All Course Catalog
AMST 51. First-Year Seminar: Navigating America. 3 Credits.
Analyze American journeys and destinations, focusing on how resources, technology, transportation, and cultural influences have transformed the navigation and documentation of America. Multimedia documentation of personal journey required.
Gen Ed: SS, CI, EE- Field Work.
AMST 53. First Year Seminar: The Family and Social Change in America. 3 Credits.
This course uses changes in the American family over the past century as a way of understanding larger processes of social change. Honors version available.
Gen Ed: HS, CI, NA
AMST 54. First-Year Seminar: The Indians’ New Worlds: Southeastern Histories from 1200 to 1800. 3 Credits.
This course uses archaeological and historical scholarship to consider the histories of the Southern Indians from the Mississippian period to the end of the 18th century.
Gen Ed: HS, US, WB
Same as: ANTH 54
AMST 55. First Year Seminar: Birth and Death in the United States. 3 Credits.
This course explores birth and death as essential human rites of passage that are invested with significance by changing and diverse American historical, cultural, ethnic, and ethical contexts. Honors version available.
Gen Ed: PH, CI, US
AMST 59. First-Year Seminar: American Indian Art in the 20th Century. 3 Credits.
This course examines 20th century American Indian art within the context of critical topics in the field such as sovereignty, colonialism, modernity, modernism, gender and representation.
Gen Ed: VP, CI, US.
AMST 60. First- Year Seminar: American Indians in History, Law, and Literature. 3 Credits.
This research seminar provides a grounding in American Indian law, history, and literature. Students will conduct research for presentation on Wikipedia.
Gen Ed: HS, US.
AMST 61. First-Year Seminar: Navigating the World through American Eyes. 3 Credits.
Designed to help prepare students for future study abroad opportunities and travel, service, and work in a global environment, the seminar focuses on critical differences, including transportation and other forms of infrastructure, that impact navigating places, people, and information. Individual competitive global travel proposals will be developed and presented.
Gen Ed: GL
AMST 62. First-Year Seminar: Mobility, Roads, NASCAR, and Southern Culture. 3 Credits.
This seminar looks at the culture, history, memories and meanings of mobility for a diverse range of people in southern cultures. In particular, students will read and discuss books and articles by scholars on roads, cars, access and diverse southern cultures.
Gen Ed: LA, US
AMST 89. FIrst Year Seminar: Special Topics. 3 Credits.
Special topics course. Content will vary each semester. Honors version available.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit; may be repeated in the same term for different topics; 6 total credits. 2 total completions.
AMST 101. The Emergence of Modern America. 3 Credits.
Interdisciplinary examination of two centuries of American culture, focusing on moments of change and transformation.
Gen Ed: HS, NA
AMST 102. Myth and History in American Memory. 3 Credits.
Examines the role of memory in constructing historical meaning and in imagining the boundaries of American cultural communities. Explores popular rituals, artifacts, monuments , and public performances. Previously offered as AMST 384.
Gen Ed: HS, NA, US
AMST 110. Introduction to the Cultures and Histories of Native North America. 3 Credits.
An interdisciplinary introduction to Native American history and studies. The course uses history, literature, art and cultural studies to study the Native American experience.
Gen Ed: HS, NA, US.
Same as: HIST 110
AMST 175. Introduction to Food Studies: From Science to Society. 3 Credits.
Introduction to food studies covering a variety of topics including how food was consumed over history, land use and aquaculture, food in the arts, food and culture in the American South, food politics, and nutrition science.
Gen Ed: GL, NA
AMST 201. Literary Approaches to American Studies. 3 Credits.
A study of interdisciplinary methods and the concept of American studies with an emphasis on the historical context for literary texts.
Gen Ed: LA, NA, US
AMST 202. Historical Approaches to American Studies. 3 Credits.
A study of interdisciplinary methods and the concept of American studies with an emphasis on historical and cultural analysis.
- AMST202.001 MWF 10:10AM-11:00AM (Spring 2021)
Historical Approaches to American Studies
This course explores interdisciplinary approaches to history in American Studies through a queer lens. We ask: what is queer history? How do we do history queerly? How do queer methods ask us to consider and speak differently to archives? We will engage with histories from the late 19th century into the present through films, scholarly writing, and print culture, and other sources. - AMST202.002 MWF 8:00AM-9:15AM (Spring 2021)
Historical Approaches to American Studies: TBA
Gen Ed: HS, NA.
AMST 203. Approaches to American Indian Studies
Introduces students to the disciplines comprising American Indian studies and teaches them how to integrate disciplines for a more complete understanding of the experiences of American Indian peoples.
Gen Ed: HS, NA, US
Same as: ANTH 203
AMST 210. Approaches to Southern Studies: A Historical Analysis of the American South. 3 Credits.
An examination of both the mythical and real American South and its diverse peoples through the study of the region’s archaeological, geographical, and environmental history integrated with the study of the region’s sociology and its economic, political, intellectual, and religious history.
Gen Ed: LA, NA, US.
AMST 211. Approaches to Southern Studies: The Literary and Cultural Worlds of the American South. 3 Credits.
An examination of Southern cultural identity, literary imagination, and sense of place with an emphasis on the fiction, folklore, foodways, art, architecture, music, and material culture of the American South.
Gen Ed: LA, NA, US
AMST 220. On the Question of the Animal: Contemporary Animal Studies. 3 Credits.
This course is an introduction to “animal studies,” through animal rights, animal welfare, food studies, and the human/animal distinction in philosophical inquiry. We will read work from dog and horse trainers, and explore the history of the American racetrack. This course builds a moral and ethical reasoning skill set.
Gen Ed: PH, NA
AMST 225. Comedy and Ethics. 3 Credits.
This course explores the historical, sociocultural, and legal significance of 20th and 21st-century comedy in the US. We will consider comedy as public voice; examine how humor constructs and disrupts American identities; and discuss the ethics of the creative process, performance, and reception.
Gen Ed: PH, NA
AMST 225L. The Practice of Stand Up Comedy. 1 Credit.
Students will learn and practice the art of stand up comedy via structured assignments, group workshops, live performances and conversations that build on topics introduced in AMST 225. Class size is limited to 15 students. Instructor permission required.
Requisites: Pre- or corequisite, AMST 225.
Gen Ed: EE- Performing Arts.
AMST 231. Native American History: The East. 3 Credits.
Covers the histories of American Indians east of the Mississippi River and before 1840. The approach is ethnohistorical.
Gen Ed: HS, NA, US.
Same as: HIST 231.
AMST 233. Native American History: The West. 3 Credits.
Deals with the histories of Native Americans living west of the Mississippi River. It begins in the pre-Columbian past and extends to the end of the 19th century.
Gen Ed: HS, NA
Same as: HIST 233.
AMST 234. Native American Tribal Studies. 3 Credits.
This course introduces students to a tribally specific body of knowledge. The tribal focus of the course and the instructor change from term to term. Honors version available.
Gen Ed: HS, NA, US.
AMST 235. Native America in the 20th Century. 3 Credits.
This course deals with the political, economic, social, and cultural issues important to the 20th century Native Americans as they attempt to preserve tribalism in the modern world.
Gen Ed: HS, NA.
Same as: HIST 235.
AMST 246. Indigenous Storytelling: Oral, Written, and Visual Literatures of Native America. 3 Credits.
