American Studies Undergraduate Program 2012-13
COURSES
Undergraduate Program in American Studies
The courses for 2012-13 are now on-line! See the above link to 'core courses' and 'recommended courses'.
Uniquely positioned to study the United States from a cross-border perspective, and drawing on the expertise of the more than 75 faculty at the University of Toronto with an interest in the United States, the American Studies undergraduate major and minor program is designed to provide students with a broad, yet deep, education about the United States. To ensure breadth, students are required to take an interdisciplinary core course that ranges widely both with respect to the themes covered and disciplinary perspectives applied. As well, the program offers a wide selection of courses from participating departments and programs in the Faculty, giving students broad exposure to fundamental themes of American life. The American Studies Program relies heavily on upper-level courses.
I wanted to alert you to a summer course in American Studies this summer. This course on "Illegal Drugs and American Society" is a great opportunity to explore an interesting topic in a small class, while fulfilling an American Studies requirement. A full description of the course is in the text below.
Please feel free to contact Patrick Vitale at csus.advisor@utoronto.ca if you have any questions about the course.
USA310H1S Approaches to American Studies: Illegal Drugs and American Society, Tuesdays and Thursdays 10am-12pm (July 2-August 12), enrolment cap: 45
Few topics spark as much controversy and emotion in American culture as the consumption of psychotropic substances. In fact, the nature of these substances and their impact on society has long been debated.
This course will trace the shifting meanings of illegal drug use in American society over the course of the twentieth century. It begins with an historical analysis of drug consumption at the turn of the twentieth century, and explores the way perceptions about drugs and drug use change over time. We will explore how and why particular substances come under public and legal scrutiny in particular periods, and how drug use shaped the lives of users in different contexts.
Among the topics to be covered are the changing meanings of “addiction,” the emergence of anti-narcotic legislation, treatment versus punishment approaches to addiction, the racialization of drug users, the development of urban drug subcultures, gendered perceptions of drug consumption, and the “War on Drugs,” and alternative approaches to drug law enforcement.
American Studies Undergraduate Student Society
The American Studies Students Society has recently been formed. The members of the Executive are:
President: Lauren Conway
Vice-President: David Cosolo
Treasurer: Tony Lui
Event Co-ordinator: Allison Burtenshaw-deVries
Media Consultant: Kelly Rahardja
If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions please email us at: uoft.amstudies@gmail.com. We are always happy to hear from members of the American Studies community, and will try to respond as soon as possible.
Past Events:
December 6, 3:30 pm
Varsity Theatre
Manulife Centre, 55 Bloor St. West
Film Screening:
Lincoln
Organized by the American Studies Students Society, University of Toronto
The American Studies Students Society would like to invite you all to our end of classes event! Come watch Steven Spielberg's critically acclaimed movie "Lincoln" with your fellow students at Varsity Theatre (Manulife Centre, 55 Bloor St. West) on December 6th, 2012. The movie screening is at 3:40 pm, and we will be meeting at the theatre 15 minutes prior, so please be on time.
**Tickets are only $5 each for American Studies students and are limited, so please RSVP to: uoft.amstudies@gmail.com, using your UofT email to reserve one ticket.
For further details and questions feel free to send us an email and we'll get back to you as soon as possible.
Happy studying, and see you all there!
All the best,
Your ASSS Exec team
Tuesday, March 26, 5-6:30 pm
Room 108N, Munk
American Studies Students Society
General Meeting and Elections
Refreshments will be served.
Wednesday, March 27, 5-6:30 pm
Room 208N, Munk
American Studies Students Society
Film Screening: Prisonville, USA
This film screening follows a public talk by Brett Story, 4-6 pm, in Room 208N.
Refreshments will be served. Free of charge.
Monday, April 1, 4:30-7:00 pm
Room 208N, Munk
American Studies Students Society
Patrick Vitale
“Cold-War Communities: Engineering Pittsburgh's Suburbs” | Followed by Movie Screening of Pleasantville
Our second academic seminar will be led by Patrick Vitale, who is a doctoral student in geography working on a dissertation, “Nuclear Suburbs: the everyday politics of the Cold War in suburban Pittsburgh.” His research examines the confluence of the Cold War, science and engineering, and suburbanization in the Pittsburgh region from 1937 to 1979. Using the Westinghouse Electric Corporation's extensive involvement in the nuclear industry as an example, Patrick argues that the suburbanization of scientific work was a vital and overlooked aspect of the dramatic remaking of the Pittsburgh region during the Cold War.
The seminar will run from 4:30 - 5:00pm, and will be followed by a screening of the movie Pleasantville, a 1998 American fantasy comedy-drama film starring Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon. Pleasantville is a morality tale concerning the values of contemporary suburban America by holding that social landscape up against both the Utopian and the dystopian visions of suburbia that emerged in the 1950s.
Refreshments will be served. Event is free of charge.
Wednesday, April 3, 8 pm - midnight
Gabby’s Bar and Grill
(Bloor and Avenue), 192 Bloor St. West
Pub and Trivia Night
American Studies Students Society
American Studies Students Society is hosting our last get together of the year. Take a break from studying and join us for FREE food, FREE drinks, and good times all around! The event will be a pub night and trivia night with prizes to be won. So brush up on your American knowledge and come out to this exciting event! All American Studies students are welcome!
**Please note there will be a wristband policy.
2011-12
Message from the Director
Congrats to American Studies undergrad student Ariel Leutheusser for presenting original research drawn at the Transecting Society conference at the University of New Hampshire, April 2012. Her paper was “Without a Roadmap to Myself: Queer Masculinity and Affect,” and emerged from her work in USA400 Queer Feelings, Fall 2012.
Go, Ariel!
2011-2012 American Studies Undergraduate Discussion Group: “How I Read”
This online discussion group is part of larger conversations about critical reading in the humanities and social sciences. There is no single way to perform critical reading. For many practitioners in American Studies, this means reading the same text multiple times in several different ways. In this regard, "reading" is really just a broad term for a whole set of different techniques and methods. A skilled reader has a diverse set of critical reading methods they use to help make different types of information noticeable, and aid in generating new ideas and new lines of research. Consequently, the purpose of this group is to provide American Studies students with a forum to discuss their own experiments with critical reading methods. Such experiments might include new ways of “mining” a text, or the making of personal reading “systems” that concentrate the act of reading around a specific goal, object, or task. Over the course of the year, students will begin to develop a versatile set of critical reading methods that will help them to adapt to any
reading situation.
Our discussion will be guided by two animating questions:
(1) Can the act of “reading” be updated, re-designed, or innovated?
(2) How do different reading practices produce different cognitive effects in the mind of the reader?
As part of tackling those two questions, this studentorganized initiative aims to be a lively and playful site of undergraduate research, exchange, and dialogue. All current UofT American Studies students and recent graduates are welcome to join at any point during the year.
If you would like to join or have any questions, please contact the Coordinator, Lauren Kilgour, email: lauren.kilgour@utoronto.ca.
