Course Descriptions | American & New England Studies

Woodsman driving pulpwood on the Kennebago River

ANE 599 The Politics of Nostalgia

Tuesday & Thursday, 4:00P-6:45P, 5/12-06/27, R. Schmidt

Nostalgia, a word that combines the Greek words for “pain” and “returning home” originated as a medical diagnosis for the peculiarly intense homesickness of Swiss mercenaries. Thus from the outset, nostalgia has been defined in reference to a national definition of home. Nevertheless, the concept’s political nature has often been obscured and nostalgia is shrugged off as a political sentimentality. This simplifies the role nostalgia plays in nationalist movements, however, and ignores the political and temporal disruptions it can create. Nostalgia and its disruptive power play a central role in our politics, but undermines the foundations of legitimacy it is meant to serve. In this class, we will study the use of nostalgia by different nationalist movements in the United States from the nation’s founding to the present day.

ANE 650 Popular American Genre Fiction

Tuesday & Thursday , 4:00P-6:45P, 6/30-08/15, K. Ryden

This course will focus, not on the productions of elite literary culture, but on the sorts of popular genres that millions of Americans read every year: westersn, spy novels, detective fiction, horror novels, science fiction, romance novels, and the like. We will dsicuss popular fiction as a vital aspect of twentieth-century American print culture, examining not only the literary aspects of particular well-known works but questions concerning their production and consumption, their readership, their marketing, and their function as elements of American popular culture that reflect and shape popular concerns at particular historical moments.

ANE 685 Reading and Research

Open to advanced students with exceptional records in the program, this course offers opportunities for reading and research under the direction of a faculty member. The approval of the ANES Curriculum Committee is required. This course may be taken only once.

ANE 687 Internship

Open to qualified students with exceptional records in the program; required for students in the Public Culture and History track. Internships are by application to the ANES Curriculum Committee. Participating organizations include: Portland Museum of Art, Old York Historical Society, Pejepscot Historical Society, and Maine Historical Society.

ANE 690 Project

Completion of a two-semester project that may be an independent project or that may combine independent study and work in a historical society, a museum, a cultural organization, or other public or private institution. In consultation with an advisor, the student defines and develops the project in relation to his or her particular interest in American and New England Studies.

ANE 695 Thesis

The product of original research, the thesis should embody an interdisciplinary combination of approaches and/or materials.

PPM Muskie School Course Descriptions

For students in the Public History and Culture Track, see the Muskie School of Public Service's course descriptions in non-profit management.

American & New England Studies