Offers a historical, politically, and culturally contextualized examination of Native America through oral, written, and visual storytelling. Covering a wide range of genres, including oral narratives, novels, and visual arts, this introductory course showcases the fluidity of indigenous artistic forms and their continuing centrality in Native America.
Gen Ed: LA, US
AMST 248. Intersectionality: Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Social Justice. 3 Credits.
The first goal of this super course is to give students real tools for how to address multiple modes of difference and identity formations like race, gender, class and sexuality.
Gen Ed: CI, US
Same as: ENGL 248, POLI 248, PSYC 348, WGST 249.
AMST 252. Muslim American Literatures and Cultures. 3 Credits.
This course examines the diversity of Muslims in America and the variety of creative expression created throughout this long history of transcultural involvement.
Gen Ed: LA, CI, US.
AMST 253. A Social History of Jewish Women in America. 3 Credits.
Course examines the history and culture of Jewish women in America from their arrival in New Amsterdam in 1654 to the present and explores how gender shaped this journey.
Gen Ed: HS, NA
AMST 255. Mid-20th-Century American Thought and Culture. 3 Credits.
This course examines topics in the intellectual and cultural history of the United States in the mid-20th century, including issues of race thinking, mass culture, and gender ideologies.
Gen Ed: HS, NA, US.
AMST 256. Anti-’50s: Voices of a Counter Decade. 3 Credits.
We remember the 1950s as a period of relative tranquility, happiness, optimism, and contentment. This course will consider a handful of countertexts: voices from literature, politics, and mass culture of the 1950s that for one or another reason found life in the postwar world repressive, empty, frightening, or insane and predicted the social and cultural revolutions that marked the decade that followed.
Gen Ed: LA, NA.
AMST 257. Melville: Culture and Criticism. 3 Credits.
Investigates the significance of Herman Melville as a representative 19th-century American author. Includes issues of biography, historical context, changing reception, cultural iconography, and the politics of the literary marketplace.
Gen Ed: LA, CI, NA.
AMST 258. Captivity and American Cultural Definition. 3 Credits.
Examines how representations of captivity and bondage in American expression worked to construct and transform communal categories of religion, race, class, gender, and nation.
Gen Ed: LA, NA, US.
AMST 259. Tobacco and America. 3 Credits.
Explores the significance of tobacco from Native American ceremony to the Southern economy by focusing on changing attitudes toward land use, leisure, social style, public health, litigation, and global capitalism.
Gen Ed: HS, CI, US.
AMST 268. American Cinema and American Culture. 3 Credits.
Examines the relationship between cinema and culture in America with a focus on the ways cinema has been experienced in American communities since 1896.
Gen Ed: VP, NA.
AMST 269. Mating and Marriage in American Culture. 3 Credits.
Interdisciplinary examination of the married condition from colonial times to the present. Themes include courtship and romance, marital power and the egalitarian ideal, challenges to monogamy.
Gen Ed: HS, CI, US.
AMST 276. Food and American Culture: What We Eat and Who We Are. 3 Credits.
This course will take students on a journey through some of the key moments in “American” food studies and its beginnings across a range of disciplinary homes: the study of nutrition and food security; the study of food systems and the vocabularies that subtend them.
Gen Ed: CI, US.
AMST 277. Globalization and National Identity. 3 Credits.
Considers the meanings and implications of globalization especially in relation to identity, nationhood, and America’s place in the world. Honors version available
Gen Ed: HS, GL, NA.
AMST 278. Crimes and Punishments. 3 Credits.
This course explores the social history and culture of crime, deviant behavior, and punishment in America between the pre-revolutionary period and today. It traces the history of longstanding institutions; examines elements of American history from a criminal justice perspective; and seeks historical origins and continuities for contemporary problems.
Gen Ed: HS, CI, NA.
AMST 283. American Home. 3 Credits.
Examines themes in the history and design of the most intimate and most public of objects – the house. Residences, from tract house mansions to apartment buildings, are powerful statements about how we see our society and how circumstances and choice lead us to house ourselves. Previously offered as AMST 466.
Gen Ed: HS, CI, EE- Field Work.
AMST 284. Visual Culture. 3 Credits.
This course investigates how we make and signify meaning through images, ranging from art to advertising to graffiti, and provides the critical tools to understand the visual worlds we inhabit.
Gen Ed: VP.
AMST 285. Access to Work in America. 3 Credits.
Focus on systemic and individual factors affecting access to work including gender, race, age, disability, transportation, international competition, technological progress, change in labor markets, educational institutions, and public policy.
Gen Ed: SS, CI, EE- Field Work.
Same as: ECON 285.
AMST 287. Introduction to American Legal Education. 3 Credits.
Introduces students to how legal education is conducted in the United States by mimicking the “1L” experience, or first year in law school. It is broken into units that represent classes every law school teaches in the first year: contracts, property, torts, criminal law, civil procedure, and constitutional law.
Gen Ed: SS.
AMST 290. Topics in American Studies: Graphic Asian America. 3 Credits.
Special topics in American studies. Explore a century of Asian American graphic forms and medias including graphic novels and memoir, manga, comics, animation, visual literature, and textual art.
Gen Ed: LA, NA.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit; may be repeated in the same term for different topics; 12 total credits. 4 total completions.
AMST 291. Ethics and American Studies. 3 Credits.
An interdisciplinary seminar in American studies addressing ethical issues in the United States.
Gen Ed: PH, NA.
AMST 292. Historical Seminar in American Studies. 3 Credits.
Topics in American history in American studies. Honors version available
Gen Ed: HS, NA.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit. 12 total credits. 4 total completions.
AMST 294. American Studies Seminar on Aesthetic Perspective: Black Interiority. 3 Credits.
Topics in arts and literature from the perspective of American studies.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit. 12 total credits. 4 total completions.
AMST 317. Adoption in America. 3 Credits.
An interdisciplinary approach to the history of adoption and related practices in the United States, employing the provisions society has made for the welfare of children deemed to be orphans as a powerful lens into changing values and attitudes toward childhood, race, class, gender, reproduction, parenthood, and family.
Gen Ed: HS, US.
AMST 325. Encountering Art in the Unexpected: Borderlands and Story in Contemporary American Visual Art. 3 Credits.
This course focuses on the contemporary art and social change movement. We will learn how to use site-specific and performative art interventions to make invisible borders, boundaries, and other issues visible and innovatively to create engaged and sustained dialogue.
Gen Ed: VP, US.
Same as: WGST 325.
AMST 330. del norte a norte: An American Songbook. 3 Credits.
Through the examination of a variety of song cultures and its artistic and cultural expressions, we explore the interdisciplinary methods of American studies and contemporary approaches to the study of American society and cultures, with an emphasis on musical performance. In partnership with Carolina Performing Arts, students will learn about the sociocultural, aesthetic, and critical components of song cultures associated with social change, exploring identity, diversity, privilege, cultures, and justice while participating in community service.
Gen Ed: VP, EE- Service Learning, US.
AMST 334. Defining America I. 3 Credits.
An interdisciplinary seminar that considers the changing understandings of what it meant to be American up through the United States Civil War. Honors version available
Gen Ed: HS, NA.
AMST 335. Defining America II. 3 Credits.
