Ampersand: American Stories: Place, Power and Imagination

If an American landscape could tell a story, what would it say? American Stories is an interdisciplinary approach to reading landscapes from the nineteenth century to today, uncovering untold stories of American places and the people, politics, and power that shaped them. 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.This class is for first-year non-transfer students only.