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開課單位

英美語文學系

課 號

EL3204

授課教師

英文系教師

學分數

3

課程名稱(中文)

美國研究II

課程名稱(英文)

American Studies II

上課時間

 

課程基本資料

□必修  ■選修

□全學年  ■半學年

特殊條件

英語授課

■是(□全英語 ■部份英語)    

□否

接受社會人士修課

□是   

■否

接受校際學生修課

■是   

□否

分發條件

(授課對象限制條件說明、先修及擋修課程、人數限制…等)

英文系三年級優先,其他年級次之。

人數限制50人。

密 碼 卡

□不使用    ■部份使用(條件外加選用)    □全部使用(加、退選皆須使用)

辦公時間

 

課程目標:

This two-semester course introduces students to the interdisciplinary field of American studies. The course is organized historically, divided in the 1910s, with the US’s entry into the Great War. Students are advised to take both courses for a fuller knowledge of the field. American Studies II familiarizes students with the history and cultures of the US after the twentieth century. The twentieth century witnessed the shift in immigration patterns, the Great Depression, the rise of the middle class, and the nation’s further involvement in and across the Pacific after WWII. The development and advancement of the US market economy, political ideals, social movements, military presence, international relations, and geopolitical politics in this period have intervened into and intersected with the rise of popular culture that at times facilitated, challenged, resisted, and interrogated the nation’s imperialist project and its entanglements with previous colonial powers. The course will focus on a variety of themes and topics in the social and cultural spheres that unfold the complexity of the emergence of the US as a major player in the world. Students will gain an understanding of how cultural texts in different forms shape and rethink the historical formation of the US along the lines of modes of production, immigration, labor, class, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. American Studies II will help students see how cultural materials continue to shape our understanding of the social, political, and economic landscape of the US in the twenty-first century.

授課內容:

With the course objectives in mind and the individual expertise of our colleagues, the following daily syllabus is subjected to changes, modification, and expansion on specific topics and themes and the selection of texts. The sample daily syllabus intends to list a selection of cultural texts related to the assigned weekly topics and themes. In doing so, the sample daily syllabus showcases the different approaches and frameworks that individual lecturers can take to achieve the goal of American Studies II. By providing students with cultural, social, economic, and political background related to assigned weekly topics and themes, the course aims at enriching students’ understanding of the US society and the development of the field.

 

Class activities consist of quizzes, lectures, and group discussions on assigned topics. In group activities, our focus will be the close reading and interpretation of cultural texts with a view to understanding the socioeconomic conflicts and contradictions these texts reflect and challenge or strive to symbolically resolve. Students will be required to perform close readings, analyze them, and understand them in historical context. To this end, alongside the cultural texts we will read essays from the NYU press edited volume Keywords in American Cultural Studies, which has entries on terms central to and definitive of the field.  

Daily syllabus:

Week

Topics and Themes

Week 1

Introduction to the course

Week 2

Labor and (Im)migration I

Keywords: Coolie, Racial Capitalism and Citizenship

Cedric Robinson, excerpts from Racial Capitalism

Helen Jun, excerpts from Race for Citizenship 

Jack London, “The Yellow Peril”

Lauren Berlant, “Citizenship” (Keywords for American Cultural Studies)

Maxine Hong Kingston, excerpts from China Men

Yun Lisa, “The Coolie Testimonies” among other excerpts from The Coolie Speaks

Week 3

Labor and (Im)migration II

Keywords: Class and Economy

John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

Charlie Chaplin, Modern Times

Langston Hughes, excerpts from Not Without Laughter

Week 4

The American Dream

Keywords: Corporation and Market  

F. Scott Fitzgerald, excerpts from The Great Gatsby 

Willa Cather, excerpts from My Antonia 

Arthur Miller, excerpts from Death of a Salesman 

Salesman (Albert Maysles, David Maysles & Charlotte Mitchell Zwerin, 1969)

Week 5

Black Cultural Production and the Harlem Renaissance

Claude McKay, “If We must Die”

