This unit will investigate the global connectedness of the United States and how this relates to the core values and interests that define America. The primary focus will be on the United States in the 21st global century. The pedagogical aim of this unit is to provide students with analytical frames to understand the most important issues in contemporary American literature, culture, politics, society and the economy, and how they are affected by and affect the world outside the US.

This unit introduces students to the contradictory richness of 'Americanness' from an interdisciplinary standpoint and prepares them for the Major in American Studies. It is divided into different modules, each addressing a core national myth. We will approach each module from a variety of angles: historiographical, literary and visual, opening lines of interrelation between historical and imaginary forms in the construction and ongoing redefinition of the United States.

This capstone unit will discuss key texts from Politics, History, English, Film Studies, and Music to critically examine the ways the United States has been idealised as exceptional - as democracy, utopia, and empire. Students will study works ranging from de Tocqueville's Democracy in America to the film Birth of a Nation with the aim of developing a critical appreciation of both classic and contemporary debates about American society. The unit will conclude with a discussion of the ways American Studies as a field deals with these long standing debates in innovative and challenging ways.

The Honours program in American Studies consists of: 1. A thesis written under the supervision of one member of the academic staff of the American Studies program 2. Two seminars that meet weekly for two hours for one semester, one offered by the American Studies program, one chosen, in consultation with the coordinator of American Studies, from the Honours seminars offered by the departments of English, History and Film Studies. The thesis should be 18,000-20,000 words in length. Each seminar requires 6000-8000 words of work. The thesis is worth 60% of the final Honours seminar and each of the seminars is worth 20%.

Refer to AMST4011

Refer to AMST4011

Refer to AMST4011