• General
Education Course Descriptions & Syllabi
• Upper-Division
Electives Course Descriptions & Syllabi
• Graduate
Course Descriptions & Syllabi
• Overview of the American Studies Curriculum
• Department of American Studies—Student Learning Goals
Overview of the American Studies Curriculum
Our courses examine American cultural life in the past and
present, always with the aim of helping students better
understand their experiences and their society. We study how
Americans
have thought about and experienced such matters as gender,
ethnic, racial, and regional identities, humor, religion,
crime and violence, childhood, family, the built environment,
community, mental health and sickness, cultural ideals,
and cultural criticism.
In an American Studies class you will encounter
a wide range of cultural sources for study. You may read one
or more
novels or autobiographies, examine movies and television
as cultural
documents, consider the visual arts and music, or view
examples of the built environment. You will also be exposed
to the most
recent scholarship in the rapidly developing interdisciplinary
field of American culture studies.
Critical thinking and writing skills are the warp and woof
of all our courses. All exams in American Studies are essay
exams. All classes emphasize discussion and classroom dialogue
rather than pure lecture. Students regularly write response
papers in which they critically evaluate and synthesize
what they have read and discussed. Students regularly conduct
library
and ethnographic research and write up the results of that
research in ways which integrate their own findings with
ideas and evidence presented in the classroom.
In our General
Education courses, you will study the broader
dimensions of American culture, as it developed in the
past and as it exists in the present.
Our upper-division
electives are open to all students with
an interest or background in the specific topic. These
courses reflect the research or interest specialty of the
faculty giving
the course, so you will receive the benefit of both the
professor's specialized knowledge and his or her enthusiasm
for the topic.
Department of American Studies—Student Learning Goals
American Studies is an interdisciplinary field that examines culture—the shared system of beliefs, behavior, symbols, and material objects through which Americans have given meaning to their lives. Our courses examine American cultural life in the past and present, always with the aim of helping students better understand their experiences and their society. Our curriculum has consistently been based on a demand for rigorous conceptualization, an interdisciplinary approach, and a commitment to examining American cultural diversity in historical perspective.
At the undergraduate and graduate level, the development of our program has been guided by clearly stated learning goals. By majoring in American Studies:
-
students will develop a rigorous concept of culture and cultural process as well as an interdisciplinary awareness, becoming aware of connections among the social sciences and the humanities;
-
students will gain a thorough understanding of cultural diversity by examining the creative tension between unity and multiplicity in American experiences;
- students will be able to understand the ways in which culture creates meaning and guides behavior by learning to critically analyze and interpret a spectrum of artifacts, ranging from popular to folk to elite expressions, from mass media to material culture; and
- students will learn research, writing, and expressive skills that will allow them to see connections among complex materials and will enable them to clearly communicate their understanding of the underlying meanings and causes of cultural/historical events.
Specifically, American studies students at CSUF learn how to become critical and informed citizens by:
- participating in classes that—through a creative mixture of lecture and discussion—encourage students to think critically about their own culture in the past and present;
- learning to interpret, discuss, and critically analyze a wide range of cultural documents and expressive forms—from "high" art to folklore, from material culture to the written word; and
- developing critical thinking, writing, and interpretive skills that help students understand their role within a complex, ever-changing society.