Langston Hughes, selected poems and excerpts from The Big Sea

Nella Lasron, excerpts from Quicksand

Christopher Lehman, excerpts from Blackface and American Animated Cartoons

Week 6

The Rise of the Middle Class I

Keywords: City and Family

John Cheever, “The Swimmer”

Betty Friedan, excerpts from The Feminine Mystique 

Micaela di Leonardo, “City” (Keywords for American Cultural Studies)

Week 7

The Rise of the Middle Class II

Keywords: Gender and Domesticity

Richard Yates, excerpts from Revolutionary Road

All That Heaven Allows (Douglas Sirk, 1955)  

Week 8

Mid-term Exam

Week 9

Pacific Wars I (WWII)

John Okada, excerpts from No-no Boy

Joseph Heller, excerpts from Catch-22

Chester Himes, excerpts from If He Hollers Let Him Go

History and Memory: For Akiko and Takashige (Rea Tajiri, 1991)

Takashi Fujitani, excerpts from Race for Empire 

Nora Okya Keller, excerpts from Comfort Women 

For reference:

I Was a Male War Bride (Howard Hawks, 1949)

The Sound of Music (Robert Wise, 1965)

Week 10

Freedom, Democracy, and Sexuality I

Keywords: Cold War, Masculinity and Sexuality 

Tennessee Williams, excerpts from A Street Car Named Desire 

Ray Bradbury, excerpts from Fahrenheit 451 

Allen Ginsberg, “Howl,” “A Supermarket in California” 

James Baldwin, excerpts from Notes of a Native Son

 Ocean Vuong, excerpts from Night Sky with Exit Wounds

Week 11

TV and Domesticity in the 1950s

Keywords: TV and the Family Ideal

Lynn Spiegel, excerpts from Make Room for TV

Susan Douglas, excerpts from Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media.

The Honeymooners (1955-56), selected episodes 

I Love Lucy (CBS, 1951–57), selected episodes

Week 12

Pacific Wars II (The Vietnam and Korean Wars)

Keywords: Exceptionalism, Militarism, and New Imperialism

Chang-rae Lee, excerpts from The Surrendered

Yến Lê Espiritu, “Militarized Refuge(es),” from Body Counts: The Vietnam War and Militarized Refugees.

Viet Thanh Nguyen, “On Victims and Voices,” from Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War.

For reference only:

Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer

Francis Ford Coppola, Apocalypse Now

M*A*S*H television series episodes

Week 13

20th-century Social Movements and Literatures

Keywords: Race and Ethnicity 

Ralph Ellison, excerpts from The Invisible Man

Toni Morrison, excerpts from Beloved 

Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, excerpts from Dictee

Week 14

Freedom, Democracy, and Sexuality II

Audre Lorde, excerpts from Zami: A New Spelling of My Name

Patricia Highsmith, excerpts from The Price of Salt

Carol (Todd Haynes, 2015)

Loving Highsmith (Eva Vitija, 2022)

Week 15

Rethinking the American Dream

Sandra Ciseros, excerpts from The House on Mango Street

Jamaica Kincaid, excerpts from Lucy

Sonia Nazario, excerpts from Enrique’s Journey

Week 16

Final Exam Week (No Class)

Week 17

Arranged Individual Meetings

Week 18

Arranged Individual Meetings

教科書/參考書:

Baldwin, James. Notes of a Native Son. Beacon Press, 2012.

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. Simon & Schuster, 2012.

Burgett, Bruce and Glenn Hendler.  Keywords for American Cultural Studies. New York: New York UP, 2007.

Cather, Willa. My Antonia. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1995.

Cha, Theresa Hak Kyung. Dictee. U of California P, 2001.

Chaplin, Charlie. Modern Times. United Artists, 1936.

Cheever, John. “The Swimmer.” The Stories of John Cheever, edited by Blake Bailey, Vintage Books, 2000, pp. 413-423.

Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. Vintage Books, 1991.

Coppola, Francis Ford, director. Apocalypse Now. Zoetrope Studios, 1979.

Douglas, Susan. Where the Girls are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media. New York: Random House, 1995.

Ellison, Ralph. The Invisible Man. Random House, 1995.

