American Studies (AMST) -For a syllabus or more detailed course information, please contact the department at 610-758-4745.

Course Listings

  Course#   Course Title (Credit Hours)    CRN             Day/Time       Location   Session Instructor

Course Descriptions

372.  Special Topics in American Studies:  Focused interdisciplinary study of one particular subject area in American culture.

391. Senior Thesis or Project: Independent work with an individual faculty member on a research thesis or other project approved by faculty member and advisor.

392. Senior Thesis or Project: Continuation of AMST 391.

395. Zombies, Vampires and the End of the Human: Stories about zombies and vampires repeatedly represent the end of the human.  First, they typically feature in novels and films that imagine the end of the human race; second, they are often represented as marking the absence of all those things that make us “human”—transgressing the borders between the human and the non- human.  On the other hand, however, one could also argue that vampires and zombies embody the very essence of what it means to be human.  This course will explore the current cultural fascination with zombies and vampires as a means of working through precisely this question:  what does it mean to be human?  The course will include the following texts: Richard Matheson, I Am Legend (and the 2007 film); Cormac McCarthy, The Road; Max Brooks, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War; Stephenie Meyer, Twilight; Let the Right One In; Let Me In; George Romero’s zombie cycle; AMC’s The Walking Dead; and Greene and Mohammad, ed. Zombies, Vampires, and Philosophy. HU

401.  Special Topics in American Studies: Graduate seminar focused on one particular subject area in American Culture.