USC
University of Southern California
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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 requirementsUnits
AMST 200Introduction to American Studies and Ethnicity4
AMST 350Junior Seminar in American Studies and Ethnicity: Theories and Methods4

Upper division elective coursesUnits
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 requirementsUnits
Choose one course (4 units)
AMST 206The Politics and Culture of the 1960s4
AMST 285African American Popular Culture4

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

Critical Approaches to Popular Culture: choose one (4 units)
AMST 301America, the Frontier, and the New West4
COLT 365Literature and Popular Culture4
COMM 384Interpreting Popular Culture4
ENGL 392Visual and Popular Culture4
HIST 380American Popular Culture4

Gender and Ethnicity in American Popular Culture: choose one (4 units)

AMST 357Latino Social Movements4
AMST 365Leadership in the Community — Internship4
AMST 385African American Culture and Society4
AMST 395African American Humor and Culture4
AMST 448Chicano and Latino Literature4
AMST 449Asian American Literature4
ENGL 476Images of Women in Contemporary Culture4

Popular Culture in the Arts: choose one (4 units)
AHIS 363Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Contemporary Art4
AHIS 370Modern Art III: 1940 to the Present4
CTCS 392History of the American Film, 1925-504
CTCS 393History of the American Film, 1946-754
CTCS 394History of the American Film, 1977-Present4
ENGL 375Science Fiction4
ENGL 471Literary Genres and Film4
ENGL 481Narrative Forms in Literature and Film4
HIST 481Producing Film Histories4
MUJZ 419The Jazz Experience: Myths and Culture4
MUSC 400The Broadway Musical: Reflection of American Diversity, Issues and Experiences4
MUSC 422The Beatles: Their Music and Their Times4
MUSC 450The Music of Black Americans4
PAS 400Contemporary Public Art4

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 requirementsUnits
AMST 202Interethnic Diversity in the West4
JS 300American Jewish History4

Three courses from the following:
AMST 301America, the Frontier, and the New West4
AMST 350Junior Seminar in American Studies and Ethnicity: Theories and Methods4
JS 330Jewish Power, Powerlessness, and Politics in the Modern Era4
JS 381The Jew in American Society4
JS 382Judaism as an American Religion4
JS 383Jews in American Popular Culture4
JS 415The American Jewish Experience in Film4
JS 428Blacks and Jews: Conflicts and Alliances4

Minor in Critical Approaches to Leadership

See the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies.

Minor in Race, Ethnicity and Politics

See the Department of Political Science.