This course will focus on the interdisciplinary formation of American Studies, and draw our attention to a few key theories and methods that have shaped this field. “Temporality,” or theoretical notions about time and how we experience time, will serve as our analytical entryway into thinking about national belonging and accounts of history. Two key theorists for this task of exploring the utility of thinking about (and through) time are Walter Benjamin and Michel Foucault. In addition to granting careful consideration to how these theorists treat the matter of historical consciousness, we will move onto methods from disciplines such as legal studies and sociology, which also provide us with opportunities for thinking about various forms of temporality. For instance, how is the “time” of family and reproduction related to the nation? How do narratives about a national “past” bear on notions of the “present” and “future”? We will account for the role of social movements—and specifically, their contributions to serious thinking about race, gender, and sexuality—to reading literature. Our goal is to understand how the theories and analyses that we cover in this course may bear on our reading of literary texts. In a word, within the purview of American Studies, what are the practices for reading literature and culture? Literary texts may possibly include: Toni Morrison, Sula (1973); Ernest J. Gaines, A Gathering of Old Men (1983); Paul Beatty, The White Boy Shuffle (1996).