“This is not America'” has become a popular rhetorical refrain following recent attacks that threaten so-called U.S. civil liberties—xenophobic violence, police killings, anti-trans legislation, white nationalist insurrections. Yet the lived experiences and liberatory tactics of Black, Indigenous, Global South, and queer peoples rebuke this claim illustrating instead a nation that was built—and sustained—through socio-political and economic oppressions. In this course, we will explore competing interpretations of “America,” from Reconstruction to present day, through visual culture, law, literature, and sound.
Gen Ed: LA, NA, US.
AMST 336. Native Americans in Film. 3 Credits.
This course is about Hollywood’s portrayal of Indians in film, how Indian films have depicted Native American history, and why the filmic representation of Indians has changed over time.
Gen Ed: VP, NA, US.
AMST 337. Beyond Red Power: American Indian Activism since 1900. 3 Credits.
This course seeks to understand how American Indian individuals and communities survived a century that began with predictions of their disappearance. To answer that question, we take a broad view of politics and activism, exploring everything from the radical protest to art and everyday forms of resistance.
Gen Ed: HS, US.
AMST 338. Native American Novel. 3 Credits.
This course examines this art form’s development by indigenous writers as a mode of storytelling that explores the continuing effects of settler colonialism upon indigenous peoples and foregrounds indigenous notions of land, culture, and community.
Gen Ed: LA, CI, US.
AMST 339. The Long 1960s in Native America. 3 Credits.
An interdisciplinary exploration of Native America during the “long 1960s” (1954-1973), this course focuses on how American Indian experiences intersected with and diverged from those of non-native groups via topics such as the youth movement, women’s rights, nationalism, civil rights, radical protest, and creative expression.
Gen Ed: HS, CI, US.
AMST 340. American Indian Art and Material Culture through Interdisciplinary Perspectives. 3 Credits.
Analyzes material culture created by Native artists throughout the United States and portions of Canada. Examines the role of art and artists and how material culture is studied and displayed. Students study objects, texts, and images, exploring mediums such as painting, sculpture, basket making, beadwork, and photography.
Gen Ed: VP, NA.
AMST 341. Digital Native America. 3 Credits.
This is a project-based course that explores settler colonial appropriations of American Indian knowledge. Students then use new technologies as a means of engaging in the digital re-representation and return of this knowledge. Instructor and topics vary.
Gen Ed: SS, US.
AMST 345. Issues in the Indigenous World. 3 Credits.
This course will explore the Indigenous world in various settler colonial contexts. We will come to understand the communities who claim Indigenous status, commonalities among Indigenous peoples, and differences that create important distinctions in places like the U.S. Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. We will also learn how Indigenous peoples around the world continue to respond to various aspects of colonialism, including but not limited to law and policy, representation, art, and human rights.
Gen Ed: BN, EE- Study Abroad, GL.
AMST 350. Main Street Carolina: A Cultural History of North Carolina Downtowns. 3 Credits.
An introduction to the interdisciplinary scholarly approaches to the physical, social, economic, and cultural developments of downtowns. Students will conduct and share original research. Honors version available
Gen Ed: HS, EE- Mentored Research, NA.
AMST 351. Global Waters, American Impacts, and Critical Connections. 3 Credits.
Water is a vital element for life, food, energy, and transportation. Nations are connected and separated by water through borders and trade. This seminar will examine key impacts on American port cities with respect to water: global infrastructure, foodsheds, health, and diseases.
Gen Ed: PH, CI, GL.
AMST 352. The Asian American Experience. 3 Credits.
The course addresses the history and sociology of Asian immigration and experience in the United States, as well as the formation of diasporic identities among Asian Americans.
Gen Ed: HS, NA, US.
Same as: ASIA 350.
AMST 360. The Jewish Writer in American Life. 3 Credits.
This course will investigate, through literature, film, and song, the encounter of Eastern European Jews and their descendants with Anglo-Protestant America over four generations.
Gen Ed: LA, NA, US.
AMST 365. Women and Detective Fiction: From Miss Violet Strange to Veronica Mars. 3 Credits.
Traces the origins of detective fiction and major developments in the history of the genre with a focus on women authors and protagonists. Examines literary texts including fiction and film, with close attention to historical and social contexts and to theoretical arguments relating to popular fiction, genre studies, and gender.
Gen Ed: LA.
AMST 371. LGTBQ Film and Fiction from 1950 to the Present. 3 Credits.
An interdisciplinary seminar that explores stylistic choices and representational modes available to LGTBQ artists in the United States since 1950. We will relate shifts in cinematic and literary representations and aesthetic strategies to developments in political, social, and economic life.
Gen Ed: VP, US.
AMST 374. America’s Threatened Languages. 3 Credits.
This course introduces the phenomena of language shift, endangerment, and revitalization in America. In both indigenous and immigrant communities, the mid-1800s initiated a widespread shift toward English. Through readings and discussions, we examine the social and historical motivations for this trend, and explore critical thinking skills for analyzing language shift.
Gen Ed: SS, CI, US.
AMST 375. Southern Food Studies: Beyond the Plate. 3 Credits.
Explores the historical arc and study of food in America and how culinary cultures reflect regional, national, and global narratives, challenges, and identities. As an intriguing lens on to the American experience, food reveals how race, class, gender, and place are entwined in cuisine, food economies, and interactions.
Gen Ed: SS, US.
Same as: FOLK 375.
AMST 378. Nation Building and National Identity in Australia and the United States. 3 Credits.
This course compares the cultural and social histories of two settler societies: the United States and Australia. Focus on selected topics, including landscape, indigenous peoples, national identity, exploration. Honors version available
Gen Ed: HS, BN, GL.
AMST 387. Race and Empire in 20th-Century American Intellectual History. 3 Credits.
This upper-level seminar explores influential 20th-century writings on race and empire and colonialism by intellectuals from America and around the world.
Gen Ed: HS, CI.
AMST 390. Seminar in American Studies. 3 Credits.
Seminar in American studies topics with a focus on historical inquiry from interdisciplinary angles.
Gen Ed: HS, NA.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit; may be repeated in the same term for different topics; 12 total credits. 4 total completions.
AMST 392. Radical Communities in Twentieth Century American Religious History. 3 Credits.
How the language, ideas, and cultural products of religious outsiders responded to and influenced mainstream ideas about what American religious communities could and should look like in terms of gender, race, economics, and faith-based practices.
Gen Ed: PH, NA.
AMST 394. The University in American Life: The University of North Carolina. 3 Credits.
This team-taught course is for juniors and seniors and is multifaceted in its inquiry into the role of the university in American life. UNC–Chapel Hill is used as the case study.
Gen Ed: CI, EE- Field Work, US.
AMST 394L. Role of the University. 1 Credit.
Field laboratory explores UNC–Chapel Hill campus sites and Triangle-area universities. One four-hour laboratory a week.
Requisites: Pre- or corequisite, AMST 394.
Gen Ed: EE- Field Work.
AMST 396. Independent Study in American Studies. 3 Credits.
Permission of the department. Directed reading under the supervision of a faculty member.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit. 12 total credits. 4 total completions.
AMST 398. Service Learning in America. 3 Credits.
Explores history and theory of volunteerism and service learning in America. Includes a weekly academic seminar and placement in a service learning project.
