Teaching the Intro Course in Late-Stage American Empire

Session Submission Type: Non-Paper Session: Roundtable Format

Abstract

The rapidly approaching end of the U.S. empire and the concomitant rise of increasingly conservative politics are together changing the ways we approach widely taught courses such as Introductions to American Studies. And the students entering such classes are not the same as they used to be. This roundtable discussion draws together colleagues who have experience designing and offering basic courses in American studies. What sorts of materials should we be teaching in the current conjuncture? How do we structure introductory writing assignments in the age of AI? How do we organize course descriptions and syllabi at a time when enrollments are in most places declining? Are there new and different ways to address the kinds of students who are taking our entry-level classes? Do we need to consider revising the balance of multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity, and transdisciplinarity when teaching introductory classes now? This roundtable will address these questions and more, focusing both on large conceptual issues and on hands-on pedagogical practices.

Sub Unit

• Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association

Chair

• Glenn S. Hendler, Fordham University

Panelists

• Perin Gurel, University of Notre Dame

• Rebecca Hill, Kennesaw State University

Biographical Information

Glenn Hendler (roundtable chair and committee co-chair) is Professor of English and American Studies at Fordham University in New York City. He directed Fordham's American Studies Program for several years, and he has taught the program's introductory course several times, its methods course for juniors five times, and co-taught its senior thesis seminar twice. He is also co-editor of *Keywords for American Cultural Studies* (3rd edition 2020), which is widely used in undergraduate and graduate American studies courses. He has authored two books (*Public Sentiments: Structures of Feeling in 19th-Century American Literature* and *David Bowie's Diamond Dogs*) and co-edited two in addition to *Keywords* (*Sentimental Men: Masculinity and the Politics of Affect in American Culture* and an edition of Walt Whitman's novel *Franklin Evans; or, The Inebriate*. He is currently working on a book about David Bowie's engagement with Black and Latinx music in the 1970s, tentatively titled *David Bowie's Soul Music*.