Instructor

Jeffrey Tripp

Course Description

This course examines formations of “America” in a global context, beginning with its emergence as a European colonial outpost imposed on indigenous peoples, to its emergence as an imperial and military power in the modern era. We will survey major world-historical events in which the U.S. has played key roles as well as consider the significant impacts that other world cultures have had on the American social, political, cultural and economic fabric (and vice versa). Central to the organization of this course is a consideration of race, class and gender as crucial axes for the formation of “America” and Americans.

Required Text(s)

• David Stannard: American Holocaust
• Zora Neale Hurston: Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo”
• Art Spiegelman: Maus, Volumes 1 and 2

Instructor

Brian Dawson

Course Description

Institutions & Movements utilizes multiple fields of study that include History, Indigenous/Native Studies, and Black/African American Studies. We encourage students to critically investigate and interrogate the development, mobilization, and history of “America,” Race and Racism in the United States, and Racist Power. Students explore key terms and definitions for BIOLOGY, ETHNICITY, BODY, CULTURE, BEHAVIOR, COLOR, WHITE, BLACK, INDIGENOUS, CLASS, SPACE, GENDER, SEXUALITY, MILITARISM, CAPITALISM, and SETTLER COLONIALISM. Through these key terms, students expand their comprehension of the historical to contextualize the present and interrogate institutional power and the collective resistance to that power.

Required Text(s)

• Arvin, Maile. Possessing Polynesians: The Science of Settler Colonial Whiteness in Hawaiʻi and Oceania. Duke University Press, 2019.
• Kendi, Ibram X. How To Be An Antiracist. One World, 2019.
• Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta. From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation. Haymarket Books, 2016.
• **All books are available at Revolution Books: 2626 King St #201, Honolulu, 96826
• **Additional readings will be posted on the course website

Instructor

Yilan Hu

Course Description

If contemplation of any aspect of America must include a consideration of culture, so too must any study of American culture include a discussion of the arts.  Surveying a variety of cultures practiced by people (s) (with) in America, this course investigates just what may be talking about when we use such words as “America,” “culture,” or “art,” and how our ideas about these words have developed.

Largely focusing on the ways in which power, beauty and belonging have been constructed, contemplated and asserted through the arts, we will conclude the semester by asking the question of whether we might analyze and shape our own lives — as people living (with) in America — as we might a piece of art?

Required Text(s)

The following may be purchased at the UH Bookstore.

• Alexie, Sherman. Reservation Blues. New York: Grove Press, 2005.
• Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. New York: Vintage International Press, 2007 ed (any older edition acceptable).
• Yamashiro, Aiko and Noelani Goodyear-Ka‘ōpua, eds. The Value of Hawai‘i 2: Ancestral Roots, Oceanic Visions. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2014.

Instructors

Eun Bin Suk

Course Description

Power, Rights, and Space in Modern and Postmodern America

French philosopher and Nobel laureate Albert Camus is credited with saying the apt phrase, “The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” We live in a world made up of spaces, but very few of those spaces go unpoliced.  Someone, somewhere, seems to always be rather attentive to what we do and don’t do in the spaces that make up our lives.  But why?  And who put them in charge? 

Investigating space means trying to understand how to exist in a world constantly beset by powerful people trying to control who we are and what we do.  This course explores the connections between that power and the rights we are supposed to have in the spaces that make up our lives.  To that end, we will begin with physical spaces, investigating the American educational system and the imperial and carceral states that have been built around us.  We will engage powerful and central texts concerning education, pedagogy, empire, and prisons while addressing both real and theoretical concerns.  But space isn’t always physical and neither are the systems of control and power that operate within them.  This course also turns toward investigating the institutions of memory, the body, identity, and epistemology to understand that even what we know and how we know it is also intimately wrapped up in systems of power and control.

Even as we analyze the important issues of addressing injustice and inequity across the sites of schools, prisons, courthouses, streets, or our own bodies, and tackling such topics as prison reform, immigration, disabilities, colonial occupation, criminal justice, public education, and more, the contemporary moment asks for more: it asks for solutions.  And while this course closes with a unit on the future as the final contemporary issue of the semester, the entire course will be structured around providing the students with the tools needed to engage in critical thinking and evalution, which are some of the best remedies for societal maladies of the worst variety.

AMST 211 is for anybody who has ever wondered about the world they live in, but is also, and perhaps more importanly, for anybody who has not.

