College Catalog
Course Descriptions
American Studies (AMER)

AMER 116 / HIST 116 History of the United States - GS 6
The course traces the political, socioeconomic, diplomatic, and cultural development of the United States from its pre-Columbian origins to the present. Each semester.

AMER 130 / POLI 130 United States Politics and Government - GS 6
A survey of the United States political system at the national, state and local levels; including examination of constitutions, social and political ideology, mass political behavior, parties and interest groups, the Congress, the presidency, the courts, and the development of national public policy. Focuses on the problems of policy-making in a pluralistic democratic system. Each semester.

AMER 221 / RELS 221 Religion in America - GS 6
Examines the historical development of religious movements in America, both mainstream and peripheral groups, and analyzes the religious perceptions by which Americans have viewed themselves as a nation and culture, including a contemporary assessment. Fall semester.

AMER 235 / ENGL 235 Survey of U.S. Literature 1--Beginnings to 1865
This course introduces students to the major writers, literary movements, and cultural and historical contexts in the United States from its origins to the end of the Civil War. Students examine American Indian creation stories, trickster tales, encounter narratives, Puritan prose and poetry, the literature of the Enlightenment and Revolutionary War, slave narratives, and the rise of Romanticism. Writers include Cabeza de Vaca, Bradford, Bradstreet, Rowlandson, Edwards, Wheatley, Rowson, Irving, Equiano, Hawthorne, Emerson, Thoreau, Poe, Melville, Whitman, Harding Davis, and Dickinson. Fall semester.

AMER 236 / ENGL 236 Survey of U.S. Literature 2--1865 to the Present
This course introduces students to the major authors, periods, and literary movements in the United States from the end of the Civil War to the present. Students read the works of poets, fiction writers, and dramatists from the rise of Realism and Naturalism, through the Modernist movement in the U.S., to the Postmodern era after the Second World War. Writers include Dickinson, Clemens, Crane, Jewett, Chopin, Black Elk, Frost, Stevens, Faulkner, O'Neill, O'Connor, Updike, Erdrich, Ginsberg, and Plath. Spring semester.

AMER 261 / HUMA 261 Introduction to American Studies - GS 6
As an introduction to the field of American Studies, this course assumes an interdisciplinary perspective on the question of what "American" means in the world of ideas, through using a variety of genres: history, fiction, poetry, film, sociology, journalism, speeches, and essays. This course analyzes several myths that pervade American culture, always bearing in mind that while myths tend to exaggerate, they also hold grains of truth. The course examines how the notion of the American Dream, for example, has both fostered and hindered progress for individuals within this nation. Potential authors include Barbara Ehrenreich, Ernest Gaines, F. Scott Fitzgerald, W.E.B. DuBois, and Sandra Cisneros. Fall semester, each year.

AMER 289 Special Topics
This is a seminar course that is offered whenever a mutual interest in a more specialized topic in American Studies exists for a member of the faculty and a sufficient number of students. An example of a 289 special topics course in the past is "The Automobile and American Culture." Prerequisite: Consent of instructor.

AMER 305 / PHIL 305 American Philosophy - GS 10
A study of the major movements and figures in American philosophy and intellectual history. The course will examine the diverse philosophical themes in the American tradition, including idealism, 18th century political theory, transcendentalism, and pragmatism. Figures studied include Edwards, Adams, Jefferson, Emerson, Thoreau, James, and Dewey. Fall semester, alternate years.

AMER 311 / ENGL 311 / WMGS 311 Women and Literature
Through exploring literary texts by women, this course analyzes how the construction of "woman," sex, and gender has changed over time and investigates how it intersects with issues of race, class, sexuality, and nation. By using feminist literary theory, the course engages with the most pressing issues in the field from ideas of women's literary voice to claims that challenge female authorship altogether. Special topics may include Contemporary Women Writers, Gender and 19th Century Novel, and Ethnic Women Writers. Authors may include Virginia Woolf, Adrienne Rich, Gloria Anzaldua, Margaret Atwood, Bharati Mukherjee, Leslie Feinberg, Edwidge Danticat, and Marjane Satrapi. Alternate Years.

AMER 317 / POLI 317 American Political Thought
This course examines the developments in political thought in the United States from the American Revolution to the present day. Particular attention will be paid to issues of political inclusion and exclusion on the basis of race, gender, sexuality, national origin and class. Changing attitudes in the relationship between individual liberty and majority rule will also be a dominant theme of the course, as well as the proper role of government in addressing social problems.

AMER 319 / HIST 319 The Catholic Contribution to the United States
This course will explore how and why Catholics of diverse gender, race, class, and religious commitment have contributed to the socioeconomic, cultural, political, and intellectual development of the United States. The course will examine Catholics and their church from Spanish North America to St. Norbert College, from immigration to assimilation, and from conflict to consensus. Fall semester, every third year.

AMER 323 / ENGL 323 The Harlem Renaissance
This course examines the flowering of culture-in the areas of literature, music, dance, and art-which took place predominantly during the 1920's for black Americans located in Harlem New York, a movement that has become known as the Harlem Renaissance. The course places this cultural renaissance, or rebirth, within the historical contexts out of which it grew: the modernizing America in a post-WWI era, the rise of jazz and the blues, and the Great Migration, among other factors. Some of the writers, intellectuals, visual and performing artists might include Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, James Weldon Johnson, Nella Larsen, Claude McKay, Alain Locke, Helene Johnson, Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Duke Ellington. Alternate years.

AMER 329 / ENGL 329 Literature of Service
This course addresses concepts of American culture through the dual lenses of literary texts and community-based learning. The course explores individuals and communities in crisis or transition as a result of poor health, poverty, immigration, homelessness, and gendered, sexual, racial or ethnic discrimination. Throughout the semester, paired students regularly volunteer at local community service agencies and expand their knowledge of these concepts by writing reflection journals as well as various forms of researched persuasive critical writing (literary analysis, opinion-editorials, grant proposals, and newsletters). Authors may include Dorothy Day, Robert Coles, Jane Addams, Edward Bellamy, William Carlos Williams, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Fae Myenne Ng, Li-Young Lee, and Anna Deavere Smith. Alternate years.

AMER 335 / POLI 335 Legislative Politics
An examination of the power, structure and functions of legislative bodies at the national and state levels in the United States. Focuses on the various factors that influence the performance of these bodies. Fall semester, alternate years. Prerequisites: POLI 130.

AMER 389 Special Topics
This is a seminar course that is offered whenever a mutual interest in a more specialized topic in American Studies exists for a member of the faculty and a sufficient number of students. An example of a 389 special topics course in the past is "The Harlem Renaissance." Prerequisite: Consent of instructor.

AMER 489 Special Topics
This is a seminar course that is offered whenever a mutual interest in a more specialized topic in American Studies exists for a member of the faculty and a sufficient number of students. Prerequisite: Consent of instructor.

AMER 490 Independent Study
Individual study of an approved topic in American Studies under the direction of an American Studies faculty member. Permits faculty and students to explore together some subject of special or personal interest. Past topics have included Narratives of the U.S. West and AIDS Literature, Art, and Culture. Reading, tutorial discussion, and written work are required. Prerequisite: Consent of instructor and approval of Associate Dean of Humanities and Fine Arts.

AMER 499 American Studies Research Project
American Studies minors are required to complete an interdisciplinary research project as part of their final American Studies elective course outside their major at the 300-level or above (see list of elective courses). Students enroll in AMER 499 concurrently with their final elective course.

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