With the popularity of shows like Inventing Anna and The Dropout, 2022 might be called the year of the scammer. Yet contemporary con artists come from a long lineage of carnival barkers, snake oil salesmen, and self-proclaimed miracle workers. This class examines the conditions of American capitalism and political populism that gave way to a society of schemers and dupes. We will consider how exploitation and self-invention were ultimately bound up in issues of class, race, gender, and religion. How did swindlers create or subvert stereotypes in search of profits? Who were imagined as the most gullible targets for grifters? These narratives of deceit did not simply function as cautionary tales, but also... Read more about HL90FQ: Con Artist Nation
Midcentury America saw the explosion of a genre on the page and screen—the hardboiled crime novel and the film noir. Noir represented a foil to postwar optimism: its protagonists were cynics and loners. Filled with lurid crimes and deeds, noir suggested a dark underbelly to American society and its promises of domestic fulfillment, economic stability, and institutional support. Husbands and wives plotted each other’s murders; the city streets beckoned with sin; and the police were no match for the private detective. Yet even while these stories foregrounded alienation, they had a mass cultural appeal to American audiences. [Also offered Spring 2021]... Read more about HL90EK: American Noir
The 1980s saw the convergence of American politics and economics to strengthen US interests abroad, but the decade was also a moment of social, political, and economic divergence at home. How compatible—or causal—was the end of the cold war with the end of the American cultural consensus? Did such a consensus ever exist, or was it a mere illusion and nostalgia for a “simpler time”? (Also offered Fall 2017) ... Read more about HL90CX: Stop Making Sense: America in the 1980s
This tutorial examines the American individual as a product and producer of environment. We will contemplate whether America's "moral identity" is one that comes from the individual or society, looking at the ways in which individuals contemplate their relationship to authoritative structures from the family to the city to the nation state.... Read more about HL98: Constructing America's Moral Identity: Authority vs. the Individual
This course considers the culture of American capitalism through an examination of a broad range of literary and historical texts. As we explore the shifts in thinking about class, labor, business, and money from the early days of the republic through the present day, we will ask how a wide variety of cultural producers engage with and critique economic thought. (Also offered Fall 2015)
How do artists and creators engage the debates of the present moment? How do we as scholars and critics help make history? This small course takes these questions as its foundation: we will look at the culture, context, and criticism of 2016 as it unfolds. In this lab-style class, students will think critically about how to define and historicize the contemporary by engaging directly with its products.... Read more about HL91R: Contemporary Culture Lab
This junior tutorial considers the challenges and opportunities posed by communal affiliation in the 20th and 21st centuries. We will investigate how notions of physical space and government infrastructure shape and define lived experience and how ethnic and racial groups come together or drift apart. Our tutorial will also explore the politics of community in the new millennium, questioning its future.... Read more about HL98: Creating Communities: Identity Politics and Liberal Democracy in Urban America
What does privacy mean in America’s 20th century? Our course examines the conditions of privacy from both a literary and historical perspective, in order to understand how concerns about privacy have shaped American life in both the domestic and public spheres. Our readings—supplemented by contemporary social and political thought—will allow us to critique issues ranging from the individual’s anxiety about “dirty laundry” to national concerns about privacy and freedom.... Read more about ENGL 0201A: Dirty Laundry: Privacy, Paranoia, and Performance in 20th-Century American Fiction (Brown University)
Being a good writer is much like being a good detective or a good lawyer. Like being a detective, writing requires careful gathering of evidence and thoughtful analysis. Like being a lawyer, writing also demands persuasive argumentation and compelling claims. As a writer in an academic environment, you too will need to "make your case" for your ideas, presenting your insights in a clear, organized, and critical fashion.... Read more about ENG 0110: Critical Reading and Writing - The Academic Essay: Making Your Case (Brown University)
With the popularity of shows like Inventing Anna and The Dropout, 2022 might be called the year of the scammer. Yet contemporary con artists come from a long lineage of carnival barkers, snake oil salesmen, and self-proclaimed miracle workers. This class examines the conditions of American capitalism and political populism that gave way to a society of schemers and dupes. We will consider how exploitation and self-invention were ultimately bound up in issues of class, race, gender, and religion. How did swindlers create or subvert stereotypes in search of profits? Who were imagined as the most gullible targets for grifters? These narratives of deceit did not simply function as cautionary tales, but also... 
Midcentury America saw the explosion of a genre on the page and screen—the hardboiled crime novel and the film noir. Noir represented a foil to postwar optimism: its protagonists were cynics and loners. Filled with lurid crimes and deeds, noir suggested a dark underbelly to American society and its promises of domestic fulfillment, economic stability, and institutional support. Husbands and wives plotted each other’s murders; the city streets beckoned with sin; and the police were no match for the private detective. Yet even while these stories foregrounded alienation, they had a mass cultural appeal to American audiences. [Also offered Spring 2021]... 
The 1980s saw the convergence of American politics and economics to strengthen US interests abroad, but the decade was also a moment of social, political, and economic divergence at home. How compatible—or causal—was the end of the cold war with the end of the American cultural consensus? Did such a consensus ever exist, or was it a mere illusion and nostalgia for a “simpler time”? (Also offered Fall 2017) ... 
This course considers the culture of American capitalism through an examination of a broad range of literary and historical texts. As we explore the shifts in thinking about class, labor, business, and money from the early days of the republic through the present day, we will ask how a wide variety of cultural producers engage with and critique economic thought. (Also offered Fall 2015)