ENGL 409
Senior Seminar: Sentimental Empire Fall 2013
Division I Exploring Diversity Initiative
Cross-listed AMST 409
This is not the current course catalog

Class Details

America’s expansions and interventions throughout its national life have evoked both sentiment and violence. While imperialist ventures themselves–often manifested as acts of war, although not exclusively–were violent, the cultural logic and rhetoric that accompanied, represented, and remembered them embraced sentimental language and imagery. Our course examines this apparent contradiction of U.S. imperialism to ask whether and how the sentimental has not only masked but also supplemented and enabled violence of empire. We will also consider how sentiment and violence together function as ways to govern and discipline empire and its subjects. Our scope will include specific sites and histories (including but not limited to westward expansion, Philippine-American war, Cold War) as well as broader theoretical perspectives and implications through engagement with contemporary American Studies scholarship on U.S. empire. This class reflects the aims of the Exploring Diversity Initiative by critically reconsidering the operations of power and management of difference as they have been shaped and enabled by ideology and culture.
The Class: Format: seminar
Limit: 15
Expected: 10-15
Class#: 1232
Grading: yes pass/fail option, yes fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: active and consistent in-class participation, 2-3 short response papers, final project
Prerequisites: prior courses in American Studies or permission of instructor; not open to first year students
Enrollment Preferences: senior American Studies majors
Distributions: Division I Exploring Diversity Initiative
Notes: meets Division 2 requirement if registration is under AMST; meets Division 1 requirement if registration is under ENGL
This course is cross-listed and the prefixes carry the following divisional credit:
AMST 409 Division II ENGL 409 Division I
Attributes: AMST Comp Studies in Race, Ethnicity, Diaspora

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