC2010 The Economics of Gender. 3 points.

Examination of gender differences in the U.S. and other advanced industrial economies. Topics include the division of labor between home and market, the relationship between labor force participation and family structure, the gender earnings gap, occupational segregation, discrimination, and historical, racial, and ethnic group comparisons.

ECON BC3011 Inequality and Poverty. 3 points.

Prerequisites: ECON BC3035 or ECON BC3033, or permission of the instructor.

Conceptualization and measurement of inequality and poverty, poverty traps and distributional dynamics, economics and politics of public policies, in both poor and rich countries.

ECON BC3012 Economics of Education. 3 points.

Prerequisites: ECON BC3035 and ECON BC2411 or permission of the instructor.

Analyzes education policies and education markets from an economic perspective. Examines challenges that arise when researchers attempt to identify the causal effects of inputs. Other topics: (1) education as an investment, (2) public school finance, (3) teacher labor markets, (4) testing/accountability programs, (5) school choice programs, and (6) urban public school reforms.

ECON BC3013 Economic History of the United States. 3 points.

Prerequisites: ECON BC3035 or ECON BC3033, or permission of the instructor.

Economic transformation of the United States from a small, open agrarian society in the late colonial era to the leading industrial economy of the 20th century. Emphasis is given to the quantitative, institutional, and spatial dimensions of economic growth, and the relationship between the changing structures of the economy and state.

ECON BC3019 Labor Economics. 3 points.

Prerequisites: ECON BC3035, or permission of the instructor.

Factors affecting the allocation and remuneration of labor; population structure; unionization and monopsony; education and training, mobility and information; sex and race discrimination; unemployment; and public policy.

ECON UN3265 The Economics of Money and Banking. 3 points.

Prerequisites: ECON BC3033 and ECON BC3035 or the equivalent.

Introduction to the principles of money and banking. The intermediary institutions of the American economy and their historical developments, current issues in monetary and financial reform.

The following is a partial list of courses in the Dance Department that American Studies students have drawn upon to build their majors. New courses are constantly being developed. Students are therefore expected to have an ongoing dialogue with their advisor about elective possibilities.

DNCE BC2565 World Dance History. 3 points.

Investigates the multicultural perspectives of dance in major areas of culture, including African, Asian, Hispanic, Indian, Middle Eastern, as well as dance history of the Americas through reading, writing, viewing, and discussion of a wide range of resources. These include film, original documents, demonstration, and performance.

DNCE BC2570 Dance in New York City. 3 points.

Study of the cultural roots and historical contexts of specific communities using New York City's dance scene as a laboratory. Students observe the social environments in which various modes of dance works are created while researching the history of dance in New York City. Course includes attendance at weekly events, lecture-demonstrations, and performances.

DNCE BC2575 Choreography for the American Musical. 3 points.

Prerequisites: Suggested DNCE BC2560, BC2566, BC2570

Explores the history and evolution of American Musical Theater dance, a uniquely American art form, with special focus on the period known as "The Golden Era." Analysis of the genre's most influential choreographers (including Balanchine, de Mille, Robbins), their systems, methodologies and fusion of high and low art on the commerical stages.

DNCE BC2580 Tap as an American Art Form. 3 points.

Prerequisites: DNCE BC1446 or equivalent experience.

Studio/lecture format focuses on tap technique, repertory, improvisation, and the development of tap explored through American history, jazz music, films, videos, and biographies.

DNCE BC3001 Western Theatrical Dance from the Renaissance to the 1960s. 3 points.

Focuses on the history of theatre dance forms originating in Europe and America from the Renaissance to the present. Includes reading, writing, viewing, and discussion of sources such as film, text, original documentation, demonstration, and performance.

DNCE BC3570 Latin American and Caribbean Dance: Identities in Motion. 3 points.

Examines the history and choreographic features of Latin American and Caribbean dance forms. Dances are analyzed in order to uncover the ways in which dancing shapes national, racial, and gender identities. Focuses on the globalization of these dances in New York City.

DNCE BC3574 Inventing the Contemporary: Dance Since the 1960s. 3 points.

Explores modern/contemporary dance in the United States and Europe since the 1960's. Major units are devoted to the Judson Dance Theater and its postmodernist aftermath, Tanztheater and European dance revisionism, and African-American dance and the articulation of an aesthetic of cultural hybridity.

DNCE BC3578 Traditions of African-American Dance. 3 points.

Traces the development of African-American dance, emphasizing the contribution of black artists and the influence of black traditions on American theatrical dance. Major themes include the emergence of African-American concert dance, the transfer of vernacular forms to the concert stage, and issues of appropriation, cultural self-identification, and artistic hybridity.

DNCE BC3583 Gender and Historical Memory in American Dance of the 1930's to the Early 1960's. 3 points.

Prerequisites: One course in dance history/studies or permission of the instructor.

Explores the question of why so many women dancer/choreographers of the 1930's - to the early 1960's, including relatively well-known ones, have ended up as peripheral rather than central players in what has become the master narrative of a crucial era of the recent dance past.

DNCE BC3980 Performing the Political: Embodying Change in American Performance. 4 points.

Prerequisites: An introductory course in dance or theatre history or permission of instructor. Enrollment limited to 12 students.