[NOTE:  All interested students should attend the first day of the class.  Any questions or doubts about the course or its content will likely be addressed then.]

Required Text(s)

All readings will be provided to individuals via Slack, a mobile and desktop app available online and through the App Store and Google Play Store.  Two books, Writing Tools and The Death of Truth, will be available for purchase at the bookstore for those who might want or need to secure hard copies for those readings.

Instructor

Spencer Oshita

Course Description

This course centers a place-based and feminist praxis to interrogate contemporary American global issues. Specifically, it uses the lens of Hawaiʻi to explore the gendered influence of American foreign policies and empire in the Pacific and across the globe. In this course, we will read anti-colonial literature from Indigenous women and women of color on American militarism, environmental justice, decolonization, inter/nationalism, tourism and Indigenous sovereignty to track the contours of America’s far reaching influence on Indigenous lands. In doing so, this course is designed to critically examine contemporary American geographies through gendered narratives of resistance, decolonization, and Indigenous resurgence in Hawai’i.

Course Requirements

Weekly reading responses
Zine + Essay
Final 

Required Text(s)

(select chapters will be scanned and available online on our Google Classroom)

• From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawaiʻi, Haunani Kay Trask
• Na Wāhine Koa: Hawaiian Women for Sovereignty and Demilitarization, Edited by Noelani Goodyear Kaʻōpua, Moanikeʻala Akaka, Maxine Kahaulelio, Terrilee Kekoʻolani-Raymond,and Loretta Ritte
• Value of Hawaiʻi 2: Ancestral Roots and Oceanic Visions, Edited by. AikoYamashiro and Noelani Goodyear-Kaʻōpua
• Women, Race and Class, Angela Davis
• Octaviaʻs Brood , Adrienne Maree Brown

Note: This class will be held online through synchronous and asynchronous classes.
*Monday will be held on Zoom at our scheduled time.
*Wednesday/Friday students will watch pre-recorded lectures and writing reading responses in our online Google classroom.

Instructor

Karen Kosasa

Course Description

This course will analyze examples from the visual and performing arts, including murals, digital art, film, poetry, and music, paying particular attention to the connections and influence upon social and political movements, both historically and today. A-F only

Required Text(s)

• TBA

Instructor

Dennis M. Ogawa

Course Description

Japanese American life in Hawaii and American society at large. Historical and cultural heritage. Biographical portraits, changing family ties, ethnic lifestyle, male and female relations, local identity and the nature of island living.

Course Requirements

1. Oral Communication Assignments: 46%
2. Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii Paper: 8%
3. Quizzes: 6%
4. Two Tests: 20%
5. Final Examination: 20%

Required Text(s)

• Ogawa, Dennis.  Jan Ken Po
• Ogawa, Dennis.  Kodomo No Tame Ni
• Various handouts (online)

Instructor

Kyle Kajihiro

Course Description

History of selected Asian immigrant groups from the 19th century to the present. Topics include: immigration and labor history, Asian American movements, literature and cultural productions, community adaptations and identity formation. Pre: junior standing or higher. (Cross-listed as ES 318)

Required Text(s)

• Author: Lee, Shelley Sang-Hee
• Title: A New History of Asian America
• Binding / ISBN:
  • 978–0–415–87954–5 (pbk) 
  • 978–0–203–44107–7 (ebk)

Instructor

Dennis Ogawa

Course Description

Examines WWII as a watershed in American and Hawaiʻi history and outlook from a humanities perspective.  Topics include: Pearl Harbor, American concentration camps and the question of war and peace.

Required Text(s)

Handouts to be posted on Laulima

Instructor

William Temple

Course Description

Examination of design in American culture over the last century. Readings in industrial, graphic, interior, architectural, landscape, and user interface design used to study issues of gender, race, and class in the U.S. Open to all class standings. A-F only. (Alt. years)

Required Text(s)

TBA

Instructor

Sarah Smorol

Course Description

Study of the role of the arts in American society and diverse cultural practices in historical and contemporary contexts.

Required Text(s)

TBA

Instructor

Joy Enomoto

Course Description

Examines indigenous practices born of and located in Indigenous places.  Analyzes how indigenous knowledge of place informs Indigeous culture, linguistic, intellectual, and political survivance and sovereignty, and resistance. 

