AMST 30241 - Homeland Security: Surveillance, Terror and Citizenship in America

Institution:

University of Notre Dame

Subject:

American Studies

Description:

This course explores the relationship between popular myths about the American experience and the actual experience of marginalized subjects in American society. It serves to make concrete a theoretical discussion of citizenship in the context of American Individualism and explores the relationships among social stratification, institutional coercion, and national narratives. As a long view of the last century, Homeland Security considers old forms of terror and surveillance evident in African American literature that anticipates and mimics the fear and anxiety in the nation after September 11. We will consider themes such as space, place, border, home, community, protection, and nationalism. The literature and critical essays under consideration straddle regional, class, gender, and social boundaries to facilitate our understanding of how African Americans within the nation create narratives of cultural fragmentation, exile, and alienation. In the process we will explore the condition of African American migration - like the early-twentieth-century movements to urban centers, and the early-twenty-first century migrations as a result of Katrina - and consider the way mobility may inform new landscapes of hope and displacement. Some of the texts we will read are Passing, The Street, Invisible Man, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, The Color Purple, and Eva's Man. These texts may be considered counter-narratives in the way that they stress exploitation, failure, disillusionment, and exile, but they intervene in formative debates about how to define a national identity and, to echo Langston Hughes, they too sing America. Course requirements: one oral presentation (15%); three 2-page response papers (10% each); one paper proposal; one 10-12 page essay (35%); class participation (20%).

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.nd.edu

Phone Number:

(574) 631-5000

Regional Accreditation:

North Central Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Semester

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