AMS

This course is an introduction to American Studies and surveys the movement's history an

Subject

AMS

Type

course

Edition

2025-2026

Source

elon.smartcatalogiq.com

• Acquire a significant knowledge and understanding of the gangster trope in our culture • Practice the academic discipline called American Studies • Recognize how diversity, cultural tropes and stereotypes are formed and intersect • Think critically about narrative modes and representation • Understand the role of popular culture in a modern society and the relationship between high and popular culture • Learn and practice the "close reading of a text" methodology Powered by SmartCatalog IQ erywhere because he (the gender is not an option) evolves and changes with the times. In other words, the gangster's presence is essential to understanding some fundamental aspects of our modern life such as material culture (clothes, fashion); technology (fire weapons, automobiles); and the so-called culture industry. Indeed, the century long continuing succ point of our investigation, especially because they tell us two fundamental things about the gangster trope. Firstly, the gangster represents certain aspects of the historical evolution of our civilization . More to the point, the gangster represents one of the cultural ciphers of the historical switch from an agrarian economy to an industrial and financial o ess of the gangster indicates how pervasive this identification is in the American psyche. Why is that and how did it all happen? ne during the 20 th and the 21 st centuries. As such, the gangster embodies pretty much all the questions that such an epochal transition entails. To name a few: changes in modes of productions; new social relations, including sexual, gender, and racial relations; modification in the structure of the society’s class division. Secondly, the gangster epitomizes the end of the 19 th century’s rupture that changed once and for all our modern life. The gangster represents the historical switch to urbanization and everything that came with it, including aspects of modern life such as immigration, the new ethnic composition of the American working-class, and the changes in the psychological dimension of the modern life.

Subject

AMS

Type

course

Edition

2025-2026

Source

elon.smartcatalogiq.com

Few cultural figures, if any, succeed in unveiling the interplay of modernity and America in the 20 th century as well as the gangster does. The two match up so well and so often that the gangster has become coterminous of our culture. The gangster is everywhere: movies, literature, newspapers’ stories, TV shows, memoirs and popular music. The gangster is ev One way to start figuring out some answers is to look back to classic historical and mythic figures such as Robin Hood, European “brigands,” as well as 19 th century American outlaws (Jesse James and Billy the Kid come to mind). All of these figures are, in different but interlocked fashions, antecedents of the gangster. Therefore, they will be the starting We will confront most, if not all of the above by posing the cultural artifacts under investigation in their historical context in the interdisciplinary perspective that characterizes American Studies.

Subject

AMS

Type

course

Edition

2025-2026

Source

elon.smartcatalogiq.com

If there is something we learned since the Covid-19 pandemic in the U.S. is that people need sports. For a large segment of the population that crosses all sorts of identities, sports are important, even vital. Why is that the case? And what does that tell us about the U.S. society? Perhap This course counts as an elective for the American Studies (AMS) minor.

Subject

AMS

Type

course

Edition

2025-2026

Source

elon.smartcatalogiq.com