Required Text(s)

TBA

Instructor

Jonna Eagle

Course Description

Introductory history of American cinema from the silent to the digital era, with an emphasis on criticism, genre and style, as well as cultural and sociopolitical context.

Required Text(s)

TBA

Instructor

Suzanna Reiss

Course Description

Examines the interplay between an “American culture of empire” and the rise of the U.S. as a superpower. Topics: imperialism and political culture, social movements and international affairs, race, gender and class relations. (Cross-listed as HIST 379)

Required Text(s)

TBA

Instructor

Brandy McDougall

Course Description

Materials and methods for the study of American life and thought. AMST majors only.

Required Text(s)

TBA

Instructor

Yuka Polovina

Course Description

A multidisciplinary examination of the dynamics of the Hawaiian Islands’ racial and cultural diversity from the perspectives of historical trends, social processes, and contemporary political, social, and economic issues as they impact interracial relations.

Required Text(s)

• Asian Settler Colonialism: From Local Governance to the Habits of Everyday Life in Hawaii (edited by Candace Fujikane and Jonathan Y. Okamura); ISBN-13: 9780824833008; Published: August 2008
• Haoles in Hawaii (by Judy Rohrer); ISBN-13: 9780824834050; Published: July 2010
• Honor Killing: Race, Rape, and Clarence Darrow’s Spectacular Last Case (By David E. Stannard); May 02, 2006 | ISBN 9780143036630

Instructor

James Kraft

Course Description

Conditions of labor major phases of American development; response of labor and community to changing work environment.  Capitalism, unionism, race, gender, law, etc. Emphasis on 20th century.

Course Requirements

TBA

Instructor

Marcus Daniel

Course Description

Examines the history of slavery, race, and abolition in the Americas from a comparative, global perspective, and traces the legacy of slavery in the post-emancipation societies of the New World.

Course Requirements

TBA

Instructor

Elizabeth Colwill

Course Description

Histories of colonialism, neocolonialism, and cultures of resistance in literature, film, and arts of the Caribbean and American diaspora. Role of arts in political dissent; historical memory; nation building; construction of race, class, gender. Junior standing or higher. A-F only.

Required Text(s)

TBA

Instructor

Ava Ladner

Course Description

Focus on various aspects of Trans* identities, biographies, cultural productions, and communities. It also addresses issues on racism, medical intervention, dating, societal condemnation, mental health, and incarceration. Junior standing or higher.

Required Text(s)

TBA

Instructor

Robert Perkinson

Course Description

Examination of mass mobilization in U.S. history from the Revolution forward, including abolitionism, feminism, civil rights, labor, and more. Concludes with analysis of various community organizing efforts today.

Required Text(s)

TBA

Instructor

Claudia Pummer

Course Description

An exploration of the critique of racial ideologies in American film. The course also examines how aggrieved communities develop cultural sensibilities, aesthetic choices and politicized identities through film, video and media work.

Required Text(s)

TBA

Instructor

Karen Kosasa

Course Description

This course focuses on the interpretive practices of museums and related institutions in the continental U.S., Hawai‘i, and other parts of the world. Museum exhibitions can become sites of public controversies and battles over the “politics of representation.” Individual viewers or whole communities may feel that a particular display undermines “traditional family values” or inappropriately challenges long-held beliefs about a nation’s history. Others may feel that a curator’s interpretive framework inadvertently denigrates a minority community or overlooks the importance of ethnic, racial, class, gender, or sexual differences. Thus, museum professionals must carefully consider and examine the ethical dimensions of their institutional practices. Through readings on a wide range of related subjects, brief lectures, discussions, field trips, and writing assignments, the class will engage with theoretical, historical, ethical, and practical issues. Students will develop skills to analyze interpretive programs as well as practice writing labels and developing didactic materials for visitors. The course is structured to weave back and forth between the study of three distinct but related activities: 1) the interpretation or representation of objects and phenomena by museum professionals, 2) the reception of the interpretative materials by museum visitors, and 3) the ethical implications of the interpretive materials produced by museums. Museums are dependent on staff members who combine strong conceptual, analytical, research, and writing skills, along with creative problem-solving abilities and a knowledge of the contemporary ethical issues facing the profession. Multiple opportunities to develop these skills and abilities will be available throughout the semester. Students who take this course may be inspired to work within museums in the future as professionals or volunteers; to develop projects as artists; or to participate in programs as informed visitors and patrons.

