American culture and cultural change, with attention to the multicultural basis of American society and emphasis on the need for multiple methods of analysis. The course will consistently draw on the arts, material culture, and various fields affecting cultural production and meaning. Those areas include literature, film, history, architecture, history of art, religion, music, engineering, environmental studies, anthropology, politics, economics, law, and medicine. This course may include discussion sections depending on available funding. Some versions of this course need four in-class contact hours because of the extensive use of media.

The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle described the virtuous friend as “another self.” More than two-thousand years later, The Rembrandts sang of a good friend, “[it] seems you’re the only one who knows / What it’s like to be me.” (And so, they continued, “I’ll be there for you / ‘Cause you’re there for me too.”) This course suggests we take both of these reflections on friendship seriously and consider friendship as a means to approaching the study of American culture and history. Our interdisciplinary examination of friendship will explore both the lived experience of being a friend and the ways in which popular culture and the media have depicted friendship in the United States, past and present. We will consider, for example, the folklore and anthropology of friendship; the shifting line between friendship and romantic love; consumerism and friendship; ethnic, racial, and generational differences among friendship cultures; institutions rooted in friendship (such as fraternities and sororities); famous friendships on film and television; and how the meaning of friendship has changed over time. By focusing on friendship as a theory, a fantasy, an organization, an event, and a media construct, this course provides an introduction to and a “toolkit” for the interdisciplinary study of American culture.

Credit Restrictions

Students will receive no credit for American Studies 10 after completing American Studies 10AC. A deficient grade in American Studies 10 may be removed by taking American Studies 10AC.

Repeat Rules

Course is not repeatable for credit.

Requirements class fulfills