AMERICAN CULTURAL STUDIES MOD. 2

The course is part of the Master’s Degree programs in European, American and Postcolonial Language and Literature and in Language Sciences and aims at providing students with advanced knowledge and skills in the field of American culture and beyond. Students will improve their skills in analyzing prose and poetic texts and in relating such texts to their historical and cultural contexts. The analytical skills students have learnt during the BA course will be further verified and developed, to include more specialized knowledge of literary history, critical theory and methodology. In addition, they will broaden their experience in working autonomously and in presenting the results of their own research.

The learning outcomes of the course are: 1. advanced knowledge and understanding concerning key transatlantic and global aspects of American Studies; 2. the skill to apply this knowledge and understanding to other texts not included in the syllabus; 3. the development of advanced communication skills in English; 4. autonomous formulation of judgements in analyzing primary and secondary texts; 5. ability to work synergically with other students.

Advanced knowledge of the English language, written and spoken (≥ C1).
Good knowledge of key theoretical concepts in American Cultural Studies.

Title: "From Nation to World, via Region and Hemisphere: A Matter of Perspective"
This course will study expanding perspectives and methodologies in American Studies enhanced by the overlapping and complementary paradigms mentioned in the course title. While reading a variety of essays on different approaches to U. S. cultural history, we will also analyze a number of narratives according to these shifting perspective opportunities. The aim of the course is to introduce those attending (and non-attending) to current American-Studies research approaches in a global context. Students will also develop methodological fluency in the field under study, including critical vocabulary, core concepts, and scholarly writing. (A definitive list of the readings and topics for each class will be provided during the introductory session.)

Assignments for presentation and discussion will be made a week before each class. Readings for each class session will be made available on our Moodle site.

Assignments for presentation:

Assignment 1: Armitage essay; Columbus letter of 1493; excerpt from Columbus journal; Shakespeare The Tempest
Assignment 2: Naming nowhere (Ophir, Fortunate Isles, Prester John’s kingdom, El Dorado, Cibolla, Salem, Placenames from Longfellow’s Hiawatha, Placenames of Wisconsin, street names of Venice, Henry Neville’s utopian narrative The Island of Pines)
Assignment 3: Essays on method (Peter Burke; Carlo Ginzburg; Kosselleck on historical time)
Assignment 4: the capitalist world-system (Wallerstein); from gold and ivory to sugar and slaves
Assignment 5: global cities (the rise of the metropolis; the skyscraper; immigration to USA; monopoly capitalism; Norris, The Pit)
Assignment 6: The gift economy (Mauss on the gift; the language of political economy; debt)
Assignment 7: Global environmental issues (Bill McKibben; Naomi Klein)
Assignment 8: From ‘wilderness’ to farm to industrial agriculture (Nash; William Bradford; Mourt’s Relation; Jefferson’s Northwest Ordinance; Frederick Jackson Turner’s Frontier thesis: the farm novel)
Assignment 9: From microhistory to global microhistory: from sign system to floating signifiers

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Course readings

Assignment 1: Armitage, “Three Concepts of Atlantic History”; Columbus letter of 1493 and excerpt from journal; Shakespeare The Tempest
Assignment 2: What’s in a placename? The ritual of naming; the mirage of placenames; period maps; Neville, The Island of Pines
Assignment 3: Burke, Ginzburg, and Koselleck on history and images; Arp on visualization processes; exercises
Assignment 4: Readings from Wallerstein, David Abulafia, Marcus Rediker
Assignment 5: Saskia Sassen, Zygmunt Baumann, and Abu Laghud on global cities and migration; selection of short stories
Assignment 6: Mauss, On the Gift; the language of political economy; Graeber on debt
Assignment 7: Readings on global environmental issues
Assignment 8: Nash on the concept of Wilderness; Bradford, ‘On Plymouth Plantation’; Mourt’s Relation; Thomas Jefferson’s Northwest Ordinance; Turner’s frontier thesis; the farm novel
Assignment 9: Ginsburg, essay on microhistory; Essay on global microhistory; ‘connected histories’; Sebeok on indexicality; de Saussure on signifier / signified dualism; Charles Sanders Peirce on semiotics

A final research paper (12 to 15 pages plus notes) related to one of the course topics will be due 10 days before exam registration. Choice of topic for the paper must be approved by the instructor. Non-attending students will be asked to take an oral exam on the course data covered in class and will be asked to complete assignments requested during the course.
Student evaluation will be based on in-class presentations (15%), assignments (15%), participation, and final paper (70%). For non-attending students, the oral exam will count 15%.

Seminar-style course with in-class discussion

English

written and oral