Course Requirements

• In-class: Learning Log Entries
• Three 1-2 page: Interpretive Exhibition Texts
• Four 2 page papers: Response Papers, Interpretive Exhibition Critiques
• One 3 page Critical Paper (plus rewrite of this paper)
• One 1 page Peer Review of critical paper
• One 1/2 page Final Project Proposal Final Project: Development of an exhibition proposal, narrative tour, research paper or related project. This project must be well researched and related to the class material. Students are expected to submit a written proposal to initiate the project and make an oral presentation

Required Text(s)

• Luke, Timothy. Museum Politics: Power Plays at the Exhibition. 
• Serrell, Beverly. Exhibit Labels: An Interpretive Approach. 
• Course Reader. (Instructions for purchasing the reader will be given in class.)

Instructor

Yuka Polovina

Course Description

Sports as reflected in literature, films, and TV.

Required Text(s)

Instructor

Jeffrey Tripp

Course Description

Capstone course for American studies students to undertake a major research-based project. AMST majors only. Pre: consent.

Course Requirements

TBA

Required Text(s)

TBA

Instructor

Robert Perkinson

Course Description

Introduction to different types of college-level writing and information literacy with a focus on American culture and society.

Course Requirements

• TBA

Required Text(s)

• TBA

Instructor

Jeffrey Tripp

Course Description

This course examines formations of “America” in a global context, beginning with its emergence as a European colonial outpost imposed on indigenous peoples, to its emergence as an imperial and military power in the modern era. We will survey major world-historical events in which the U.S. has played key roles as well as consider the significant impacts that other world cultures have had on the American social, political, cultural and economic fabric (and vice versa). Central to the organization of this course is a consideration of race, class and gender as crucial axes for the formation of “America” and Americans.

Required Text(s)

• Zora Neale Hurston: Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo”
• Spiegelman, Art.  Maus I: A Survivor’s Tale
• Spiegelman, Art.  Maus II: A Survivor’s Tale
• Stannard, David.  American Holocaust

Instructor

Brian Dawson

Course Description

Institutions & Movements utilizes multiple fields of study that include History, Indigenous/Native Studies, and Black/African American Studies. We encourage students to critically investigate and interrogate the development, mobilization, and history of “America,” Race and Racism in the United States, and Racist Power. Students explore key terms and definitions for BIOLOGY, ETHNICITY, BODY, CULTURE, BEHAVIOR, COLOR, WHITE, BLACK, INDIGENOUS, CLASS, SPACE, GENDER, SEXUALITY, MILITARISM, CAPITALISM, and SETTLER COLONIALISM. Through these key terms, students expand their comprehension of the historical to contextualize the present and interrogate institutional power and the collective resistance to that power.

Required Text(s)

• Arvin, Maile. Possessing Polynesians: The Science of Settler Colonial Whiteness in Hawaiʻi and Oceania. Duke University Press, 2019.
• Kendi, Ibram X. How To Be An Antiracist. One World, 2019.
• Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta. From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation. Haymarket Books, 2016.
• **All books are available at Revolution Books: 2626 King St #201, Honolulu, 96826
• **Additional readings will be posted on the course website

Instructor

Yilan Hu

Course Description

If contemplation of any aspect of America must include a consideration of culture, so too must any study of American culture include a discussion of the arts.  Surveying a variety of cultures practiced by people (s) (with) in America, this course investigates just what may be talking about when we use such words as “America,” “culture,” or “art,” and how our ideas about these words have developed.

Largely focusing on the ways in which power, beauty and belonging have been constructed, contemplated and asserted through the arts, we will conclude the semester by asking the question of whether we might analyze and shape our own lives — as people living (with) in America — as we might a piece of art?

Required Text(s)

The following may be purchased at the UH Bookstore.

• Alexie, Sherman. Reservation Blues. New York: Grove Press, 2005.
• Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. New York: Vintage International Press, 2007 ed (any older edition acceptable).
• Yamashiro, Aiko and Noelani Goodyear-Ka‘ōpua, eds. The Value of Hawai‘i 2: Ancestral Roots, Oceanic Visions. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2014

Instructors

Rachel Hong

Course Description

Interdisciplinary exploration of such current American domestic issues; topics such as politics, economics, civil rights, family life, the justice system, and the environment.