Gen Ed: CI, EE- Service Learning.
AMST 410. Senior Seminar in Southern Studies. 3 Credits.
We will engage such topics as race, immigration, cultural tourism, and memory to consider conceptions of the South. Students will research a subject they find compelling and write a 20- to 25-page paper.
Gen Ed: HS, EE- Mentored Research, NA.
AMST 420. Theories in American Studies. 3 Credits.
This course will move through prevalent theories in American studies to familiarize students with theoretical concepts and to ascertain both the advantages and pitfalls of theoretical landscapes. Students will become familiar with critical race (postcoloniality and settler-colonialism, for example), feminist, “queer” theories, historical materialism, political economy, postcolonialism, and bio-power.
AMST 439. Meaning and Makers: Indigenous Artists and the Marketplace. 3 Credits.
This course examines how indigenous artists have negotiated, shaped, and pursued markets and venues of display ranging from “fine” art markets, galleries, and museums to popular markets associated with tourism.
Gen Ed: VP, CI, GL.
AMST 440. American Indian Poetry. 3 Credits.
This course explores the relation of American Indian poetry and music in English to the history and culture of indigenous communities and their relation to the United States.
Gen Ed: LA.
AMST 460. Rising Waters: Strategies for Resilience to the Challenges of Climate and the Built Environment. 3 Credits.
This service-learning seminar examines water threats to port cities and low-lying areas from sea-level rise, extreme weather, and inadequate infrastructure. The focus is on the Americas, small and barrier islands, and high hazard regions including the South East and Gulf Coast communities. The APPLES project will focus on North Carolina resilience strategies.
Gen Ed: SS, CI, EE- Service Learning.
AMST 475. Documenting Communities. 3 Credits.
Covers the definition and documentation of communities within North Carolina through research, study, and field work of communities. Each student produces a documentary on a specific community. Previously offered as AMST 275. Honors version available
Gen Ed: SS, CI, EE- Field Work.
AMST 482. Images of the American Landscape. 3 Credits.
This course will consider how real estate speculation, transportation, suburbanization, and consumerism have shaped a landscape whose many representations in art and narrative record our ongoing struggle over cultural meaning.
Gen Ed: HS, NA.
AMST 483. Seeing the USA: Visual Arts and American Culture. 3 Credits.
Examines the ways in which visual works – paintings, photographs, sculpture, architecture, film, advertising, and other images – communicate the values of American culture and raise questions about American experiences.
Gen Ed: VP, NA.
AMST 485. Folk, Self-Taught, Vernacular, and Outsider Arts. 3 Credits.
Drawing on American and international examples, this course addresses a body of art that occupies the borderlands of contemporary art, examining questions of authenticity, dysfunction, aesthetics, and identity.
Gen Ed: VP.
AMST 486. Shalom Y’all: The Jewish Experience in the American South. 3 Credits.
This course explores ethnicity in the South and focuses on the history and culture of Jewish Southerners from their arrival in the Carolinas in the 17th century to the present day.
Gen Ed: HS, CI, US.
Same as: JWST 486.
AMST 487. Early American Architecture and Material Life. 3 Credits.
This course explores, through lecture and discussion, the experiences of everyday life from 1600 through the early 19th century, drawing on the evidence of architecture, landscape, images, and objects.
Gen Ed: VP, NA.
AMST 488. No Place like Home: Material Culture of the American South. 3 Credits.
Seminar will explore the unique worlds of Southern material culture and how “artifacts” from barns to biscuits provide insight about the changing social and cultural history of the American South.
Gen Ed: VP, NA.
Same as: FOLK 488.
AMST 489. Writing Material Culture. 3 Credits.
A reading seminar that examines multiple critical perspectives that shape the reception and interpretation of objects, with a particular emphasis on things in American life.
Gen Ed: VP.
AMST 493. Internship. 1-3 Credits.
Permission of the department and the instructor. Internship. Variable credit.
Gen Ed: EE- Academic Internship.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit. 6 total credits. 2 total completions.
AMST 498. Advanced Seminar in American Studies. 3 Credits.
Graduate or junior/senior standing. Examines American civilization by studying social and cultural history, criticism, art, architecture, music, film, popular pastimes, and amusements, among other possible topics.
Gen Ed: VP, NA.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit; may be repeated in the same term for different topics; 9 total credits. 3 total completions.
AMST 510. Federal Indian Law and Policy. 3 Credits.
This course gives an introduction to the American government’s law and policy concerning tribal nations and tribal peoples. We examine a number of legal and political interactions to determine how the United States has answered the “Indian problem” throughout its history and the status of tribal peoples and nations today.
Gen Ed: HS, US.
AMST 511. American Indians and American Law. 3 Credits.
This course explores the history of Native interaction with the American legal system in order to understand how the law affects Native peoples and others today. Students are encouraged (but not required) to take AMST 510 before enrolling in this course.
Gen Ed: HS, US.
AMST 512. Race and American Law. 3 Credits.
This class will explore the intersection between race and American law, both in a historical and contemporary context. It will ask how both of these major social forces have informed and defined each other and what that means for how we think about race and law today.
Gen Ed: US.
AMST 641. Communicating Water Challenges of Climate Change with the Visual and Performing Arts. 3 Credits.
Climate change means water challenges that threaten people, property, and the existence of nation states. Severe precipitation events from warmer air holding more water, sea-level rise, and more intense hurricanes, mean flooding, water quality, and foodshed issues for more than half the world’s population. Drought, resulting wildfires, and the availability of life-sustaining water is a problem in others. The visual and performing arts are used to explore more effective ways to communicate this growing crisis.
Gen Ed: CI, US.
AMST 671. Introduction to Public History. 3 Credits.
Introduces the theory, politics, and practice of historical work conducted in public venues (museums, historic sites, national parks, government agencies, archives), directed at public audiences, or addressed to public issues.
Gen Ed: HS, EE- Mentored Research, NA.
Same as: HIST 671.
AMST 685. Literature of the Americas. 3 Credits.
Multidisciplinary examination of texts and other media of the Americas, in English and Spanish, from a variety of genres. Two years of college-level Spanish or the equivalent strongly recommended.
Gen Ed: LA, NA.
AMST 691H. Honors in American Studies. 3 Credits.
Directed independent research leading to the preparation of an honors thesis and an oral examination on the thesis. Required of candidates for graduation with honors in American studies who enroll in the class once permission to pursue honors is granted.
Gen Ed: EE- Mentored Research.
AMST 692H. Honors in American Studies. 3 Credits.
Directed independent research leading to the preparation of an honors thesis and an oral examination on the thesis. Required of candidates for graduation with honors in American studies who enroll in the class once permission to pursue honors is granted.
Gen Ed: EE- Mentored Research.
AMST 700. The History and Practices of American Studies. 3 Credits.
This course will acquaint students with the texts, contexts, issues, and controversies in American Studies as a field of study. It is required for most American studies graduate students and open to graduate students in other departments.
AMST 701. Interdisciplinary Research Methods. 3 Credits.
This course will focus on techniques of American studies investigation. Various faculty members will make presentations highlighting approaches including Southern studies, American Indian studies, Material Culture studies, and new media.
AMST 702. Readings in American Studies. 3 Credits.
This course takes a specific topic to explore in depth, and through this investigation critically examines contending perspectives on the field. Topics will change depending on faculty interest.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit.
