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.

From Mark Twain to Dave Chappelle, this unit charts comedy's discussions of race, class, gender, and sexuality, and of party and identity politics in the form of parody and satire. Influenced by ethnic, minority, and working-class cultures, comedy challenged and transformed existing norms of American family and institutions, and American identity, sex, and gender. Through forms such as literature, television, stand-up, cinema, and new media, students will learn that comedy provided a space for resistance, profit, and community.

Students enrolled at Sydney University who wish to take the equivalent of a 6 credit-point senior unit of study in American Studies at an approved overseas university should enrol in this unit. Such students must seek approval for their proposed course of study from the Director of Undergraduate Studies in the American Studies Program.

See AMST2801

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

This unit studies the interplay between high art and popular culture in America from the 1950s onwards. Pop Art, Minimalism and Performance formed alongside emerging youth cultures of political protest, drugs and rock music. We examine the interactions of high art, youth culture and mass media.

This unit of study will investigate the last two decades of the cinema of the USA, including Hollywood. Students will be introduced to the work of a number of established and emerging American filmmakers, to the work of a number of important film critics, and to issues concerning the theory and practice of film criticism. Critical and analytical focus will centre on the changing relation of subjectivity and time in independent cinema. Films that explore questions of subjectivity and that experiment with narrative structure will be featured.

This course takes as its point of departure the notion of America as fashioned by diverse and even conflicting acts of imagination. Beginning with writers in the mid-19th century and working our way to more recent imaginings of filmmakers and songwriters, we will examine the various ways in which visions of America have been put in play in the national consciousness in prose, poetry, song and film, to construct and to challenge the 'imagined community' of the United States.

This unit will explore some of the most interesting and innovative theoretical, literary and multimedia texts of the last half century. Some of the topics to be explored include the relationship between modernism and postmodernism; movements, communities and subcultures; experimentalism and activism; small press publishing and independent cinema; politics, history and cultural value; genre, style and intertextuality; auteurism and the 'death of the author'.

This unit explores the relationship between cinema and sexuality in classic films through detailed, historicised readings. Questions to be investigated include the erotics of cinematic genre and form; the sexual politics of representation and spectatorship; stardom, scandal and cult appreciation; cinema and sexuality as technologies of modernity; cinema, sexuality and pedagogy.

In this unit, we study a variety of American literary and visual texts to consider what it means to read "nationally". We first examine the rise of literary nationalism to look then at the ways in which exigencies of empire, race and ethnicity, and gender and sexuality, for example, have exerted pressure on the fantasy of a cohesive national culture. We will also consider the transnational turn of recent decades to understand the nation's function in a global context.

This unit of study will consider ways in which American Literature during the second half of the ninteenth century engaged with the opening up of Pacific space. Questions to be considered will be the nature of westward expansion, the opening up of California and its engagement with Mexico, the relation of native peoples to U.S. nationhood both on the mainland and the Pacific Islands. A representative range of poets and prose writers will be studied.

In this unit, we will map the places and spaces-urban, suburban, regional-of American literature as these are represented in a variety of film and literary texts from the nineteenth through the twentieth centuries. Our study will also include consideration of specific locales-Chicago and Hollywood, for example-that have given rise to important literary movements and cultural forms, as well as consideration of the ideological work that certain regions, such as the South, perform in relation to the nation.

In this unit we will investigate aesthetic production in the United States since 9/11. Students will explore the most interesting and engaging cultural work done in the US over the last decade, focusing on diverse communities beset by war, poverty, decline, debt, and crisis. We will look at literature, film, television, radio, photography and art. Our centrepiece is a sustained consideration of the television series The Wire.

This unit introduces students to cultural theories about race and ethnicity and uses these theories to examine representations of racial minorities across a range of media such as film, literature and performance within multiple national contexts. By interrogating the relationship between these representations and those of other identity categories including gender, sexuality and class, it provides a complex understanding of how 'race' as an institutional force and lived experience helps shape perceptions of ourselves and others.

In this unit of study we will examine the ways in which feminist and other cultural theories have used bodies and sexualities in order to theorise difference and identity. The body and sexuality have been shown to be a major site for the operation of power in our society. We will look at how bodies and sexualities have given rise to critical understandings of identity. The unit of study will be devoted to working through some of the major theories of sexuality and embodiment, and the analysis of cultural practices.

This unit examines academic, public and popular ideas about youth and practices of youth culture. It will introduce students to some of the current parameters for studying youth cultural forms and practices and the significance of various conceptions of youth. Points of focus will include popular images of youth and youth culture, discourses on (im)maturity, development, and training, and critical perspectives on youth as an identity and an experience.

Consumerism is a contradictory cultural formation. It is a source of meaning, pleasure and identity, but also a cause of environmental degradation, social injustice and, for some, individual alienation. This unit sets out some of the ethical, environmental and social problems associated with consumerism, and examines in detail some of the creative, ingenious and determined responses to these problems.

This unit will be an overview of the American political system and the formulation of foreign policy. It will cover the major Federal political institutions: the Presidency, the Congress, and the Supreme Court. The unit will consider how foreign policy is made through the interaction of these institutions and with other elements of civil society. Finally, it will examine the outcome of this process - US foreign policy itself - with special emphasis on the post-Cold War period. We will seek to answer two key questions: (a) what is the influence of domestic politics on US foreign policy; and (b) how does the US system cope with the apparent contradictions between its ideals and the imperatives of global power?