Course Description

• TBA

Required Text(s)

• TBA

Instructor

Spencer Oshita

Course Description

Instructor

Shirley Buchanan

Course Description

Instructor

Ruben Campos

Course Description

History of selected Asian immigrant groups from the 19th century to the present.  Topics include:  immigration and labor history.  Asian American movements, literature and cultural productions, community adaptations and identity formation. 

Course Requirements

• TBA

Required Text(s)

• TBA

Instructor

Kathleen Sands

Course Description

Analyzes selected historical examples of religious conflicts in America, discerning characteristic patterns of American religious discourse, and identifying the social structures, interests, and ethical principles of stake in conflicts about religions. 

Course Requirements

• TBA

Required Text(s)

• TBA

Instructor

William Temple

Course Description

Examination of design in American culture over the last century.  Readings in industiral, graphic, interior, architectural, landscape, and user interface design used to study issues of gender, race, and class in the U.S.

Course Requirements

• TBA

Required Text(s)

• TBA

Instructor

Jonna Eagle

Course Description

Introductory history of American cinema from the silent to the digital era, with an emphasis on criticism, genre and style, as well as cultural and sociopolitical context.

Course Requirements

• TBA

Required Text(s)

• TBA

Instructor

Joyce Mariano

Course Description

An introduction to the study of Filipino Americans in the U.S. and the diaspora. The course pays special attention to labor migration, cultural production and community politics. 

Course Requirements

• TBA

Required Text(s)

• TBA

Instructor

Brandy McDougall

Course Description

Interdisciplinary, comparative course examining native literary texts (novels, short fiction, poetry), films, etc. that address issues of representation and how native peoples actively resist colonial ideology. 

Course Requirements

• TBA

Required Text(s)

• TBA

Instructor

Jeffrey Tripp

Course Description

History of American architecture in terms of style, techniques, and symbolic meaning. 

Course Requirements

• TBA

Required Text(s)

• TBA

Instructor

Frank Zelko

Course Description

Survey history of the complex relations between American societies and diverse U.S. ecosystem, from European contact and colonization to the present.

Course Requirements

• TBA

Required Text(s)

• TBA

Instructor

Elizabeth Colwill

Course Description

The expansion of chattel slavery in the Americas in the 16th-19th centuries fueled the global
economy as it stripped millions of people of their homelands, families, and their very lives.
It also spawned enduring struggles for freedom, dignity, and sovereignty. This course
explores narratives of slavery and freedom that have shaped the modern world.

How do we unearth the entangled histories of Indigenous and African enslavement?

How did gender shape the meanings of slavery?
How has the history of slavery been remembered and suppressed?

What are the legacies of slavery today?

Course Requirements

• TBA

Required Text(s)

• Laurent Dubois & John Garrigus, Slave Revolution in the Caribbean
• Toni Morrison, Beloved
• Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
• Tiya Miles, Ties that Bind: The Story of an Afro-Cherokee Family in Slavery and Freedom

Instructor

Robert Perkinson

Course Description

Examination of mass mobilization in U.S. history from the Revolution forward, including abolitionism, feminism, civil rights, labor, and more. Concludes with analysis of various community organizing efforts today.

Course Requirements

• TBA

Required Text(s)

• TBA

Instructor

Mari Yoshihara

Course Description

Comparison of American experiences in Japan, China, and Southeast Asia within historical and perceptual framework.

Course Requirements

• TBA

Required Text(s)

• TBA

Instructor

Kathleen Sands

Course Description

Examines religious and ethical conflicts about sexuality and gender nonconformity in contemporary America. Students gain knowledge, practical wisdom, and communication skills to negotiate moral disagreement in a pluralistic society. Pre: junior standing or consent.

Required Text(s)

• TBA

Course Requirements

• TBA
  

Instructor

Jonna Eagle

Course Description

Directed readings and research for majors. Pre: consent.Junior standing or consent.

Instructor

Jonna Eagle

Course Description

Required Text(s)

Instructor

Elizabeth Colwill

Course Description

Catastrophic in its human cost, foundational in its economic and political impact, the transatlantic slave trade plays a formative role in the histories, cultures, and consciousness of the Americas.  In the U.S., the violence of slavery figures centrally in post-emanicipation politics, from struggles over Jim Crow segregation and anti-miscegenation laws, to public debates about mass incarceration, Confederate monuments and “critical race theory.”  Recent scholarship has emphasized the intertwined histories of slavery and Indigenous dispossession, as well as the enslavement of Native peoples.  Slavery and its legacies remain highly disputed, their meanings produced and transformed not only at law and in the academy, but also in museums, through the arts, and on the streets. 

