Fall 2021

What does it mean to be “American”? Who decides, and who is included or excluded? Is “America” a nation-state, a geographical entity, or a citizenship status? Or is it a set of ideas like “democracy,” “capitalism,” or “the frontier”? How do race, gender, sexuality, and class shape American identity and culture? These are the central questions of this course, which are at the heart of the field of American Studies. We will take an interdisciplinary approach to exploring these questions, examining a wide variety of sources such as fiction, poetry, plays, films, music, photographs, advertisements, television, political debates, and much more. This course fulfills the Cultural Diversity in the U.S. requirement for the Arts and Sciences BA/BS Core and is a requirement for the ASTD major and minor.

This course examines the intersection of gender and race with other categories of analysis (such as class, religion, sexuality, and nation) in historical and contemporary social justice movements in the United States. Topics include the role of race in movements for gender equality, as well as the impact of gender on movements for racial justice. This course fulfills the Cultural Diversity in the U.S. requirement for the Arts and Sciences BA/BS Core and the Identities requirement for the ASTD major (for students who declared in Fall 2019 or later).

What does it mean to be a global citizen? To pursue social justice abroad? To bring religious faith and commitment to the task of building a better world? These questions have motivated Americans for generations, and they continue to do so today. This class invites students to explore the U.S. history of faith, transnational activism, and non-governmental organizations from the nineteenth century to the present. We will examine the aims, experiences, and ideas of U.S. reformers, missionaries, human rights activists, and relief workers: topics include African American missionaries in the nineteenth-century Congo, Jewish relief programs in World-War-I Europe, American adoption agencies in Korea during the Cold War, and current debates about global feminist advocacy. Analyzing a variety of sources—from legal debates to advertising campaigns to material in SLU’s own archives—we will explore what a critical engagement with the past can teach us about today's humanitarian and activist goals. This course fulfills the Global Citizenship and 3000-Level Theology requirements for the Arts and Sciences BA/BS Core, the Contexts requirement for the ASTD major (for students who declared in Fall 2019 or later), and is an elective for the Law, Religion, and Politics minor.

Did you know that storied rap label Def Jam’s first release was a 7” punk record? That Blondie’s Debbie Harry and Fab 5 Freddy were friends involved in New York’s late-1970s visual art scene? That the Beastie Boys were a hardcore band before they turned to hip hop? That the Los Angeles venues like Club Lingerie hosted shows by both Black Flag and Afrika Bambaata? That Washington DC’s go-go artists, like Trouble Funk (sampled in Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power”) and hardcore bands, like Minor Threat, played shows together? That in the 1980s, both punk and rap were targets of moral panic, censorship, and attack by groups like the Parents Music Resource Center? This class will explore these synergies and crosscurrents, seeing them not as accidental, but as radical youth music subcultures that emerged in tandem to critique late-capitalist politics, society, and culture during the long Reagan era. This course fulfills the Cultural Diversity in the U.S. requirement for the Arts and Sciences BA/BS Core and the Practices requirement for the ASTD major (for students who declared in Fall 2019 or later).

This course investigates American foodways through the lens of agriculture, labor, landscape, festivals, the body, ethnicity, ethics, and gender. Its goals are to teach students about the meaning of food and how the simple act of eating can reveal interconnections among so many diverse aspects of society and the environment. This course fulfills the Cultural Diversity in the U.S. requirement for the Arts and Sciences BA/BS Core and the Practices requirement for the ASTD major (for students who declared in Fall 2019 or later).

This course examines the historical experience and literary production of women from diverse racial, ethnic, and religious backgrounds from the 1950s to the present. Students will survey various women’s movements including those around feminism and antifeminism, labor, control over the body, and sexuality. The analysis of television shows, films, novels, magazines, and other forms of popular culture will aid students in interrogating how women have been portrayed and represented through cultural forms, as well as how conversations about gender have played out in American society. Students will leave this class with a better understanding of the historical foundations of women’s activism and the ways in which American culture shapes and reinforces ideologies concerning women and gender. This course fulfills the Cultural Diversity in the U.S. requirement for the Arts and Sciences BA/BS Core and the Identities requirement for the ASTD major (for students who declared in Fall 2019 or later).