Catalogue 2008-09

• USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
• American Studies and Ethnicity
  • Undergraduate Degrees
    • American Studies and Ethnicity
    • African American Studies
    • Asian American Studies
    • Chicano/Latino Studies
    • American Studies and Ethnicity Minor
    • Minor in American Popular Culture
    • Minor in Jewish American Studies
  • Graduate Degrees
  • Courses of Instruction

Undergraduate Degrees

American Studies and Ethnicity Minor

Course Requirements

For the minor in American Studies and Ethnicity, five courses in American Studies and Ethnicity, or courses certified for American Studies and Ethnicity credit, are required. The five courses must be distributed as follows: two core requirement courses and three additional elective courses chosen from the courses certified in American Studies and Ethnicity at the 300 level or above.

Core requirements		Units
AMST 200	Introduction to American Studies and Ethnicity	4
AMST 350	Junior Seminar in American Studies and Ethnicity: Theories and Methods	4

Upper division elective courses		Units
Three courses from the American Studies and Ethnicity major lists, at the 300 level or higher. No more than one course in the minor may be taken outside the college.

Minor in American Popular Culture

The interdisciplinary minor in American Popular Culture helps students to assess from a variety of perspectives the icons and ideas they encounter every day, to think critically about the images and assertions of the mass media and commercial culture, and to see the experience of popular culture as it interacts with questions of gender and ethnicity in the American context. Students choose five classes, including one upper-division elective, from a curriculum organized to explore: critical approaches to popular culture; gender and ethnicity in American popular culture; and popular culture in the arts. Twenty units are required, four at the lower-division and 16 at the upper-division level.

Lower division requirements		Units
Choose one course (4 units)
AMST 206	The Politics and Culture of the 1960s	4
AMST 285	African American Popular Culture	4

upper division requirements		Units
Choose four courses (16 units), at least one from each of the groups below.

Critical Approaches to Popular Culture: choose one (4 units)
AMST 301	America, the Frontier, and the New West	4
COLT 365	Literature and Popular Culture	4
COMM 384	Interpreting Popular Culture	4
ENGL 392	Visual and Popular Culture	4
HIST 380	American Popular Culture	4

Gender and Ethnicity in American Popular Culture: choose one (4 units)
AMST 357	Latino Social Movements	4
AMST 365	Leadership in the Community — Internship	4
AMST 385	African American Culture and Society	4
AMST 395	African American Humor and Culture	4
AMST 448	Chicano and Latino Literature	4
AMST 449	Asian American Literature	4
ENGL 476	Images of Women in Contemporary Culture	4

Popular Culture in the Arts: choose one (4 units)
AHIS 363	Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Contemporary Art	4
AHIS 370	Modern Art III: 1940 to the Present	4
CTCS 392	History of the American Film, 1925-50	4
CTCS 393	History of the American Film, 1946-75	4
CTCS 394	History of the American Film, 1977-Present	4
ENGL 375	Science Fiction	4
ENGL 471	Literary Genres and Film	4
ENGL 481	Narrative Forms in Literature and Film	4
HIST 481	Producing Film Histories	4
MUJZ 419	The Jazz Experience: Myths and Culture	4
MUSC 400	The Broadway Musical: Reflection of American Diversity, Issues and Experiences	4
MUSC 422	The Beatles: Their Music and Their Times	4
MUSC 450	The Music of Black Americans	4
PAS 400	Contemporary Public Art	4

Electives (4 units)

Choose one additional upper-division course from the lists above, in a department you have not already chosen for the minor.

Minor in Jewish American Studies

Jewish American Studies is a multidisciplinary program designed to provide students with a critical understanding of the historical, cultural, social, political and religious experience of Jewish Americans, with a particular emphasis on the development and culture of Jewish communities in California and the West as well as on both historical and contemporary effects of global issues on American Jewish communities. By drawing upon courses in American Studies and by emphasizing comparative as well as interdisciplinary study, this program offers training in the analytical tools and methods of interpretation appropriate for studying the American Jewish experience in its particularity and ethnic and cultural study in general. The program is particularly appropriate for students interested in integrating studies in the humanities and social sciences and for students preparing to work and interact with diverse communities and cultures in the United States and abroad in such fields as education, human services, business, journalism and public administration.

Successful completion of 20 units in American Studies and Judaic Studies are required to qualify for the minor.

core requirements		Units
AMST 202	Interethnic Diversity in the West	4
JS 300	American Jewish History	4

Three courses from the following:
AMST 301	America, the Frontier, and the New West	4
AMST 350	Junior Seminar in American Studies and Ethnicity: Theories and Methods	4
JS 330	Jewish Power, Powerlessness, and Politics in the Modern Era	4
JS 381	The Jew in American Society	4
JS 382	Judaism as an American Religion	4
JS 383	Jews in American Popular Culture	4
JS 415	The American Jewish Experience in Film	4
JS 428	Blacks and Jews: Conflicts>and Alliances	4

Minor in Critical Approaches to Leadership

See the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies.

Minor in Race, Ethnicity and Politics

See the Department of Political Science.

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