This interdisciplinary seminar explores how slavery has been remembered and how memory works.  How, we’ll ask, have scholars, artists, and activists struggled to frame a history of dispossession, racism, and trauma?  How have distinct genealogies of privilege and oppression inflected modes of narration?  What is the relationship between trauma, memory and history?  How have representations of slavery changed in response to shifting political tides?  How do modern media, the arts, and public practices of commenmoration shape memory and produce history. 

Course Requirements

• TBA

Required Text(s)

• Sophie White, Voices of the Enslaved: Love, Labor, and Longing in French Louisiana
• Sowande’ Mustakeem, Slavery at Sea: Terror, Sex, and Sickness in the Middle Passage
• Jennifer L. Morgan, Reckoning with Slavery: Gender, Kinship, and Capitalism in the Early
  Black Atlantic (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2021)
• Lisa Brooks, Our Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philipʻs War
• Brett Ruthforth, Bonds of Alliance: Indigenous and Atlantic Slaveries in New France
• Clifton Creis and Pamela Scully, Sara Baartman and the Hottentot Venus: A Ghost Story and
  Biography
• David W. Blight, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory
• Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello
• James C. Horton, Slavery and Public History: The Tough Stuff of American Memory
• Sarah Haley, No Mercy Here
• Marcus Rediker, The Amistad Rebellion
• Michel Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past
• Tiya Miles, The House on Diamond Hill: A Cherokee Plantation Story
• Dána-Ain Davis, Reproductive Injustice : Racism, Pregnancy, and Premature Birth
• Cristina Sharpe, In the Wake: On Blackness and Being

Instructor

Jonna Eagle

Course Description

AMST 650 is designed for Ph.D. students to reinforce and deepen content knowledge in the general field of  American Studies and in specialized subfields within American Studies.  By the time that Ph.D. students begin their dissertations, students are expected to have engaged at a sophisticated level with the major themes, problems, and interdisciplinary methods of the field of American Studies, and to have developed specializations in two subfields that will serve as their professional teaching and research fields.

AMST 650, offered each semester with variable content, aims to provide students with a defined pathway toward field mastery, and thus to facilitate progress to degree.  To prepare for the qualifying examination, students read 40-50 texts in their major field, and in each of two subfields under the supervision of a faculty member.  Each of the three fields requires intensive preparation.  By consequence, advanced Ph.D. students will be permitted to register for this course, with different content, up to three times (up to 9 credits)–each with a separate field adviser.

AMST 650 involves substantial intellectual content and regular meetings with a faculty member, receives a letter grade, and counts toward the 45-credits required for the Ph.D. It requires the approval and signature of the supervising instructor and the graduate chair prior to receipt of the CRN.

To register

• Obtain the 650 Form and the Ph.D Qualifying Exam Fields Approval Form from the graduate coordinator or the AMST website;
• Obtain the consent of professor who will supervise the field, in person or via email;
• Consult with the supervising professor concerning the specific texts and writing assignments required for completion of AMST 650 in that field.
• Complete the forms, and obtain first the professor’s, and then the graduate chair’s signatures;
• Give the forms to the graduate coordinator, who will provide the CRN needed to register for one or more 650s.

Instructor

TBA

Course Description

The course serves as a basic introduction to the field of historic preservation.  Students will be introduced to the language of the field, will come to understand key concepts and assumptions and will become familiar with the overall background of the subject.  Emphasis will be placed on the history of historic preservation in the U.S. and in other countries, on basic theoretical precepts and on current practice. Subjects include the role of house museums in historic preservation, historic districts and their regulation, architectural and other resource surveys, the National Register program, historic preservation law, the relationship of preservation to planning, the economics of preservation and landscape and rural preservation. Historic preservation, as students will come to realize, is a many-faceted subject, touching upon art, social values, economics and law.  However, the discipline remains strongly tied to architecture and planning; and these core interests will continue to take priority in the course.

