From the college course catalog. . . .

Scripps CollegeToday’s entrant in my ongoing series examining the courses offered at America’s pricey liberal arts colleges, I offer an entry from Scripps College.  For those unfamiliar with Scripps, founded in 1926, is a women’s college that is part of the Claremont Colleges, a liberal arts consortium of colleges. The other colleges are Pomona College, Claremont McKenna College, Pitzer, and Harvey Mudd (which some would argue is a STEM college every bit as good in that field as MIT).

When Ellen Browning Scripps founded the college, she stated its mission: “The paramount obligation of a college is to develop in its students the ability to think clearly and independently, and the ability to live confidently, courageously, and hopefully.” I hope this post gives you some idea about how true to that mission Scripps has remained.

Because I’ve been looking at other colleges’ American Studies departments, I’ll continue that pattern here, so that you can compare Scripps’ offerings to previous posts examining American Studies classes at other colleges. As it happens, Scripps offers only three American studies courses, plus a couple of senior seminars and an independent study class. Because of the paucity of American studies at Scripps, I’ll just include all three classes here:

AMST 103 SC – Introduction to American Cultures

This class analyzes the histories and cultures of the U.S., focusing on the experiences of people and communities of color. Topics change each year and included race and racism; migration and immigration; and culture (e.g., art, music, film) across a wide range of academic and popular texts. This is the introductory course in the five-colleges American Studies program, but is open to all students.

Course Credit: 1.0

AMST 125 SC – Race in Popular Culture and Media
This course examines representations and productions of race in the history of popular culture and media. We will consider the ways in which popular culture operates as a site for both hegemonic and oppositional cultural politics, through examples from film, performance, advertising, music, television and other digital media.

Course Credit: 1.0

AMST 127 SC – Women and War
This course examines the gendered logic and consequences of war, and the impact of war on women’s lives. We will explore these and other related topics, such as race, sexuality, militarism, empire, labor and activism, through readings in feminist scholarship, literature, film, oral history and other materials.

Course Credit: 1.0

For those interested in actual American history, American history classes are offered at Claremont McKenna (which does not offer any “American Studies” classes). Here’s a small sampling, all of which sound interesting and informative:

HIST080 CM – Early America: From Invasion to Civil War
This course will survey the history of North America from the sixteenth to the late nineteenth centuries. We will follow along as a small and diverse collection of ramshackle European settlements grew into wealthy colonies, how they fought for independence and established a united republic, and how that republic in turn grew into an empire. We will study this history not in isolation, but within the context of the Atlantic world, and the turbulent flows of peoples, goods, and ideas within it.

Offered: Every year

Credit: 1

HIST081 CM – Modern America, 1865 to Present
This introductory survey course, beginning with the United States’ emergence in the late 19th century as an industrialized, urbanized society, traces America’s evolution into a complex, heterogeneous, “modern” state.

HIST127 CM – Civil War America
This seminar examines the American Civil War, from its causes to its legacy. Rather than a traditional military history of the war, we will focus on the political, social, and cultural issues that defined its time. Through primary and secondary sources, we will discuss topics such as slavery, sectionalism, social transformations on the battlefield as well as the home front, emancipation, Reconstruction, and Civil War memory.

Offered: Every other year

Credit: 1

HIST144 CM – Reagan’s America: The Politics and Culture of the 1980s
Some see the 1980s as “Morning in America” while others view it as a “New Gilded Age.” This course aims to make sense of this polarized reaction by examining a wide range of issues and events. We will pay particular attention to the relationships between politics and popular culture and between foreign and domestic affairs, and the effect of policies and politics on everyday life. In doing so, we will situate the decade within its broader historical context and assess whether the United States today still lives under the shadow of the 1980s.

Offered: Every other year

Credit: 1

Annual tuition at Scripps is $49,152.

Annual tuition at Claremont McKenna is $49,045.