American Stories: Place, Power and Imagination
The first semester of this Ampersand program introduces ways of seeing and interpreting American histories and cultures, as revealed in the built environment and stories of our cities. We will travel through time and place, touching down in Boston, Charleston, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and more. The course encourages students to read landscapes as multilayered records of past and present social relations, and to speculate for themselves about cultural meanings. It also introduces students to the social, economic, and political forces that have profoundly shaped the American urban landscape.
American Stories: St. Louis, Power, and the Making of an American City
A scholar of St. Louis history once claimed, "St. Louis will seem to have been located in entirely different parts of the country throughout its history." In many ways, it's a city that defies easy characterization. It's been a place of great possibility and promise, and of hopelessness and betrayal—and very often all of these things at once. The second semester of this Ampersand program will explore the history of St. Louis as a place of many places, reading the city from the nineteenth century to today. Discovering what makes St. Louis a uniquely American city, the course will take interdisciplinary approaches to reading compelling primary source documents, engaging in site visits, and conversing with local guest speakers from artists to public historians to archivists.
