2023-2024 Academic Year

Fall 2023

AMST 101 Back to the Future
Retrofuturism is a type of remembrance of an anticipated future. If futurism is the representation of possible futures, retro-futuristic art and culture is a reexamination and remembrance of those futuristic dreams that never came into being. In "Back to the Future: American Retrofuturism Since the 1990s," we'll be examining this phenomenon in two primary ways: first, we'll look at expressions of retrofuturism that were being constructed during the long 90s-from 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 in 2001. The 1990s were a prolific generator of retro-futurist genres-cyberpunk, steampunk, dieselpunk, and atompunk, for example. Each were important genres of art and literature in the 90s that pulled from the posited futures of different historical moments-from steampunk's use of Victorian era technologies to the mid-century futurisms of atompunk inspired by the development of the atomic bomb. Additionally, we'll look at retro-futurist cultural productions in our present day that themselves "remember" the visions of the future that were created during the 1990s-vaporwave, glitchart, and technological nostalgia for things like the Walkman and cassette recording. These contemporary expressions mobilize the nascent digital aesthetics of the 1990s as a contrasting, lost vision of the future constructed in the 1990s. Guiding us through these explorations will be an examination of "hauntology," or as the scholar Mark Fisher terms it, "Lost Futures." Lost Futures are the idea that the present-whenever that happens to be-is "haunted" or carries with it the spectral visions of prior future imaginings that never materialized. For every envisioned future that becomes our lived present, there are innumerable other possible futures that were lost along the way. Retrofuturism is the process of remembering and recovering those lost futures to understand how the futuristic thinking of different historical moments continues to inform our own contemporary projections of possible and probable futures.

AMST 202 Workshop in Cultural Analysis
This intensive writing workshop focuses on theoretical approaches to the interpretation of social and cultural materials. The course provides an early exposure to theories and methods that will be returned to in upper level departmental courses. Intended to develop independent skills in analysis of primary texts and documents.Prerequisite: Any AMST course or permission of instructor.

Spring 2024

AMST 301 American Futures
This course explores the profound relationship between digital technologies and the multifaceted visions of the future they inspire, particularly as they have evolved in the 20th and 21st centuries. We will delve deep into the digital cultures birthed by these technologies, examining how they shape and are shaped by anticipations of cultural, national, and individual identities. In doing so, we'll uncover the intricate interplay and antagonisms between various projections of the future. These imagined futures not only mirror but also question established notions about the roles of race, gender, and class in the times ahead. The visions of the future that a society or culture champions, and importantly, who is given the authority to craft and steer these visions, reveal the complex role "the future" plays in American ideology, socioeconomics, and representational politics. Our exploration will be both analytical and reflective, probing the nexus between thought, representation, political/cultural institutions, and the pressing issues of class, race, gender, and ideology across diverse mediums like art, literature, and advertising. We'll chart the genesis and evolution of digital-cultural spaces and communities, recognizing their roots in "real-life" culture while also examining their growth beyond "IRL." By emphasizing the interplay between race/gender and future representations, we will dissect these forward-looking imaginings to discern the cultural underpinnings from which they spring. What, for instance, do the speculative narratives of Indigenous Futurism reveal about the intricate dynamics of race and gender in the contemporary United States? Throughout this course, we will delve deeply into diverse digital domains, examining how they either contest, validate, or transform dominant narratives surrounding America's prospective future. By analyzing these forward-looking visions, we will gain insights into the prevailing mood and spirit of our current era. Moreover, these digital projections serve as a mirror, reflecting our collective hopes, anxieties, and aspirations for the unfolding chapters of our shared future. In essence, by understanding how we imagine tomorrow through today's digital lens, we can better comprehend the underlying currents shaping our contemporary society and its trajectory.