Course Requirements

The course combines lectures and in-class discussions that build a knowledge base intended to support your completion of a Preservation Research Project.  Students will be expected to attend class sessions and participate in discussions and question periods. Weekly reading assignments will serve as a basis for classroom discussions; so students are expected to come to class prepared. Participation in classroom discussions will constitute a significant portion of your class grade.  This course also includes a Mid-Term Term Exam and a Research Project, which will serve as a Final Exam.  The Research Project may be a draft of a National Register nomination OR a 10-12 page Research Paper on a Preservation Site or Issue of your choice.  The grading will be based on the following:

1. Participation 30%
2. Mid-term Exam 30%
3. Research Project (with Preservation) 40%

Required Text(s)

1. William J. Murtagh, Keeping Time: The History and Theory of Preservation in America, Revised ed., New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1997. [original edition (Sterling Publishing/Main Street) may be used].

2. Robert E. Stipe, A Richer Heritage: Historic Preservation in the 21st Century, Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2003.

3. A Course Reader is also required and is available either for download or purchase at Marketing and Publications Services (MAPs), Curriculum Research & Development Group.  A copy will also be available for download on laulima.

Supplemental Texts (not required for purchase)

1. Robert E. Stipe and Antoinette J. Lee, The American Mosaic: Preserving a Nation’s Heritage, Washington, D.C.: US/ICOMOS, 1987.

2. National Park Service, U.S. Dept. of Interior, Respectful Rehabilitation, Washington, D.C., 1982 [now out of print, available in on-line edition through NPS, Heritage Programs]

Instructor

TBA

Course Description

The manifestations, visual characteristics, and social/cultural meaning of “style” in American architecture and decorative arts from the early settlement period through the present. 

Course Requirements

• TBA

Required Text(s)

• TBA

Instructor

Karen Kosasa

Course Description

This class is designed to introduce students to a range of theoretical, historical, and practical issues important to the study of museums and related places (art galleries, historic sites, aquariums, and parks). Museums are knowledge-producing institutions that orchestrate the experiences of visitors through the collection and organization of exhibition materials. Students will utilize theories and methodologies from a wide range of fields (museology, art history, anthropology, geography, cultural studies, literary criticism) to analyze the links between the function and practices of museums and the production of cultural knowledge, especially by privileged social groups. In the past, successful exhibits effaced all evidence of the pedagogical objectives and efforts of their makers. Hence, museums appeared to simply present and not interpret what they exhibited and their institutional authority allowed their interpretations to be accepted as “universal truths.”

In recent years, museums have undergone significant changes. Along with shifts in the study of collections, design of exhibitions, and educational programming, museums are rethinking their relationship and obligations to the communities represented in their collections. According to Eilean Hooper-Greenhill, museums are moving from being “sites of authority” to becoming “sites of mutuality.” Many are actively soliciting the views and needs of social groups previously ignored or considered unimportant. Some have actively or inadvertently challenged widely-held social practices and beliefs. In these instances, they have been at the frontlines of “culture wars,” becoming embattled sites over the role of public institutions, government funding, and diverse viewpoints. This course will examine these recent shifts and some of the theoretical and pragmatic issues that underlie them—the politics of representation, the importance of visual practices/culture, and legal and ethical problems concerning access to and ownership of cultural objects and collections.

In an early section students will briefly look at the history of museums in Western Europe, especially the emergence of large exhibition halls in the nineteenth century which offered new state-sanctioned forms of entertainment and education to lower- and middle-class visitors. In another section it will review issues pertinent to museums and colonial history in Hawai‘i, and efforts to consider the “Host Culture” and Native Hawaiian views on museums, collections, and the growth of cultural tourism. Finally, students will consider pragmatic issues concerning museum governance, management, planning, ethics, and public policy. While this class will focus most of its attention on museums in Western Europe and the United States, it will also examine institutions and cultural centers in other geographic locations.

Instructor

Karen Kosasa

Course Description

Work of museums and professionals (registrars, collections managers, conservators, curators ad others) in the care of collections, interpretive studies of museum displays and collections and field trips.  Pre: 683 (or concurrent) or consent.

Instructor

Karen Kosasa

Course Description

This course is designed as the final requirement for the Graduate Certificate in Museum Studies. It is generally taken as the last course in the sequence of required courses for the certificate, although students may be enrolled simultaneously in the Practicum/Internship and other courses in the program. This course is restricted to “majors” in the Museums Studies Graduate Certificate Program.

The Practicum/Internship is intended to advance the student’s knowledge of the field of museum work and to provide an opportunity to research areas of special interest. Since the course is meant to be of a practical character, students are encouraged to take advantage of work-related opportunities in museums and related places (art galleries, historic sites, parks, zoos, aquariums, festivals, etc.). Students should consider new areas of exploration, or build on and consolidate projects in which they have had prior involvement. The Practicum/Internship may include research reports for non-profit organizations, research projects for museum exhibits or collections, or other similar activities.

