CCS Course Offerings

American Culture Studies Topics Course: Violence Against Women of Color in the US

This course will discuss violence in its many forms--gendered violence, racialized violence, reproductive violence, police brutality, and misogyny—as it has been historically perpetuated across cultures and around the world. Using a feminist approach, we will also explore the effects of capitalism, postcolonialism, xenophobia, heteronormativity, androcentrism, patriarchy, intersectionality and exceptionalism on women of color as well as the LGBTQ community and those with disabilities.

American Culture Studies Topics Course: 20th Century Slasher Films

The horror genre remains one of the most popular film genres amongst audiences. Within that, the slasher film is one of the most recognizable and prolific subgenres. Though its popularity began to die out in the late twentieth century, from the release of Halloween in 1978 to Scream 3 in 2000, the American audience devoured the slasher film, with major franchises such as A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th dominating film screens. While many film critics and theorists have discounted the slasher subgenre as repetitious and devoid of meaning, the reality is that the slasher film is a reactionary subgenre that had much to say in regard to the time period in which it was most popular. In this course, we will look at many major slasher films released in the twentieth century by examining the timely themes and topics that they contained. In doing so, we will see how these slasher films were influenced by major happenings in the world, as well as how American culture (amongst others) was influenced by the films themselves.

Internet Communities

In this 6-week online course, we will take an interdisciplinary approach to the study of communities that exist primarily in virtual spaces. With a strong emphasis on theories and methods from folklore studies, we will explore the strengths and limitations of engaging in participant observation of digitally mediated communities; analyze various types of qualitative data to support ethnographic investigation; discuss the ethical considerations that arise in qualitative research online; and consider the evolution of Internet culture and norms over the past few decades. Through discussion board assignments and individual research projects, we will cover topics including but not limited to: communities that share videos, creative texts, and narratives; specific fan communities; online support groups; online (and app-facilitated) dating; occupational folk culture in online spaces; transactional communities such as Yelp, Uber, eBay, and Etsy; religious communities’ use of virtual spaces for worship and fellowship; and many other phenomena.