AMST 714. Incarceration in America. 3 Credits.
This course explores the theoretical underpinnings, history, and contemporary controversies around incarceration in the United States. It begins by exploring early articulations of the need for imprisonment as punishment, examines how that history unfolded in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, and engages with contemporary debates about mass incarceration and its impacts on American communities.
AMST 715. Community Histories and Public Humanities: Recovering and Representing the Asylum. 3 Credits. MOSTLY ASYNCHRONOUS REMOTE
Community Histories and Public Humanities: Recovering and Representing the Asylum
Enrollment by Instructor Permission (Robert Allen)
Course Leaders:
Robert C. Allen (Instructor)
rallen@email.unc.edu
James Logan Godfrey Professor of American Studies
Co-Director, Community Histories Workshop
Leah Tams
ltams@unc.edu
Graduate Research Fellow
Community Histories Workshop
MS candidate, UNC School of Information and Library Science (Archives and Record Management)
A topical course offering, AMST 715 engages students from a wide range of disciplinary interests with the ways that communities (in the broadest sense) have been, are, and might be preserved, documented, represented, understood, and remembered. Each offering of AMST 715 draws upon the course leader/s own experience and practice of public history, public humanities, and community archiving initiatives.
This iteration of the course will be conducted online. It will also be “quasi-asynchronous,” meaning that participants can work at their own pace within two-week units and can work ahead if they have accomplished the goal/s of the current unit. Units will be bounded by 2-hour course conversations held every two weeks (5-7 pm, Wednesdays). A more detailed schedule, benchmarks, and unit descriptions will worked out in the first class meeting on January 20. The course is designed to accommodate participants from a range of graduate programs across the campus, university staff and clinical professionals, those who live/work outside the Chapel Hill area, and those with full-time work commitments.
Please Note: Based on previous experience, participants may find this seminar an intense and demanding, but, it is hoped, ultimately rewarding experience. We will be dealing with the historical experience of mental illness and trauma, and conducting and sharing amongst ourselves original research into sometimes troubling institutional records. What we will learn is inherently unpredictable and might be to some deeply affecting. Interested participants should contact Prof. Allen (rallen@email.unc.edu) early in the registration process to set up a Zoom/telephone interview. Enrollment is limited and is by permission of the instructor.
This offering of the course focuses on the origin and history of the public insane asylum in the United States, taking advantage of the UNC Community Histories Workshop’s two year-long excavation of the records of the North Carolina Insane Asylum in Raleigh, NC (officially renamed the Dorothea Dix Hospital in 1959). The site of Dix Hospital is being transformed by the City of Raleigh into one of the most ambitious public park projects in the U.S. The CHW has created what we believe to be the first comprehensive, searchable patient database of a nineteenth-century American insane asylum, some 7200 admissions between 1856 and 1918. Complementing the database is a collection of some 5500 extended intake forms (1887-1918), and hospital/state administrative records, including a hospital cemetery inventory of more than 700 interred patients, minutes of hospital board meetings, comprehensive medical staff meetings and interviews with patients (1916-17), and records of the N.C Eugenics Board (1958-59).
We will situate the history of North Carolina’s first and principal insane asylum within the context of the emergence of modern psychiatry, and set nineteenth-century “supposed causes” and “forms” of insanity in conversation with contemporary understandings of mental illness. We will also explore the how gender, race, sexuality, and class affected the identification, diagnosis, and treatment of “insanity” in late 19th and early 20th century North Carolina.
Participants will first steep themselves in the primary and secondary literature of the 19th century insane asylum, 19th century understandings of insanity, and the emergence of modern psychiatry through the theory and practice of asylum superintendents. They will also develop competence in digital history, particularly family history and genealogy (full subscription to Ancestry.com is required as a “text book” for the course). They will then immerse themselves in copies of original patient records, focusing on those admitted to the hospital in 1916-1917 and for whom we have three sets of complementary records–admissions ledgers, general case book entries, and medical staff “examinations”—in addition to the admissions ledger database. Areas of particular diagnostic focus will include “puerperal insanity,” heredity, dementia praecox, and manic depression.
Each participant will then undertake guided research leading to production of a case study. The format mode, approach, scope, and intended audience for which will be developed in consultation with the course leaders, fellow participants, and researchers in relevant disciplines across campus.
Previous case studies have explored suicidality; postpartum anxiety, depression and psychosis; African-American presence/absence in the asylum; multi-generational “insanity and the eugenics movement;” the relationship between diet and mental illness (pellagra); acts of patient “resistance;” hysteria; insanity as a legal defense; and effects of war trauma; among others.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit. 6 total credits. 2 total completions.
AMST 720. Fugitive Philosophies: The Intellectual Tradition of Forced Movers. 3 Credits.
Seminar traces the intellectual tradition of refugees, migrants, and forced movers transiting the United States. Beginning in the 19th century and progressing to the 21st century, we will examine the works of anticolonial thinkers, Caribbean philosophers, journalists of the African American and Latinx traditions, labor movement musicians, activists in the Long Civil Rights Movement, Marxist organizers, and social and political reformers. We analyze how their dislocations and multi-sited lives have created spaces for philosophical interventions.
AMST 775. Graduate Seminar in Food Studies: Interdisciplinary Research. 3 Credits.
This class exposes graduate students to interdisciplinary food studies research in the humanities. We use farm records, cookbooks, novels, poetry, photographs, songs, documentaries, and oral histories to investigate American food communities. We are not aiming to define food studies, but are looking at its questions, problems, theories, and methods.
AMST 795. Digital Humanities Field Experience. 1-3 Credits.
An opportunity for students to translate theory into practice as they make meaningful contributions to digital humanities projects. Field experience can be tailored to fit the intellectual and professional needs of individual students, who may choose to work on projects in cultural heritage institutions or within academic departments on campus.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit. 6 total credits. 2 total completions.
AMST 820. Critical Ethnic Studies (CES): New Perspectives. 3 Credits.
This course is devised to provide graduate students interested in theoretical interdisciplinary work with a sense of prevailing questions and critiques important to CES. CES takes on the more difficult questions of intersectional work, as it thinks through sovereignty and emacipation, identity and ontology, place, space and temporality. Each iteration of the course works itself through new perspectives in the field, challenging students to create new methodologies for their own work.
AMST 840. Digital Humanities/Digital American Studies. 3 Credits.
This course, explores the application of digital technologies to the materials, questions, and practices of humanities scholarship, particularly as related to enduring topics in American Studies scholarship and community engagement. Students will work on group digital history projects in collaboration with local cultural heritage organizations.
AMST 850. Digital Humanities Practicum. 3 Credits.
This practicum blends graduate seminar discussions with hands-on training in the digital humanities. Students will work in the Digital Innovation Lab, contributing to real-life projects while developing their own professional development goals. Students will emerge with a deeper understanding of and experience with digital humanities approaches, practices, and issues.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit. 6 total credits. 2 total completions.
AMST 878. Readings in Native American History. 3 Credits.
Readings in and discussions of the major works in Native American history.
Same as: HIST 878.
AMST 880. American Film and Media History. 3 Credits.
Topically focused examination of social and cultural aspects of cinema and media history in the United States, including cinema/media audiences, reception, and historiography.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit.
