American Studies Courses Offered – Office of Programmes

American Studies

COURSES OFFERED

Please check the NUS Online Bulletin for the full course descriptions.

Level-2000 Courses

AS2213 Reading American Text
Units Workload Prerequisites Preclusions Cross-listings	4 2-1-0-4-3 EN1101E, EN2101E, GEK1000 EN2111, EN2112, EN2113 EN2112
Drawing on critically acclaimed American poems, plays, fiction, drama, and films, this course seeks to sharpen students’ interpretive skills by exploring the multiple motivations, themes, and vocabularies through which any text is composed. We will read a selection of key texts and work out questions about each text’s authors, settings, style, characterization, and meaning. We will also introduce some basic strategies for writing about literature. This course is aimed at English Literature majors.

AS2236 US Media in the 20th Century and Beyond
Units Workload Prerequisites Preclusions Cross-listings	4 2-1-0-2-5 Nil AS3217, HY2236 HY2236
This course examines the part of the U.S. media in shaping American society and culture beginning with the New York Journal's advocacy of the Spanish-American War of 1898 through to the role played by CNN in the 1990s. The course will review the growth of mass circulated newspapers, magazines, radio and television and examine how new media forms, such as the Internet, shape and are shaped by society. Students will learn to critically evaluate media forms and media content in a historical context. This course is well suited for students interested in the USA or media.

AS2237 The U.S. : From Settlement to Superpower
Units Workload Prerequisites Preclusions Cross-listings	4 2-1-0-2-5 Nil HY2237, EK2000, AS2211, AS2212, HY2215, HY3213, GEM2000K HY2237, GEK2000
This course seeks to provide students with a basic grounding of American historical and cultural developments from European colonisation to the end of the twentieth century. It will examine both the internal developments in the United States as well as its growing importance in international politics. By offering a range of social, economic, and political perspectives on the American experience, it will equip students with the knowledge for understanding and analysing the dominance of the United States in contemporary world history and culture. This course is designed for students throughout NUS with an interest in American history.

Level-3000 Courses

AS3213 American Law: Language and Gender
Units Workload Prerequisites Preclusions Cross-listings	4 3-0-0-5-3 Nil Nil Nil
This course introduces students to the multidisciplinary field of language, law, and gender within the American context. Topics covered include abortion rights, pornography, gay rights, and sexual harassment. By discussing these issues from the viewpoint of judicial decisions, students will gain an understanding of the complex interactions between cultural, legal, ideological, political, and linguistic assumptions in relation to the issue of gender discrimination. The course is designed for students with a strong interest in the inter-relationships between language, law, ideology, and gender.

AS3230 American Business: Industrial Revolution-Web
Units Workload Prerequisites Preclusions Cross-listings	4 2-1-0-2-5 Nil AS3219, AS3240, HY3230, HY3240 HY3230
This course examines the place of business and technology in American culture. Beginning with the transformation of the American economy during the Civil War (1861-1865) students will examine changes in manufacturing systems, the development of corporations and big businesses, the growth of the national and international markets, the invention and marketing of new products, brand names, and advertising. The course asks students to evaluate the place of business in shaping American values and culture and whether companies such as Coca-Cola and Microsoft are typical or untypical of U.S. values. For students interested in the USA, business, and society.

AS3231 American Literature I
Units Workload Prerequisites Preclusions Cross-listings	4 2-1-0-3-4 EN1101E, EN2101, EN2101E, GEM1000K, GEK1000 AS3231, EN2206 EN3231
This course examines selected texts of 19th century American writing through Reconstruction; it examines typical aspects of American character/imagination, and it trains students to read literary texts closely and to express their understanding of texts both in class discussion and in writing. The course is aimed at undergraduate English majors, but cross-faculty students who enjoy literature are welcome.

AS3232 American Literature II
Units Workload Prerequisites Preclusions Cross-listings	4 2-1-0-3-4 EN1101E, EN2101, EN2101E, GEM1000K, GEK1000 AS3232 EN3232
This course concerns 20th century American writing from Reconstruction through present; it examines typical aspects of American character/imagination. The course trains students in the close reading of a variety of literary texts (naturalist, modernist, postmodernist) and a variety of literary forms (poetry, fiction, drama). The course is aimed at undergraduate English literature majors, but cross-faculty students who enjoy literature are welcome.