Exploration into the politics of performance and the performance of politics through the lens of 20th-century American dance.

The following is a partial list of courses in the Comparative Literature Department that American Studies students have drawn upon to build their majors. New courses are constantly being developed. Students are therefore expected to have an ongoing dialogue with their advisor about elective possibilities.

CLIA GU3660 Mafia Movies: From Sicily to The Sopranos. 3 points.

Examines representations of the mafia in American and Italian film and literature. Special attention to questions of ethnic identity and immigration. Comparison of the different histories and myths of the mafia in the U.S. and Italy. Readings includes novels, historical studies, and film criticism. Limit 35

The following is a partial list of courses in the Architecture Department that American Studies students have drawn upon to build their majors. New courses are constantly being developed. Students are therefore expected to have an ongoing dialogue with their advisor about elective possibilities.

ARCH V3114 Making the Metropolis: Urban Design and Theories of the City since 1850. 3 points.

Introduces the project of understanding modern cities, focusing on theories, practices and examples in Europe and North America since 1850. The global reach of Euro-American ideas will also be examined. There are two primary goals: to investigate diverse strategies of urban development and to evaluate the social implications of built form. Course material includes built projects as well as unbuilt and theoretical work, all of which shaped how architects and planners interpreted the city.

The following is a partial list of courses in the Women's Studies Department that American Studies students have drawn upon to build their majors. New courses are constantly being developed. Students are therefore expected to have an ongoing dialogue with their advisor about elective possibilities.

WMST UN1001 Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies. 3 points.

An interdisciplinary introduction to key concepts and analytical categories in women's and gender studies. This course grapples with gender in its complex intersection with other systems of power and inequality, including: sexuality, race and ethnicity, class and nation. Topics include: feminisms, feminist and queer theory, commodity culture, violence, science and technology, visual cultures, work, and family.

WMST BC3121 Black Women in America. 4 points.

Examines roles of black women in the U.S. as thinkers, activists and creators during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Focusing on the intellectual work, social activism and cultural expression of African American women, we examine how they understood their lives, resisted oppression and struggled to change society. We will also discuss theoretical frameworks (such as "double jeopardy," or "intersectionality") developed for the study of black women. The seminar will encourage students to pay particular attention to the diversity of black women and critical issues facing Black women today. This course is the same as AFRS BC3121 Black Women in America.

WMST BC3131 Women and Science. 4 points.

History and politics of women's involvement with science. Women's contributions to scientific discovery in various fields, accounts by women scientists, engineers, and physicians, issues of science education. Feminist critiques of biological research and of the institution of science.

WMST UN3311 Colloquium in Feminist Theory. 4 points.

An exploration of the relationship between new feminist theory and feminist practice, both within the academy and in the realm of political organizing.

WMST V3312 Theorizing Activism. 4 points.

Prerequisites: Critical Approaches or Feminist Theory or permission of instructor.

Helps students develop and apply useful theoretical models to feminist organizing on local and international levels.  It involves reading, presentations, and seminar reports.  Students use first-hand knowledge of the practices of specific women's activist organizations for theoretical work.

WMST W4301 Early Jewish Women Immigrant Writers: 1900-1939. 4 points.

Covers significant pre-Holocaust texts (including Yiddish fiction in translation) by U.S. Ashkenazi women and analyzes the tensions between upholding Jewish identity and the necessity and/or inevitability of integration and assimilation. It also examines women's quests to realize their full potential in Jewish and non-Jewish communities on both sides of the Atlantic.

WMST GU4302 The Second Wave and Jewish Women's Artistic Responses: 1939-1990. 4 points.

A study of  Jewish women’s fiction, memoirs, art and film in response to the feminist/gender issues raised by the Second Wave. The seminar includes analysis of the writings and artwork of Jo Sinclair, Tillie Olsen, Judy Chicago, Helene Aylon, Elana Dykewomon, Rebecca Goldstein, E.M. Broner and others.

WMST W4304 Gender and HIV/AIDS. 4 points.

An interdisciplinary exploration of feminist approaches to HIV/AIDS with emphasis on the nexus of science and social justice.

WMST W4308 Sexuality and Science. 4 points.

Examines scientific research on human sexuality, from early sexology through contemporary studies of biology and sexual orientation, surveys of sexual behavior, and the development and testing of Viagra. How does such research incorporate, reflect, and reshape cultural ideas about sexuality? How is it useful, and for whom?

WMST W4309 Sex, Gender and Transgender Queries. 4 points.

Sex, sexual identity, and the body are produced in and through time.  “Trans” – as an identity, a set of practices, a question, a site, or as a verb of change and connection – is a relatively new term which this course will situate in theory, time, discipline, and through the study of representation.

WMST W4320 Queer Theories and Histories. 4 points.

The course will cover a range of (mostly U.S. and mostly 20th-Century) materials that thematize gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender experience and identity. We will study fiction and autobiographical texts, historical, psychoanalytic, and sociological materials, queer theory, and films, focusing on modes of representing sexuality and on the intersections between sexuality and race, ethnicity, class, gender, and nationality. We will also investigate connections between the history of LGBT activism and current events. Authors will include Foucault, Freud, Butler, Sedgwick, Anzaldua, Moraga, Smith. Students will present, and then write up, research projects of their own choosing.