AMST 890. Seminar in American Studies. 3 Credits.
Graduate seminar exploring selected topics in the theory and practice of American Studies.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit. 12 total credits. 4 total completions.
AMST 895. Directed Readings. 3 Credits.
Permission of the instructor. Independent reading programs for graduate students.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit. 12 total credits. 4 total completions.
AMST 900. Directed Studies. 0.5-15 Credits.
Permission of the instructor. Topics and credit hours vary according to the needs and interests of the individual student and the professor supervising the research project.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit.
AMST 901. M.A. Research Seminar. 3 Credits.
Students will be introduced to issues of project design, develop a prospectus for the M.A. capstone project, work with an advisor, and prepare full drafts of their projects.
AMST 902. Ph.D. Research Seminar. 3 Credits.
A review of current scholarship in American Studies, with the aim of creating the final reading list for the comprehensive exams, and an introduction to dissertation design.
AMST 948. Research in Native American History. 3 Credits.
This course introduces graduate students to research methods in Native American history, including the methodology of ethnohistory and the techniques of compiling a source base, taking notes, and outlining.
Same as: HIST 948.
AMST 992. Master’s (Non-Thesis). 3 Credits.
Non-Thesis Option
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit.
AMST 993. Master’s Research and Thesis. 3 Credits.
Master’s Thesis
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit.
AMST 994. Doctoral Research and Dissertation. 3 Credits.
Individual work on the doctoral dissertation, pursued under the supervision of the Ph.D. advisor.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit.
FOLK 77. First-Year Seminar: The Poetic Roots of Hip-Hop: Hidden Histories of African American Rhyme. 3 Credits.
What are the roots of hip-hop’s masterful rhymes and tongue-tripping flow? This seminar explores hip-hop’s poetic prehistory, looking to the rhyming and oral poetics that have long defined African American experience. In so doing, we’ll uncover hidden histories of everyday eloquence and explore spoken/sung poetry’s role in marking cultural identity. Honors version available
Gen Ed: VP, US.
FOLK 89. First-Year Seminar: Special Topics. 3 Credits.
Special topics course. Content will vary each semester.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit; may be repeated in the same term for different topics; 6 total credits. 2 total completions.
FOLK 130. Anthropology of the Caribbean. 3 Credits.
Theories and examples of how Caribbean people live, act, and see themselves within various cultural, social, economic, and political contexts across time. Attention to North American views of the Caribbean.
Gen Ed: SS, BN, GL.
Same as: ANTH 130.
FOLK 202. Introduction to Folklore. 3 Credits.
An introduction to the study of creativity and aesthetic expression in everyday life, considering both traditional genres and contemporary innovations in the material, verbal, and musical arts.
Gen Ed: SS, US.
FOLK 230. Native American Cultures. 3 Credits.
Broad survey of contemporary American Indian societies and cultures in the United States. Explores socio-cultural and historical diversity of tribes through film, autobiography, literature, current issues, guest speakers, archaeology, and history.
Gen Ed: SS, NA.
Same as: ANTH 230.
FOLK 254. American Historical Geographies. 3 Credits.
A study of selected past geographies of the United States with emphasis on the significant geographic changes in population, cultural, and economic conditions through time. Previously offered as FOLK/GEOG 454. (GHA)
Same as: GEOG 254.
FOLK 310. Fairy Tales. 3 Credits.
A study of fairy tales as historical artifacts that reveal the concerns of their times and places, as narrative structures capable of remarkable transformation, and as artistic performances drawing upon the expressive resources of multiple media, intended to challenge conventional presuppositions about the genre.
Gen Ed: LA, NA.
Same as: ENGL 310.
FOLK 323. Magic, Ritual, and Belief. 3 Credits.
Permission of the instructor. Starting with the late 19th-century evolutionists, this course discusses, intensively, major anthropological theories of magico-religious thought and practice, then offers an approach of its own.
Same as: ANTH 323.
FOLK 334. Art, Nature, and Religion: Cross-Cultural Perspectives. 3 Credits.
This cross-cultural study of art focuses on the forms, images, and meanings of paintings, drawings, and carvings produced by the Diyin Dine’é (Navajo), the Dogon (Mali, West Africa), and the Haida, Kwagiutl, Tlingit, and Tshimshian (northwest coast of North America).
Gen Ed: VP.
Same as: ANTH 334.
FOLK 340. Southern Styles, Southern Cultures. 4 Credits.
A journey into hidden worlds of southern meaning, exploring the region from the experiential lens of African Americans and the South’s indigenous peoples, as a way of rethinking the question, “What does it mean to be a Southerner?” Students will explore focused issues each semester through intensive, group-based field work projects.
Gen Ed: SS, EE- Field Work, US.
Same as: ANTH 340.
FOLK 342. African-American Religious Experience. 3 Credits.
Permission of the instructor. An introduction to the diversity of African American beliefs, experiences, and expressions from the colonial era to the present. Exploration will be both historical and thematic.
Gen Ed: SS, NA.
FOLK 370. Southern Legacies: The Descendants Project. 4 Credits. SYNCHRONOUS REMOTE
This research-intensive class explores the legacy of racial terrorism in N.C., searching archival sources to discover the family histories of lynching victims in North Carolina. Traditionally, the only stories of these victims that survive in the public record are those crafted by white law officers and white journalists, ultimately offering the story favored by the murdering mob. In this course, we try to discover the untold stories of the victims and their families, challenging the standing narratives while foregrounding long erased truths. Our archival searching will additionally try to trace victims’ families to the present-day, so that we can identify and (hopefully) interview their descendants. While so doing, we’ll also be working directly with communities to build public awareness of—and perhaps public memorials to—the victims of racial violence. One of our focuses in 2021 will be Warren County, where a 1921 double-lynching has vanished from both the history books and much of public memory. We’ll be virtually visiting with consultants in the county, and virtually interviewing descendants of the victims of these lynchings and of others in North Carolina.
Entry to this class is by permission only, to insure a setting that is safe for all parties as we step into these deeply emotional waters.
Gen Ed: SS, EE- Field Work, US.
Same as: ANTH 370.
FOLK 375. Southern Food Studies: Beyond the Plate. 3 Credits.
Explores the historical arc and study of food in America and how culinary cultures reflect regional, national, and global narratives, challenges, and identities. As an intriguing lens on to the American experience, food reveals how race, class, gender, and place are entwined in cuisine, food economies, and interactions.
Gen Ed: SS, US.
Same as: AMST 375.
FOLK 380. Traditions in Transition: Jewish Folklore and Ethnography. 3 Credits.
This seminar examines Jewish stories, humor, ritual, custom, belief, architecture, dress, and food as forms of creative expression that have complex relationships to Jewish experience, representation, identity, memory, and tradition. What makes these forms of folklore Jewish, how do source communities interpret them, and how do ethnographers document them? Previously offered as FOLK/JWST 505.
Gen Ed: VP, EE- Field Work, US.
Same as: JWST 380.
FOLK 424. Ritual, Festival, and Public Culture. 3 Credits.
This course explores rituals, festivals, and public cultural performances as forms of complex, collective, embodied creative expression. As sites of popular celebration, conflict resolution, identity definition, and social exchange, they provide rich texts for folkloristic study. We consider how local and global forces both sustain and challenge these forms.