AS3234 Asian American Literature
Units Workload Prerequisites Preclusions Cross-listings	4 2-1-0-4-3 EN1101E, EN2101, EN2101E, GEM1000K, GEK1000 AS3234 EN3234
This course provides an overview of Asian American literature, with texts chosen from the main genres and across the period of the last half-century or so. It outlines the specific thematic concerns of this literature, but also the assumptions underlying the term "Asian American literature" itself. The relationships between society, culture, and text will be foregrounded in our consideration of these concerns. The course is designed for Literature students interested in a visibly emerging area of literary and ideological production within the larger controlling rubric we refer to as "American literature."

AS3235 Representations of Asians in the US
Units Workload Prerequisites Preclusions Cross-listings	4 2-1-0-3-4 Nil AS3235 EN3235
This course works in a critical, interdisciplinary fashion to examine the nature of the relationship between representation, identity formation and meaning creation. Students will consider the myriad ways in which visual and discursive representations are not simply reflective of reality but constitutive of it. The course examines several topics: how representations of Asians tell us about mainstream US identity formation anxieties and desires; the historical and cultural contingency of such representations; and the economics of representation and their operation - using a variety of media: literature, opera, film, drama, cartoons, and academia. The course is for EN majors/CFM and ISM students.

AS3238 The Political History of the US
Units Workload Prerequisites Preclusions Cross-listings	4 2-1-0-2-5 Nil HY3238, PS3212B, PS3242 HY3238
This course will focus on the political evolution of the US. The pre-eminence of the US in world affairs suggests that knowledge of the evolution of American society and its culture is crucial to understanding American motivations and actions. In tracing how Americans have, from 1776, resolved issues and debates regarding the role of the federal government, racial and economic justice, gender roles, and political participation, budget and resource allocation and environmental concerns, students will gain insight into the historical processes which have shaped the US. By the end of the semester, students would have the necessary perspectives and contexts to assess and interpret American cultural, social and economic developments, as well as the continuing dialogue that Americans have about the nature of their society and democracy. This course is designed for students throughout NUS with an interest in American history.

AS3239 The United States in the Asia-Pacific
Units Workload Prerequisites Preclusions Cross-listings	4 2-1-0-2-5 Nil HY3239 HY3239
This course will focus on the role of the US in the Asia-Pacific region from the nineteenth to the twenty‑first century. The evolution of political, military and economic ties between the America and three subregions of Asia will be explored. The nature of US involvement in the conflicts of the East Asian nations of Japan, China and Korea will form the first part of the course. The involvement of America in the decolonization and nation‑building of the Southeast Asian nations will also be examined. Finally, the American influence in the sectarian and power differences in the South Asian nations of India and Pakistan will be addressed. This course is designed for students throughout NUS with an interest in American history.

AS3240 Making America Modern
Units Workload Prerequisites Preclusions Cross-listings	4 2-1-0-2-5 Any level 1000 or 2000 HY or AS courses HY3240, HY3230, AS3230, AS3219 HY3240
In 1901 only 14% of American homes had a bath and 8% a telephone. The country however was undergoing a process of economic, social, and cultural modernity that laid the basis for it emerging as the pre-eminent power in the world by 1945. This course examines the transformation of America from 1880. Students will study the processes of modernity in America both as economic modernisation and cultural modernism. The course asks students to evaluate the relationship between various aspects of American modernity. The course is for students interested in the culture and society of the USA.

Level-4000 Courses

AS4219 American Intellectual History
Units Workload Prerequisites Preclusions Cross-listing	5 0-3-0-2-7.5 Cohort 2006 and before: Must have completed a minimum of 80 Units. Must major in HY. Cohort 2007 onwards: Completed 80 Units, including 28 Units in HY, with a minimum GPA of 3.50 or be on the Honours track. HY4219 HY4219
The course is an advanced overview of major approaches and themes in American intellectual history. Students will explore the diversity of American thinkers. The course will focus on the twentieth century and analyses American thinkers in their social contexts. This course provides a diverse and multifarious look at American intellectual history through a study of specific intellectual figures. Students will develop their understanding of the complexity of American intellectual traditions. For students majoring in history and those with an interest in the USA.

