American Studies

Short stories are sometimes revised into longer texts. This can happen for various reasons, ranging from aesthetic refinements to commercial considerations (for instance, the 1950s trend to rework multiple science fiction short stories published in genre magazines into “fix-ups” so as to capitalize on an expanding book market). This seminar will address a selection of American short stories from the second half of the 20th century and their subsequent adaptation, expansion, or incorporation into novel or novel-like formats. Analyzing the individual texts and the changes they undergo from one version to the next will enable us to consider issues of form, genre, narrative, and intertextuality. Texts will include The Martian Chronicles (Ray Bradbury, 1950); Go Tell It on the Mountain (James Baldwin, 1953); Flowers for Algernon (Daniel Keyes, 1966); Tracks (Louise Erdrich, 1988), and Four/Five Ways to Forgiveness (Ursula K. Le Guin, 1995/2017).

Since at least the 1980s gender has been considered a "useful category of historical research." In this class we will use this lens in order to understand major events and developments in U.S. history. By focusing on gender as a relation of power in social contexts we will explore changing images of masculinity and femininity as well as mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion. In addition to that, we will also discuss intersectional connections to other categories of identification (e.g. race and class).

This course explores why it is that the coming of age narrative is such an enduring form in US culture. It covers a range of different modes, including autobiography, fiction, film, and music and crosses over the past two centuries to capture the varied historical experience of entering into adulthood within the United States. It has a particular interest in identities, selves, and experiences whose testimonies are antagonistic to the developmental objectives of the genre in its most canonical renderings. Students are also encouraged to reflect on their own experience at university—their own coming of age tale—in order to elucidate and theorize the central critical issues of the course. 

This course examines the complex richness of 'Americanness'. Divided into historically grounded modules (Race; Religion; Gender; Politics; Region), the course will approach each from a variety of angles: the historiographical, the literary, the cultural, the political, the cinematic. It will open lines of interrelation between historical and imaginary forms in the construction and ongoing redefinition of the United States.

This course offers a critical introduction to United States history from the end of World War I to the present day. It is made up of four thematic sections which focus on: the state and political development; gender and sexuality; the US and the world; and race and ethnicity. The course focuses on historiographical questions that occupy scholars and interrogate change and continuity in political and social ideology during the 20th and 21st centuries. 

American sports culture frequently serves as an example of an alleged American exceptionalism; a fact that a relative indifference towards soccer, the exceptional “big four” pro sports leagues, and collegiate sports culture (NCAA) seemingly underline. This course sets out to make sense of and (maybe) trouble the narrative of American exceptionalism by examining the history of modern sports in the United States. We will consider the aesthetic, social, cultural, and political factors that contributed to the development and practice of sports from roughly the middle of the 19th century into our current age. The class will approach sports history with a focus on the relationship between sports and society, i.e. the role that sports has played in shaping ideology and informing popular thought, for example in the context of nationhood and globalization, but also with regard to modern discourses of health and fitness. The ultimate goal of this course is to encourage critically looking at, thinking, and writing about sports as everyday practice and as a professional field, as connected to discourses of health and (the pursuit of) happiness, as media event and content, and as a prominent repository of liberal narratives of meritocracy.

Postmodernism is a philosophical-cultural movement of the late twentieth century that permeated many fields. This course defines postmodernism and discusses its characteristics, focusing on postmodernism in art and culture, literature, philosophy and history.  

The course discusses the following materials: 

1) The Beatles' "The Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band" and other musical songs and albums;  

2) John Barth's "The Lost in the Funhouse" and other postmodernist stories;  

3) Jacques Derrida's philosphical notion of Deconstruction, plus theories based on deconstruction;  

4) Holocaust films (e.g. "The Shoah" and "Schindler's List") and literature;  

5) Dinh Q. Le's installation art;  

6) Yoko Ono's experimental art;  

7) American films such as "The Truman Show" & "Edward Scissorhands";  

8) Others. 

This course is to help the students to

Understand concepts and theories of political parties in the United States.

Understand the various functions of political parties in the United States.

Understand and explain how partisan polarization has contributed to the crisis of democracy and the crisis of governance in the United States.

Analyze how partisan polarization in the United States would affect Sino-US relations.

The United States is one of the most important countries in the western world. Its domestic partisan politics have global implications, affecting the Sino-US relationship. This course is intended to give an overview of the scholarly works and popular debates about political parties in the United States. Topics include the theories and the development of party system in the United States, party organization, the role of parties in mobilizing voters, party and governance, partisan polarization, parties and foreign policies, and party politics and Sino-US relations.

This course introduces a variety of texts across disciplines-history, philosophy, cultural studies, literature etc.-in order to understand how American culture interacts with and shapes the world we live in. Many of the important social and cultural movements and trends since World War II, which have contributed to the reshaping of the contours of American culture-- American exceptionalism, consumerism, globalization and mass culture, muticulturalism, ecoculturalism--are examined from various perspectives, both synchronically and diachronically.