Espiritu, Yến Lê. “Militarized Refuge(es).” Body Counts: The Vietnam War and Militarized Refugees, U of California P, 2014, pp. 79-112.

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. Wordsworth, 2003.

Feinberg, Leslie. Stone Butch Blues. Firebrand Books, 1993.

Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. W.W. Norton & Company, 2001.

Fujitani, Takashi. Race for Empire: Koreans as Japanese and Japanese as Americans during World War II. U of California P, 2011.

Gelbart, Larry, Gene Reynolds, and Burt Metcalfe, producers. M*A*S*H. 20th Television, 1972-83.

Ginsberg, Allen. “Howl,” and “A Supermarket in California.” Collected Poems, 1947-1980. HarperPerennial, 1992, pp. 181-183.

Goldstein, Alyosha, ed. Formations of United States Colonialism. Durham and London: Duke UP, 2014.

Hawks, Howard, director. I Was a Male War Bride. 20th Century Fox, 1949.

Haynes, Todd, director. Carol. StudioCanal, and The Weinstein Company, 2015.

Heller, Joseph. Catch-22. Simon & Schuster, 2019.

Himes, Chester. If He Hollers Let Him Go. Allison & Busby, 2002.

Highsmith, Patricia. The Price of Salt. W.W. Norton & Company, 2004.

Hughes, Langston. Not Without Laughter. New York: Penguin Books, 2018.

—. The Big Sea. Vintage Books, 1990.

Jun, Helen Heran. Race for Citizenship: Black Orientalism and Asian Uplift from Pre-Emancipation to Neoliberal America. New York: New York UP, 2011.

Jung, Moon-Ho, Coolies and Cane: Race, Labor, and Sugar in the Age of Emancipation. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2006.

Keller, Nora Okja. Comfort Women. Penguin Books, 1998.

Kingston, Maxine Hong. China Men. New York: Vintage Books, 1989.

Kincaid, Jamaica. Lucy. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1990.

Larsen, Nella. Quicksand. Penguin Books, 2002.

Lee, Chang-rae. The Surrendered. Riverhead Books, 2010.

Lehman, Christopher P. The Colored Cartoon: Black Representation in American Animated Short Films, 1907-1954. Cambridge: U of Massachusetts, 2007.

Lee, Robert G. Orientals: Asian Americans in Popular Culture. Temple UP, 1999.

Lorde, Audre. Zami: A New Spelling of My Name. Crossing Press, 1982.

London, Jack. “The Yellow Peril.” In Revolution and Other Essays. Independently published, 2020.

McKay, Claude. “If We Must Die.” The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Valerie A. Smith, W. W. Norton, 2014, pp. 635-636.

Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. Viking Press, 1949.

Morrison, Toni. Beloved. Alfred A. Knopf, 1987.

Nazario, Sonia. Enrique’s Journey. Random House, 2007.

Nguyen, Viet Thanh. “On Victims and Voices.” Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War, Harvard UP, 2016, pp. 77-96.

—. The Sympathizer. Grove Press, 2016.

Okada, John. No-No Boy. U of Washington P, 2014.

Oppenheimer, Jess, producer. I Love Lucy. CBS, 1951-57.

Reddy, Chandan. A Freedom with Violence: Race, Sexuality, and the US State. Durham: Duke UP, 2011.

Robinson, Cedric. On Racial Capitalism, Black Internationalism, and Cultures of Resistance. London: Pluto Press, 2019.

Satenstein, Frank, director. The Honeymooers. CBS, 1955-56.

Sirk, Douglas, director. All That Heaven Allows. Universal Pictures, 1955.

Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. 1939. New York: Penguin, 2002.

Spigel, Lynn. Make Room for TV: Television and the Family Ideal in Postwar America. Chicago: U of Chicago, 1992.

Tajiri, Rea. History and Memory: For Akiko and Takashige. Women Make Movies, 1991.

Vitija, Eva, director. Loving Highsmith. Ensemble Film GmbH, 2022.

Vuong, Ocean. Night Sky with Exit Wounds. Copper Canyon Press, 2016.

