Course title: The History and Paradigms of American Studies 2
Instructor: Dr Jelena Šesnić
ECTS credits: 6
Status: elective
Semester: 8^th and 9^th semester, Spring 2013
Enrollment requirements: enrollment in the 8^th and/or 10^th semester
Course description: This is a companion course to the History and Paradigms of American Studies 1 which thus continues to examine the changes in the methodology of American Studies since the 1970s. Major developments in this respect are poststructuralist theory, new historicism, feminist and gender studies (from Marxism to psychoanalysis), ethnic, postcolonial and border studies, transnational turn and cultural studies. These approaches will be exemplified by representative scholarly essays and tested in turn on the appropriate primary texts. The course is obligatory for American studies majors (8^th semester); elective for all other MA students.
Course requirements: regular attendance; participation in class discussion; in-class and home assignments (two research projects/ reviews); oral presentation (10 min); 2 seminar papers (6-7 pp. each/ 2000-2500 words); final test (mandatory, non-negotiable, continuous assessment). Grade break-down: seminar papers 40 %; final test 30 %; written assignments 20%; the rest 10 %.

Readings (alterations possible):
Primary texts
1. Thomas Jefferson: Notes on the State of Virginia (1781-2; selected chapters)
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/JefVirg.html
(E-text centre, U of Virginia Library)

2. Lenora Sansay: Secret History, or The Horrors of St. Domingo (1808)

3. Edgar Allan Poe: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838)
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA98/silverman/poe/frame.html
(American Studies at the UVa)

4. Henry David Thoreau: Walden (1845; selected chapters)
http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/thoreau/walden/index.html
(American Transcendentalism on the Web)

5. Herman Melville: „Benito Cereno“ (from The Piazza Tales, 1856)
http://www.esp.org/books/melville/piazza/contents/cereno.html

6. Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman: „The Yellow Wall-Paper“ (1892)
http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=newe;cc=newe;view=toc;subview=short;idno=newe0011-5
(Cornell University Library Making of America Collection)

7. Chicano/ borderlands literary production: selection (Gloria Anzaldúa, Sandra Cisneros)

Syllabus (alterations possible)
March
Week 1: Introduction: European vs US Americanists; perspectives, focus and methods:
Chenetier, Fluck, Shapiro; Jefferson, Notes (introduction)
Week 2: Centring and de-centring American studies: Jefferson, Notes; Erkkila
Week 3: Whiteness studies (CEEPUS guest lecturer)
Week 4: Thoreau, Walden (Buell, ecocriticism and de-exceptionalizing Walden)

April
Week 1: Thoreau, Walden (cont.)
Week 2: E.A. Poe, Pym and ethnic/ race studies; Morrison
Week 3: E.A. Poe, cont.
Week 4: New Historicism into transnational American studies: Herman Melville: “Benito Cereno” (Sundquist, Stuckey)
Week 5: Melville, cont.

May
Week 1: Transnational AS: Leonora Sansay: Secret History, or The Horrors of St. Domingo
Week 2: Sansay, cont.
Week 3: Border studies: Anzaldúa; borderlands (Chicano) literary production (Cisneros) (CEEPUS guest lecturer)
Week 4: Feminist criticism and the canon: Baym; Perkins Gilman: “The Yellow Wall-Paper”

June
Week 1: American Studies and cultural studies: is there a method? Guest lecturer: Dr. Sven Cvek (American Studies Program, Zagreb)
Week 2: Final test.

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Course title: The United States Now
Instructor: Prof. Stipe Grgas
ECTS credits: 6
Status: elective
Semester: 2 and 4
Enrollment requirements: enrollment in the graduate program
Course description: The course will explore the main issues and topics which characterize the present moment of United States reality. The departure point for the course is the contention that the time frame within which the “present” is defined was inaugurated by September 11 and the subsequent actions taken by the United States government, subsequent domestic developments and the effects these had on self-projections and representations of the United States. The second event which is believed to have inaugurated a new phase in United States history is the current financial crisis. The course will explore the nature of this crisis and how it has made it imperative to question some of the basic assumptions of United States identity.

Objectives: The methodological objective of the course is to show how an interdisciplinary approach can be used to explore a historical conjecture. Overall the purpose of the course is to give a thick description of the present reality of the United States.

Course requirements: attendance, participation in the course, oral presentations, a written paper and a final written exam

Week by week schedule: the present moment, the meaning of the event (September 11/financial crisis), terrorism, imperialism, corporate power, religion, war, financialization, technology, production of American spaces, the question of the persuasiveness of American myths, literature and American Studies in the moment of danger.

Reading: In addition to a selection of texts dealing with the present moment the students will be asked to follow and keep track of news items from the States. The lecturer will give them a list of internet sites that reflect various viewpoints and opinions. In addition the participants in the course are expected to read Richard Powers’ novel Gain and a selection from Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon. 

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