Courses

The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular term. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on the MyBU Student Portal for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

• CAS AM 505: The American South in History, Literature, and Film
  Explores the American South through literature, film, and other sources. Considers what, if anything, has been distinctive about the Southern experience and how a variety of Americans have imagined the region over time. Also offered as CAS HI 505. Effective Spring 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness.
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  • Aesthetic Exploration
  • Historical Consciousness
• CAS AM 525: American Cultural Landscape Studies
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior standing or consent of instructor. - This seminar provides an introduction to analyzing and interpreting American cultural landscapes and acquaints students with the historiography of interdisciplinary study of the built environment. Also offered as CAS AH 525.
• CAS AM 546: Places of Memory: Historic Preservation Theory and Practice
  Covers key aspects of the history, theory, and practice of historic preservation. Preservation is discussed in the context of cultural history and the changing relationship between existing buildings and landscapes and attitudes toward history, memory, invented tradition, and place. Also offered as CAS AH 546 and CAS HI 546.
• CAS AM 554: Preservation Planning
  Introduces students to local, state, and national government policies and practices intended to protect historically and aesthetically significant structures. In addition, the course covers planning approaches aimed at managing redevelopment in established neighborhoods, to create livable and sustainable communities.
• CAS AM 555: Boston Architectural and Community History Workshop
  Focuses on class readings, lectures, and research on a single neighborhood or community in Boston (or Greater Boston). Greatest emphasis is on using primary sources-- land titles and deeds, building permits, fire insurance atlases and other maps. Explores places and sources that help assess and narrate the rich history of architectural and urban development.
• CAS AM 567: Topics in American Material Culture
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior or senior standing or consent of instructor. - An interdisciplinary research seminar exploring a topic in American material culture. Specific content will vary by semester and may be repeated for credit as topics change. Topic for Spring 2025: Material Culture of the Environment.
• CAS AM 735: Studies in American Culture
  Graduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor. - Introduction to handling of primary materials from a number of disciplines in order to develop an American Studies perspective. Required of all American Studies PhD students.
• CAS AM 736: The Literature of American Studies
  Graduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor. - Introduction to classic problems in the interpretation of American society and culture. Required of all American Studies PhD students.
• CAS AM 775: Independent Research Project Colloquium
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: Preservation Studies master's student standing. - Restricted to students in their final semester of the Preservation Studies Master's Program. Provides for the research and writing of an independent, rigorous, and original capstone project in the preservation field, with guidance from faculty.
• CAS AM 867: Material Culture
  Graduate Prerequisites: graduate standing or consent of instructor. - Introduction to the theory and practice of the interdisciplinary study of material culture, which includes everything we make and use, from food and clothing to art and buildings. Explore contemporary scholarship from a range of disciplines. Also offered as GRS AH 867.
• CAS AM 899: Professional Development Seminar
  Graduate Prerequisites: Completion of required coursework. - A seminar offering advanced AMNESP PhD students the opportunity to present and discuss works-in-progress and structured guidance for the tasks involved in job applications. Open to PhD students after completing required coursework. Does not fulfill PhD course requirements.
• CAS AN 505: Women and Social Change in Asia (area)
  Examines how women have affected andbeen affected by economic and cultural changes in China, Japan, and India. Particular attention paid to women's education, health, child rearing, and labor force participation. (Counts towards the Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies minor and the Asian Studies minor.)
• CAS AN 506: Regional Archaeology and Geographical Information Systems
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: one archaeology course or consent of instructor. - Graduate Prerequisites: one archaeology course or consent of instructor. - Use of advanced computer (GIS) techniques to address regional archaeological problems. This applied course examines digital encoding and manipulation of archaeological and environmental data, and methods for testing hypotheses, analyzing, and modeling the archaeological record. Effective Fall 2023, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Social Inquiry II, Research and Information Literacy.
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  • Historical Consciousness
  • Research and Information Literacy
  • Social Inquiry II
• CAS AN 508: Landscape Archaeology
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: First-Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 100 or 120) - A seminar-style introduction to "landscape archaeology," a theoretical and methodological approach that explores how past and present communities create (and are in turn affected by) "cultural landscapes" formed through the interplay of sociocultural values and the natural environment. Effective Spring 2024, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU HUB areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Social Inquiry I, Critical Thinking.
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  • Critical Thinking
  • Social Inquiry I
  • Writing-Intensive Course
• CAS AN 510: Proposal Writing for Social Science Research
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor. - Graduate Prerequisites: graduate student standing in the social sciences or humanities. - Workshop-based course designed to turn students' intellectual interests into answerable, field-based research questions. Goal is the production of a doctoral level research project proposal and/or dissertation prospectus.
• CAS AN 518: Zooarchaeology
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASAR101) - Introduction to the study of archaeological animal bones. Provides theoretical background and methodological skills necessary for interpreting past human- animal interactions, subsistence, and paleoecology. Laboratory sections focus on skeletal identification. Effective Fall 2023, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Quantitative Reasoning I, Social Inquiry II.
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  • Quantitative Reasoning I
  • Social Inquiry II
• CAS AN 519: Theory and Method in Environmental Archaeology
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASAR307) - Problem-based course where students apply quantitative methods across archaeological datasets to address complex problems of human-environmental relationships rooted in deep time. Through teamwork-based research projects students develop marketable skills in research design, theory integration, and data analysis and visualization. Effective Spring 2023, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Scientific Inquiry II, Quantitative Reasoning II, Teamwork/Collaboration.
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  • Quantitative Reasoning II
  • Scientific Inquiry II
  • Teamwork/Collaboration
• CAS AN 521: Sociolinguistics
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASAN351 OR CASLX250) or consent of instructor. - Introduction to language in its social context. Methodological and theoretical approaches to sociolinguistics. Linguistic variation in relation to situation, gender, socioeconomic class, context, and ethnicity. Integrating micro- and macro-analysis from conversation to societal language planning.
• CAS AN 524: Seminar: Language and Culture Contact in Africa
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor. - Focuses on language and culture contact in Africa. Provides students with a foundation in the research on contact linguistics, language and culture change, and the relationship between language variation and gender, ethnicity, religion, and youth culture.
• CAS AN 530: Global Intimacies: Sex, Gender, and Contemporary Sexualities
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior or senior standing or consent of instructor. - Explores theoretical and ethnographic approaches to gender, sex, and sexuality as linked to globalizing discourses and transnational mobilities. Readings and discussion emphasize intersections of sex, gender, labor, love, and marriage in a globalized world.