Gen Ed: SS, EE- Field Work.
Same as: ANTH 424.
FOLK 428. Religion and Anthropology. 3 Credits.
Religion studied anthropologically as a cultural, social, and psychological phenomenon in the works of classical and contemporary social thought. Honors version available
Gen Ed: SS.
FOLK 429. Culture and Power in Southeast Asia. 3 Credits.
The formation and transformation of values, identities, and expressive forms in Southeast Asia in response to forms of power. Emphasis on the impact of colonialism, the nation-state, and globalization.
Gen Ed: SS, BN, GL.
FOLK 435. Consciousness and Symbols. 3 Credits.
This course explores consciousness through symbols. Symbols from religion, art, politics, and self are studied in social, psychological, historical, and ecological context to ascertain meanings in experience and behavior.
Gen Ed: SS.
Same as: ANTH 435.
FOLK 455. Ethnohistory. 3 Credits.
Integration of data from ethnographic and archaeological research with pertinent historic information. Familiarization with a wide range of sources for ethnohistoric data and practice in obtaining and evaluating information. Pertinent theoretical concepts will be explored.
Gen Ed: HS.
Same as: ANTH 455.
FOLK 470. Medicine and Anthropology. 3 Credits.
This course examines cultural understandings of health, illness, and medical systems from an anthropological perspective with a special focus on Western medicine.
Gen Ed: SS.
Same as: ANTH 470.
FOLK 473. Anthropology of the Body and the Subject. 3 Credits.
Anthropological and historical studies of cultural constructions of bodily experience and subjectivity are reviewed, with emphasis on the genesis of the modern individual and cultural approaches to gender and sexuality.
Gen Ed: SS.
Same as: ANTH 473.
FOLK 476. Graffiti, Gods, and Gardens: Urban Folklore. 3 Credits.
What is the relationship between distinctive features of urban environments and the expressive forms found in those settings? This course explores the impact of the urban setting on folk traditions. We examine how people transform urban spaces into places of meaning through storytelling, festival, ritual, food, art, music, and dance.
Gen Ed: VP, EE- Field Work, US.
FOLK 480. Vernacular Traditions in African American Music. 4 Credits.
Explores performance traditions in African American music, tracing development from African song through reels, blues, gospel, and contemporary vernacular expression. Focuses on continuity, creativity, and change within African American aesthetics. Previously offered as FOLK 610/AAAD 432.
Gen Ed: HS, EE- Field Work, US.
Same as: AAAD 480.
FOLK 481. Jewish Belongings: Material Culture of the Jewish Experience. 3 Credits.
What makes an object “Jewish”? This seminar examines how we think about, animate, repurpose, and display “Jewish” objects in the public realm, cultural institutions, religious spaces, and the home. We consider how makers and users negotiate objects’ various meanings within the domains of prayer, performance, entertainment, and exhibition. The class curates a final group exhibition of Jewish material culture based on original fieldwork.
Gen Ed: VP, EE- Field Work, US.
Same as: JWST 481.
FOLK 484. Discourse and Dialogue in Ethnographic Research. 3 Credits.
Study of cultural variation in styles of speaking applied to collection of ethnographic data. Talk as responsive social action and its role in the constitution of ethnic and gender identities.
Gen Ed: SS, CI, US.
FOLK 487. Everyday Stories: Personal Narrative and Legend. 3 Credits.
Oral storytelling may seem old-fashioned, but we tell true (or possibly true) stories every day. We will study personal narratives (about our own experiences) and legends (about improbable, intriguing events), exploring the techniques and structures that make them effective communication tools and the influence of different contexts and audiences.
Gen Ed: CI, US.
Same as: ENGL 487.
FOLK 488. No Place like Home: Material Culture of the American South. 3 Credits.
Seminar will explore the unique worlds of Southern material culture and how “artifacts” from barns to biscuits provide insight about the changing social and cultural history of the American South.
Gen Ed: VP, NA.
Same as: AMST 488.
FOLK 490. Topics in Folklore. 3 Credits.
Topics vary from semester to semester.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit; may be repeated in the same term for different topics; 12 total credits. 4 total completions.
FOLK 495. Field Research. 3 Credits.
Research at sites that vary.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit; may be repeated in the same term for different topics; 12 total credits. 4 total completions.
FOLK 496. Directed Readings in Folklore. 3 Credits.
Permission of the department. Topic varies depending on the instructor.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit. 12 total credits. 4 total completions.
FOLK 502. Myths and Epics of the Ancient Near East. 3 Credits.
An examination of Babylonian, Canaanite, Egyptian, Hittite, and Sumerian texts from the prebiblical era, focusing on representative myths, epics, sagas, songs, proverbs, prophecies, and hymns. Honors version available
Gen Ed: LA, WB.
Same as: RELI 502.
FOLK 525. Culture and Personality. 3 Credits.
Systems theory used to conceptualize relationship between cultural patterns and individual minds. Functional, dysfunctional, and therapeutic processes considered. Examples from Africa, Asia, Europe, and Native America. Lectures, films, recitations.
Gen Ed: SS.
Same as: ANTH 525.
FOLK 537. Gender and Performance: Constituting Identity. 3 Credits.
Examines the culturally and historically variable ways in which individuals constitute themselves as cis- or transgendered subjects, drawing upon extant expressive resources, modifying them, and expanding options available to others. Performance of self as the product of esthetically marked or unmarked, everyday actions.
Gen Ed: SS, GL.
FOLK 550. Introduction to Material Culture. 3 Credits.
An introduction to material folk culture, exploring the meanings that people bring to traditional arts and the artful creations with which they surround themselves (e.g., architecture, clothing, altars, tools, food).
Gen Ed: VP.
FOLK 560. Southern Literature and the Oral Tradition. 3 Credits.
Course considers how Southern writers employ folklore genres such as folk tales, sermons, and music and how such genres provide structure for literary forms like the novel and the short story.
Gen Ed: HS, NA, US.
FOLK 562. Oral History and Performance. 3 Credits.
This course combines readings and field work in oral history with the study of performance as a means of interpreting and conveying oral history texts. Honors version available
Gen Ed: EE- Performing Arts.
Same as: COMM 562, HIST 562, WGST 562.
FOLK 565. Ritual, Theatre, and Performance Art. 3 Credits.
Explores how each of these forms of performance communicates meaning and feeling and points to possibility. Students develop performances in each mode, informed by readings in anthropology and directing theory.
Requisites: Prerequisite, COMM 160; permission of the instructor for students lacking the prerequisite.
Same as: COMM 362.
FOLK 571. Southern Music. 3 Credits.
Explores the history of music in the American South from its roots to 20th-century musical forms, revealing how music serves as a window on the region’s history and culture.
Gen Ed: HS, NA.
Same as: HIST 571.
FOLK 587. Folklore in the South. 3 Credits.
An issue-oriented study of Southern folklore, exploring the ways that vernacular artistic expression (from barns and barbecue to gospel and well-told tales) come to define both community and region.
Gen Ed: VP, NA.
FOLK 670. Introduction to Oral History. 3 Credits.
Introduces students to the uses of interviews in historical research. Questions of ethics, interpretation, and the construction of memory will be explored, and interviewing skills will be developed through field work.
Gen Ed: HS, CI.
Same as: HIST 670.