Instructor

jeffrey Tripp

Course Description

The Practicum/Internship is the final requirement for the Certificate in Historic Preservation. It is restricted to “majors” in the Historic Preservation Program and is generally taken as the last course in the sequence of required courses for the certificate, although students may be enrolled simultaneously for the Practicum/Internship and other courses in the program. Students not enrolled in the program may take the Practicum/Internship as part of their other studies, with the permission of the Director, although this is not encouraged.

To enroll in AmSt 695, you must submit a practicum/internship topic and proposal to the Director for approval. Upon receipt of approval, the student will be given a special approval code for registration.

The Practicum/Internship is intended to advance the student’s knowledge of the field and to research areas of special interest. Since the project is meant to be of a practical character, students are encouraged especially to take advantage of work-related opportunities in the field. Past Practica/Internships, for example, have included research reports carried out for Cultural Resource Management firms, studies conducted for non-profit organizations, research and exhibits undertaken for museums, and results of ongoing advocacy projects. Students should view the Practicum/Internship as an opportunity to explore areas they have never had an opportunity to consider, and to build on and consolidate projects in which they have had prior involvement.

Course Requirements

• The practicum should seek to apply general preservation theory to the student’s specific discipline.
• Internships must be taken with an organizational entity such as a public or private agency or an architectural or planning firm which is involved in some aspect of preservation.
• Selection of internship program and affiliated organization or agency must be approved by the director.

• Internship activities shall involve exploration and application of knowledge gained in course work of the Historic Preservation Certificate Program.

• Students are expected to devote between 8-10 hours per week to the internship plus a biweekly meeting with the faculty member in charge, alternating with a biweekly meeting with the contact of the sponsoring entity.

• The individual shall record the process undertaken.

• At the completion of the internship, the student shall submit a copy of the internship report or project to complete the practicum to the Director.

• The practicum may be taken at any time after the completion of American Studies 675 (628/421/410). It may be undertaken during the academic year or during summer.

American Studies 699V is a directed reading/directed research course. Such courses are not intended as routine alternatives to regular course offerings but rather as opportunities to explore themes and topics that are not covered in any available course within the American Studies Department or other departments within the University.

A directed reading/research 699 will be counted as a course towards an American Studies degree only if it carries 3 credits.

Students must first discuss with the graduate chairperson what is to be studied and with whom as well as justify why a 699 is the only feasible alternative.

Master and doctoral students are limited to three (3) credits to count towards their degree.

To enroll in a 699, you must obtain the consent of a particular professor with an expertise on the topic you wish to pursue. This professor may be in American Studies or in any department. Within a week after registration, you must submit to the department office a one-page account of the work to be done. This account must contain the following:

• The theme or topic to be explored
• The nature of the work to be done
• Grade Options (letter grade or CR/NC)
• Justification as to why 699 is the only feasible alternative
• The list of books to be read (if a directed reading course)
• The number of credits to be awarded
• The basis upon which the credits are to be awarded–a paper, exam, etc.
• Include information on the frequency of student/professor meetings.

This one-page account must be signed by you, the professor, and the graduate chair and submitted to the American Studies Department Office (Moore 324). Without it, you will lose the right to have your directed work count towards your degree. Procedure for Registration: You may obtain appropriate forms/approvals from the American Studies Department office (Moore 324) or download these forms.

Directed Reading Consent Form
Directed Reading Approval Form

Before registering for a Thesis 700 (for Plan A students only), the student must have completed and obtained an approved thesis committee approved/thesis topic/proposal progress form from Graduate Division.

If the above have not been submitted and approved by Graduate Division, the CRN for AmSt 700 WILL NOT BE ISSUED. Please see graduate chair (in Moore 324) one month prior to registration to process the necessary forms.

NOTE

Master’s Plan A students MUST register in 700 in the semester they plan to graduate.

Before a doctoral student can register for a Dissertation 800 course, the student must have achieved the following:

• Passed the written and oral qualifying examination
• Received approval of doctoral committee/dissertation topic/proposal
• Passed the oral comprehensive examination

The CRN for AmSt 800 WILL NOT BE ISSUED unless all the above have been completed.

NOTE

Doctoral students MUST register in 800 in the semester they plan to graduate.