Search Results
Your search for courses · during 2025-26 · taught by aestill · returned 5 results
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AMST 100 Imagining America 6 credits
This course examines twentieth-century literature, film, and music in the U.S. to consider how newcomers first imagine this country and how, in turn, âAmericaâ sees them. Weâll trace how ideas of Americaness shift over time, reflecting on how understandings of citizenship, freedom, and rights depend on the variable meanings of race, gender, ethnicity, ability, and sexuality. Weâll pair our study of cultural expressions with readings in history, law, and sociology to better understand the complex ways in which âAmericaâ is perceived, written into existence, and contested.
Held for new first year students
- Fall 2025
- AI/WR1, Argument & Inquiry/WR1 IDS, Intercultural Domestic Studies
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Student is a member of the First Year First Term class level cohort. Students are only allowed to register for one A&I course at a time. If a student wishes to change the A&I course they are enrolled in they must DROP the enrolled course and then ADD the new course. Please see our Workday guides Drop or 'Late' Drop a Course and Register or Waitlist for a Course Directly from the Course Listing for more information.
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AMST 115 Introduction to American Studies 6 credits
This overview of the âinterdisciplinary disciplineâ of American Studies will focus on the ways American Studies engages with and departs from other scholarly fields of inquiry. We will study the stories of those who have been marginalized in the social, political, cultural, and economic life of the United States due to their class, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, citizenship, and level of ability. We will explore contemporary American Studies concerns like racial and class formation, the production of space and place, the consumption and circulation of culture, and transnational histories.
Sophomore Priority
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AMST 225 Beauty and Race in America 6 credits
In this class we consider the construction of American beauty historically, examining the way whiteness intersects with beauty to produce a dominant model that marginalizes women of color. We study how communities of color follow, refuse, or revise these beauty ideals through literature. We explore events like the beauty pageant, material culture such as cosmetics, places like the beauty salon, and body work like cosmetic surgery to understand how beauty is produced and negotiated.
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ENGL 141 Latinx Voices in the Age of Trump 6 credits
The last few years have placed Latinx communities under siege and in the spotlight. The demands of the census and new policies around immigration mean that who counts as Latinx and why it matters has public visibility and meaning. Simultaneously, the last few years have seen an incredible growth of new literary voices and genres in the world of Latinx letters. From fictional and creative nonfiction accounts of detention camps, border crossings, and asylum court proceedings to lyrical wanderings in bilingualism to demands for greater attention to Afrolatinidad and the particular experiences of Black Latinxs–Latinx voices are rising. We will engage with current literary discussions in print, on social media, and in literary journals as we chart the shifting, developing terrain of Latinx literatures. Offered at both the 100 and 200 levels; coursework will be adjusted accordingly.
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ENGL 241 Latinx Voices in the Age of Trump 6 credits
The last few years have placed Latinx communities under siege and in the spotlight. The demands of the census and new policies around immigration mean that who counts as Latinx and why it matters has public visibility and meaning. Simultaneously, the last few years have seen an incredible growth of new literary voices and genres in the world of Latinx letters. From fictional and creative nonfiction accounts of detention camps, border crossings, and asylum court proceedings to lyrical wanderings in bilingualism to demands for greater attention to Afrolatinidad and the particular experiences of Black Latinxs–Latinx voices are rising. We will engage with current literary discussions in print, on social media, and in literary journals as we chart the shifting, developing terrain of Latinx literatures. Offered at both the 100 and 200 levels; coursework will be adjusted accordingly.