AS4231 The U.S. at War and Peace: Cold War Texts
Units Workload Prerequisites Preclusions Cross-listing	5 0-3-0-2-7.5 Cohort 2006 and before: Completed at least 80 Units including a minimum of 28 Units in EN. Cohort 2007 onwards: Completed 80 Units, including 28 Units in EN, with a minimum GPA of 3.50 or be on the Honours track. EN4231 EN4231
Students will think critically and engage with a wide range of materials and texts. Explicitly interdisciplinary in its approach and content, the course exposes to a variety of ideas and issues related to the militarization of society, economics, technology, culture and family. How the policies, technologies, and weapons of the Cold War have profoundly shaped the current moment. The cultural historical context of the Cold War through a range of documents and "texts" - including music, policy papers, art, historical documents, technology, films, TV, game theory, and literature. This is for EN majors/EN (Hons) students/Advanced CFM students/ISM students.

AS4232 Topics in American Literature
Units Workload Prerequisites Preclusions Cross-listing	5 0-3-0-3-6.5 Cohort 2006 and before: Completed at least 80 Units including a minimum of 28 Units in EN. Cohort 2007 onwards: Completed at least 80 Units, including 28 Units in EN, with a minimum GPA of 3.50 or be on the Honours track. EN4232 EN4232
This course, which is aimed at upper level English Literature majors and cross-faculty students who have some experience with literary analysis, will focus on American literary orientalism in order to continue to examine questions of race, gender, ethnicity and literary form in the (mainly postwar) American imaginary.

AS4233 Topics in American Culture
Units Workload Prerequisites Preclusions Cross-listing	5 0-3-0-3-6.5 Cohort 2006 and before: Completed at least 80 Units including a minimum of 28 Units in EN. Cohort 2007 onwards: Completed 80 Units, including 28 Units in EN, with a minimum GPA of 3.50 or be on the Honours track. EN4233 EN4233
This course focuses on select topics within American culture as a means of exploring aspects of American history, national identity and social formation. Documents drawn from a variety of media and across discourses will be examined.

ACADEMIC CONVENOR
Assoc Prof Joey Long

Level-2000 Courses

AS2213 Reading American Text
Units Workload Prerequisites Preclusions Cross-listings	4 2-1-0-4-3 EN1101E, EN2101E, GEK1000 EN2111, EN2112, EN2113 EN2112
Drawing on critically acclaimed American poems, plays, fiction, drama, and films, this course seeks to sharpen students’ interpretive skills by exploring the multiple motivations, themes, and vocabularies through which any text is composed. We will read a selection of key texts and work out questions about each text’s authors, settings, style, characterization, and meaning. We will also introduce some basic strategies for writing about literature. This course is aimed at English Literature majors.

AS2236 US Media in the 20th Century and Beyond
Units Workload Prerequisites Preclusions Cross-listings	4 2-1-0-2-5 Nil AS3217, HY2236 HY2236
This course examines the part of the U.S. media in shaping American society and culture beginning with the New York Journal's advocacy of the Spanish-American War of 1898 through to the role played by CNN in the 1990s. The course will review the growth of mass circulated newspapers, magazines, radio and television and examine how new media forms, such as the Internet, shape and are shaped by society. Students will learn to critically evaluate media forms and media content in a historical context. This course is well suited for students interested in the USA or media.

AS2237 The U.S. : From Settlement to Superpower
Units Workload Prerequisites Preclusions Cross-listings	4 2-1-0-2-5 Nil HY2237, EK2000, AS2211, AS2212, HY2215, HY3213, GEM2000K HY2237, GEK2000
This course seeks to provide students with a basic grounding of American historical and cultural developments from European colonisation to the end of the twentieth century. It will examine both the internal developments in the United States as well as its growing importance in international politics. By offering a range of social, economic, and political perspectives on the American experience, it will equip students with the knowledge for understanding and analysing the dominance of the United States in contemporary world history and culture. This course is designed for students throughout NUS with an interest in American history.