This unit examines the United States in the years in which Americans felt their society, culture, politics, and individual and national identities, were taking new, 'modern' forms. It offers insights into a nation that is one of the principal forces shaping the world in which we live. We will explore topics such as the rise and fall of racial segregation, immigration, social reform movements, mass consumer culture, sexual revolution, and the changing stance of the United States in the world.

The Civil War had momentous consequences for America - realigning the nation's political culture, ending slavery and forever transforming millions of lives. This unit analyses the social, cultural and political history of the Civil War and Reconstruction. We begin by looking at combat experience, civilian mobilization and state formation, the war's effects on gender and race relations and the causes for Reconstruction's failure, and we end by focusing on how and why this war continues to resonate in American culture.

Between 1450 and 1825, the nations of Europe began building a series of overseas colonies and empires that fundamentally shaped the world in which we now live. This unit will survey the creation and development of the new Atlantic World that resulted. Starting with the voyages of Columbus, and focusing on the experiences of natives, settlers and slaves, we'll explore early encounters, immigration, the slave trade and finally independence movements and revolutions that created the new nations of the Americas.

Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, public debate about American power has been dominated by the question: is the United States an empire? Taking this debate as a starting point, students examine: the expansion of American power across the continent and then overseas; political, economic and cultural forms of domination and the subsequent transformation of societies overseas and the US itself; and the value and limits of applying the concept of imperialism to US power.

This unit explores crime in the United States from Civil War to the present. It begins by examining historical approaches to crime, using murder as a case study. We look at the development of the criminal justice system, focusing on the police, the FBI, and extra-legal justice and lynching, and explore specific crimes: morals offenses; sex crimes; white-collar crime; and organized crime. Our focus is on the changing incidence, definitions and representation of crime in modern American culture and society.

This unit examines the history of Australian-American relations in the Asia-Pacific from the early twentieth century to today. Topics covered include the respective US and Australian approaches to the region and the world, the creation of ANZUS, the West New Guinea crisis, Vietnam, and the recognition of China. Among other questions, the unit asks whether the alliance relationship has been one of simple subservience, or whether politicians and policymakers have tried to use the alliance to further Australia's own national interests.

Explores the history and representation of New Orleans from its founding in 1718 through Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Sitting at the intersection of French, Spanish, Caribbean, and American history, New Orleans presents a unique window on the history of the US as well as American and world cities. Specific attention will be paid to environmental history, French colonialism, slavery, Latin American trade relations, neo-liberal urbanism, and race relations, as well as the city's famed musical and parade culture.

How did early American blues and country music develop in tandem? How was punk different in the US, the UK and Australia? What are the origins of the DJ culture? This unit of study presents a thematic overview of a wide variety of styles, movements and spectacles. It examines major genres of popular music, their stylistic features and historical antecedents as well as modes of reception and the role of popular music in everyday life. No formal music training is necessary.

This unit will explore the distinctive philosophical outlook known as "Pragmatism" which many see as a third way beyond the analytic-continental divide. After a brief survey of classical American Pragmatism (C.S. Peirce, William James, John Dewey) we will consider in depth neo-pragmatism (Richard Rorty, Hilary Putnam), linguistic pragmatism (Robert Brandom, Huw Price), and methodological pragmatism (David Macarthur). Key issues will include realism, empiricism, naturalism, scientism, metaphysical quietism, the fact/value distinction, and the agent point of view in philosophy.

This unit of study introduces students to the key global transformations of the contemporary era, focusing on the role of the United States amid the challenges posed by: globalisation, the rise of Islamic extremism, nuclear proliferation, and the emergence of China and India as world powers. The unit is designed to give students the ability to look behind today's news headlines to understand the underlying forces driving them, particularly the behaviour and views of key policy makers and opinion leaders.

This unit introduces students to US political institutions and political culture. The unit will examine the electoral system and recent presidential elections as well as presidencies from 1960 onwards. It will explore US public policies in the area of race, welfare, and criminal justice and analyse how policy ideas and proposals come into law. It will also introduce the dominant ideologies in US politics. By the end of the unit students will have a comprehensive understanding of American Domestic politics.

America has often been described as a culturally backward, unsophisticated and uncouth nation with American politics frequently viewed as populist and anti-intellectual. In contrast America has also been viewed as a haven from the Old World and as an exceptional nation. This unit will explore the origins and development of both these negative and positive opinions of America. It will also examine how these stereotypes impact on America's foreign relations with Europe, the Middle East and Australia.

This unit explores the cultural history of and intersections between sexuality, race and rock music in the United States from Elvis to Lady Gaga. Influenced by black and working-class cultures, and with sexuality embedded in its form and practice, rock music challenged and transformed existing norms of family, sex and gender. Through subjects including black women, glam rock, and disco, students will learn that rock music, far from frivolous, provided a realm for rebellion, freedom, community and profit.

This unit will be taken by students accepted into the United States Studies Centre's internship program. Students will have the opportunity to apply their knowledge to real-world problems through a unique internship placement in an American-based or affiliated business, government or non-government organisation located in Australia or the US. The unit provides academic support for students to discuss and refine research approaches and questions about issues arising from the placement. Assessment includes a reflective journal and research essay, based on the internship experience.

This unit explores political beliefs and behaviour in the United States. Using survey studies, we explore what Americans know and believe about politics, how their attitudes are formed, and how and why they vote. We look at voting patterns in recent elections and examine how these have been affected by attitudes towards race and party identification.