FOLK 675. Ethnographic Method. 3 Credits.
Intensive study and practice of the core research methods of cultural and social anthropology.
Gen Ed: SS, CI.
Same as: ANTH 675.
FOLK 688. Observation and Interpretation of Religious Action. 3 Credits.
Permission of the instructor. Exercises (including field work) in learning to read the primary modes of public action in religious traditions, e.g., sermons, testimonies, rituals, and prayers.
Gen Ed: SS, EE- Mentored Research.
FOLK 690. Studies In Folklore. 3 Credits.
Topic varies from semester to semester.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit; may be repeated in the same term for different topics; 12 total credits. 4 total completions.
FOLK 691H. Honors Project in Folklore. 3 Credits.
Permission of the instructor. For honors candidates. Ethnographic and/or library research and analysis of the gathered materials, leading to a draft of an honors thesis.
Gen Ed: EE- Mentored Research.
FOLK 692H. Honors Thesis in Folklore. 3 Credits.
Writing of an honors thesis based on independent research conducted in FOLK 691H. Open only to senior honors candidates who work under the direction of a faculty member.
Requisites: Prerequisite, FOLK 691H.
Gen Ed: EE- Mentored Research.
FOLK 790. Public Folklore. 3 Credits.
A graduate seminar addressing theory and praxis in public sector cultural work. Focusing on public folklore, this course explores broad issues of representation, cultural politics, and cultural tourism.
FOLK 841. Performance Ethnography. 3 Credits.
This seminar focuses on methods of ethnography and fieldwork ethics. Performance as theory and practice informs methodological inquiries as well as the analysis of specific ethnographic texts and case studies.
Same as: COMM 841.
FOLK 842. Seminar in Performance and Cultural Studies. 3 Credits.
This course focuses on performance-related issues in the emergent field of cultural studies.
Same as: COMM 842.
FOLK 843. Seminar in Contemporary Performance Theory. 3 Credits.
An advanced graduate seminar, this course will address recent developments and problems in performance theory. It will consider cross- and multidisciplinary approaches to performance as sites for consideration and debate.
Same as: COMM 843.
FOLK 850. Approaches to Folklore Theory. 3 Credits.
A systematic overview of the major issues and theoretical perspectives that have informed the study of folklore historically and that are emerging in contemporary scholarship.
FOLK 860. Art of Ethnography. 3 Credits. REMOTE SYNCHRONOUS
In this graduate seminar—which is cross-listed in Anthropology and Folklore—we jointly explore the art of ethnography. Not just ethnography, mind you, but the art of ethnography. “What’s the difference?” you might ask. It’s actually quite simple; we’ll be treating ethnography as more than mere process and skill, and as more than just research and writing. Ethnography—as a process based in conversation and the search for shared understanding—is inherently creative. It is always a “making,” an enacting that begins with conversations in the “field,” moves into domains of intimate sharing and mutual realization, and eventually finds voice in various forms of artful representation. All these realms of enactment involve a host of choices that ethnographers and their consultants creatively make throughout the course of their engagement. In the field, these choices entail such matters as with whom to speak; how to present oneself in that speaking; how and with whom to craft bonds of collaboration; how to offer oneself as student, friend, and colleague; and how to measure one’s emergent understanding. In crafting the representation, choices involve what to include and what to leave out; how to acknowledge one’s social position, and to assess the ways that this frames all understandings and interactions; when to give voice to consultants and when to speak for self; how to frame and how to order and how to story. In these arenas of dialogue and subjective choice lies the art in ethnography.
In this pandemic semester, ethnography will necessarily take a different form, as our “field” becomes that which we can negotiate online. Nonetheless, we will still engage with consultants in directed, community-based projects, journeying from the classroom into virtually realized communities to practice this art and to investigate various realms of community meaning. Structured as a seminar, this course will introduce a range of fieldwork techniques (online and otherwise), address a host of methodological and theoretical issues (central among which are ethnography’s colonialist roots), and hopefully prompt thought about the tangled issues of ethnographic representation. And even though our work will be virtual, we will still each be planning, conducting, and reporting on a field project.
Towards this end, at the beginning of the course, I ask each student to choose a consultant community with whom you’ll work for the remainder of the semester. I recognize, of course, that this is no simple process in these pandemic days; at the same time, I’m aware that COVID has prompted the emergence of a host of new online communities, as well as virtual versions of established ones. I trust that we can make this work, and that you’ll find community members who agree to become your guides and partners on this journey of emergent understanding. Over the course of the semester, you’ll work closely with these consultants, building collaborative working relationships that will take you through a series of structured exercises, which you’ll share with both your consultants and your classmates. By the semester’s close, you’ll hopefully emerge with a much fuller understanding of the responsibilities, challenges, and epiphanies of the covenantal process that is ethnography.
Same as: ANTH 860.
FOLK 890. Seminar in Folklore. 3 Credits.
Graduate seminar exploring selected topics in the theory and practice of Folklore.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit. 12 total credits. 4 total completions.
FOLK 891. Topics in Folklore. 3 Credits.
An irregularly offered graduate seminar exploring selected topics in the theory and practice of folklore.
FOLK 895. Directed Readings. 3 Credits.
Permission of the instructor. Independent reading programs for graduate students.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit. 12 total credits. 4 total completions.
FOLK 900. Directed Studies. 0.5-15 Credits.
Permission of the instructor. Topics and credit hours vary according to the needs and interests of the individual student and the professor supervising the research project.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit.
FOLK 993. Master’s Research and Thesis. 3 Credits.
Research in a special field under the direction of staff members.
Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit.
CHER 101. Elementary Cherokee Language I. 3 Credits.
Provides an introduction to speaking, listening, reading, and writing in the Cherokee language. This course is part of an ongoing effort to revitalize Cherokee–an endangered language indigenous to North Carolina. Students will acquire basic conversational Cherokee and learn to read and write the Sequoyah syllabary.
Gen Ed: FL.
CHER 102. Elementary Cherokee Language II. 3 Credits.
This course expands on skills from CHER 101. We will begin reading longer texts in the Cherokee syllabary and learn to produce more complex narrative structures. Students will move toward discussing others around them, with an eye toward discussing the general world.
Requisites: Prerequisite, CHER 101; permission of the instructor for students lacking the prerequisite.
Gen Ed: FL.
CHER 203. Intermediate Cherokee Language I. 3 Credits.
This course reviews and deepens grammatical knowledge from CHER 101 and 102. We will increase extemporaneous speaking and produce new written texts in the Cherokee syllabary. Students will discuss the world around them in addition to the self and others.
Requisites: Prerequisite, CHER 102; permission of the instructor for students lacking the prerequisite.
Gen Ed: FL.
CHER 204. Intermediate Cherokee Language II. 3 Credits.
This course completes the study of basic Cherokee grammar. We will polish conversational fluency and proficiency, read and create new texts in the Cherokee syllabary. Students will discuss current events and offer opinions.
Requisites: Prerequisite, CHER 203; permission of the instructor for students lacking the prerequisite.
Gen Ed: FL.
CHER 305. Phonetics and General Linguistics. 3 Credits.
Introduction to linguistics; the Cherokee sound system from a phonetic and allophonic view; grammatical categories, morphology, syntax.
Requisites: Prerequisite, CHER 204.
Grading status: Letter grade.