Introduction to Cultural Studies North America WS19/20

This course aims at providing an overview survey of the most important topics and themes pertinent to a Cultural Studies analysis of North American literature, cinema, television, and other areas of cultural production. As part of our course program, we will look at the historical development of the settler colonial states of the United States and Canada, their national and regional aspects and imaginaries, as well as historical events relevant for the processes of the formation of national identities and discourses in North America. By doing so, we will consider histories and cultures of diverse ethnic groups: First Peoples, African Americans, Hispano/a- Americans, Asian Americans. We will concern ourselves with issues of race, class, gender and sexuality, as well as with women’s history in North American societies. We will critically interrogate the myths and imaginaries that constitute “America” as a place of imagination, for, as Edward Ashbee puts it, “America is—to a greater extent than any other country—an idea.” Finally, we will take a look at the processes of globalization and Americanization that to a great degree shape contemporary economic and cultural realities worldwide.