Williams, Tennessee. A Streetcar Named Desire. New Directions, 2004.

Wise, Robert. The Sound of Music. Twentieth Century Fox, 1965.

Yates, Richard. Revolutionary Road. Vintage Books, 2008.

Yun, Lisa. The Coolie Speaks: Chinese Indentured Laborers and African Slaves in Cuba. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 2008.

授課方式: ■講授 ■研討(分組討論) □實習/實驗 □個別指導 □其他                 

評量配分比重:

1.     Weekly attendance and participation: 10%

2.     Bi-weekly group journals: 20%

3.     One group presentation and leading group discussion: 10%

4.     Group evaluation: 10%

5.     One midterm paper (group): 20%

6.     One final paper: 30%

 

課程所屬學制: ■學士班  □碩士班  □博士班  □碩博同修

課程領域:□語言訓練  □語言學與英語教學 ■文學  ■文化研究

跨系課程領域:(不需填寫)

 

     

本課程培養學生具備核心能力之強度指數:

強度指數

 

系所核心能力

1

非常低

2

3

普通

4

5

非常高

評量方式

英文閱讀解析與寫作論述
English critical reading and analytical writing

 

 

 

 

V

□紙筆測驗/會考(Test/Exam)

□作業練習(Assignments)

□口頭報告/口試(Presentation/Oral Exam)

□專題研究報告(書面)(Research Report(printed on paper))

□實作/實驗(Practices/Experiments)

□出席/課堂表現(Attendance/Performance)

□學習檔案評量(Portfolios Assessment)

□自我評量/同儕互評(Self Assessment/ Peer Assessment)

□作品/創作展演(Products/Creative Performance)
□其他(Others)
□無(No assessment)

英語溝通與文化跨越
English oral communication and cultural crossing

 

 

 

V

 

□紙筆測驗/會考(Test/Exam)

□作業練習(Assignments)

□口頭報告/口試(Presentation/Oral Exam)

□專題研究報告(書面)(Research Report(printed on paper))

□實作/實驗(Practices/Experiments)

□出席/課堂表現(Attendance/Performance)

□學習檔案評量(Portfolios Assessment)

□自我評量/同儕互評(Self Assessment/ Peer Assessment)

□作品/創作展演(Products/Creative Performance)
□其他(Others)
□無(No assessment)

審美欣賞與多元創意
aesthetic appreciation and creative diversity

 

 

 

 

V

□紙筆測驗/會考(Test/Exam)

□作業練習(Assignments)

□口頭報告/口試(Presentation/Oral Exam)

□專題研究報告(書面)(Research Report(printed on paper))

□實作/實驗(Practices/Experiments)

□出席/課堂表現(Attendance/Performance)

□學習檔案評量(Portfolios Assessment)

□自我評量/同儕互評(Self Assessment/ Peer Assessment)

□作品/創作展演(Products/Creative Performance)
□其他(Others)
□無(No assessment)

人文思維與社會關懷
humanities visions and social intervention

 

 

 

 

V

□紙筆測驗/會考(Test/Exam)

□作業練習(Assignments)

□口頭報告/口試(Presentation/Oral Exam)

□專題研究報告(書面)(Research Report(printed on paper))

□實作/實驗(Practices/Experiments)

□出席/課堂表現(Attendance/Performance)

□學習檔案評量(Portfolios Assessment)

□自我評量/同儕互評(Self Assessment/ Peer Assessment)

□作品/創作展演(Products/Creative Performance)

□其他(Others)
□無(No assessment)

組織能力與人際合作
organizational ability and team work

 

 

 

V

 

□紙筆測驗/會考(Test/Exam)

□作業練習(Assignments)

□口頭報告/口試(Presentation/Oral Exam)

□專題研究報告(書面)(Research Report(printed on paper))

□實作/實驗(Practices/Experiments)

□出席/課堂表現(Attendance/Performance)

□學習檔案評量(Portfolios Assessment)

□自我評量/同儕互評(Self Assessment/ Peer Assessment)

□作品/創作展演(Products/Creative Performance)

□其他(Others)
□無(No assessment)