American Studies

The study of culture is at the heart of the humanities and social sciences. Each discipline outlines a specific way of defining culture, a specific set of research questions, and a specific way to collect and analyze evidence. Though it is an interdisciplinary formation, American Studies, too, is marked by specific ways of approaching the study of culture. In contemporary American Studies, this approach is rooted in historical materialism. This course serves as an introduction to the historical materialist study of culture. Our course of study is organized chronologically, and spans Brazil, England, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Italy, Jamaica, Peru, and the Soviet Union.

 

This is a reading intensive course. For each meeting, we will engage in a close reading and discussion of a major text in the historical materialist study of culture. We will discuss these texts with the following questions in mind: how does this text define culture? How does this text identify the significance of culture? What are the kinds of examples and evidence that the text draws on to support its argument? How does this text propose the study of culture? Students in the class are responsible for short papers that answer these questions. You will also select a specific cultural “text” and draw on our readings to build out a series of research questions.

This course offers an overview of classic and contemporary examples of feminist ethnography. Over

the course of the semester, we will trace the development of, and debates around, feminist

ethnography from the 1970s to the contemporary period, highlighting the key questions and

dominant paradigms of the field. We will examine how feminist approaches shape the questions we

ask, how we present our research and the ethics of research. We will explore how to incorporate

collaborative and activist methods and analysis in our scholarly projects, asking: How can feminist

ethnography intensify efforts towards social justice in the current political and economic climate?

How do feminist ethnographers link their findings to broader publics through activism, advocacy, and

public policy?

This course is for American studies majors planning to complete senior projects in the spring. The course is designed to help students clarify their research agenda, sharpen their questions, and locate their primary and secondary sources. Through class discussions and a workshop peer review process, each member of the course will enter spring semester with a completed bibliography that will provide an excellent foundation for the work of actually writing the senior essay. The colloquium will meet every other week and is required for everyone planning to do a senior research project. Application due June 15. See American Studies website.

Please refer to the Center for American Studies website for course descriptions for each section. americanstudies.columbia.edu 

Please refer to the Center for American Studies website for course descriptions for each section. americanstudies.columbia.edu 

Please refer to the Center for American Studies for section descriptions

Please refer to the Center for American Studies for section descriptions

Please refer to the Center for American Studies for section descriptions

Please refer to the Center for American Studies for section descriptions

Please refer to the Center for American Studies for section descriptions

The 2024 presidential election poses a dramatic test of both our political system and the media that covers it. The campaign offers us an opportunity to examine, in real time, the critical role the press plays in our democracy and how it has been disrupted in an era dominated by social media and hyper-partisanship. We’ll look back at some iconic pieces of political reporting and compare them to the landscape journalists face today. How are groups that were underrepresented (or misrepresented) in legacy media changing the discourse? Is objectivity obsolete? And what happens to the decisions voters make when disinformation is rampant, and the fact base is under assault? Join waitlist and attend first class for instructor's permission.

Indigenous people are often imagined in the distant past, or as living anachronisms in relation to contemporary life. Working against these assumptions, this course examines how Native peoples have survived colonialism, focusing on economic aspects of colonialism in North America, while looking to Australia and Hawai‘i. We will look at the long history of Native land struggles, and links between colonial economies and ecological destruction. Themes guiding our inquiry include: the development of wage labor, property law and economic production on Native lands, histories of political and economic dependency, "development" as defined and practiced over Native communities, and Native people's own economic choices. Our inquiry will be oriented towards deepening our ability to critically analyze the colonial situation we live in, and to see Indigenous survivals despite ongoing assaults against life and territory.

Latina/o/x populations constitute over 19% of the U.S. population as of 2020, one of the fastest

growing groups in the U.S. with a long and rich history in the U.S while maintaining transnational ties.

In this course students are invited to critically analyze the social histories of and contemporary

experiences of a diverse range of Latino/a/x populations from across the Americas. Over the course of

the semester, we will discuss how Latino/a/x populations come to reside in and transform New York

City, how Latina/o/x populations contend with everyday life and, how they shape and reshape the

communities they resettle in. Although the focus is on New York City, we will also examine the

movement of peoples from the Caribbean and Latin America. Topics include histories of migration,

labor recruitment, citizenship, coloniality and racialization, neoliberalism and the rise of

financialization in NYC, environmental racism, community formation and Latino/a/x political

activism. We will critically examine a variety of text and genres ranging from anthropological,

historical, poetry, documentary, films, media, and art to shift away from homogeneous categorization

of Latino/a/x populations to understanding populations as dynamic and complex. Students are

invited to bring their stories to class as this is a collaborative learning environment.