HS330 study - Fundamentals of Estate Planning test Updated: 2023 | ||||||||
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Exam Code: HS330 Fundamentals of Estate Planning test study November 2023 by Killexams.com team | ||||||||
HS330 Fundamentals of Estate Planning test Test Detail: The HS330 Fundamentals of Estate Planning test is administered by the American College. It is designed to assess the knowledge and understanding of individuals in the field of estate planning. Here is a detailed overview of the test, including the number of questions and time, course outline, exam objectives, and exam syllabus. Number of Questions and Time: The HS330 test consists of multiple-choice questions and is divided into two parts: Part A and Part B. The total number of questions and time for each part are as follows: Part A: - Number of Questions: Approximately 100 multiple-choice questions - Time Limit: 2 hours Part B: - Number of Questions: Approximately 35 multiple-choice questions - Time Limit: 1 hour Course Outline: The HS330 course covers various subjects related to estate planning. The course outline may include the following areas: 1. Introduction to Estate Planning: - Basic concepts and principles of estate planning - Overview of applicable laws and regulations - Ethical considerations in estate planning 2. Property Ownership and Transfer: - Types of property ownership - Estate planning implications of different property types - Transfer methods and strategies 3. Wills and Trusts: - Importance and elements of a valid will - Types of trusts and their uses in estate planning - Revocable and irrevocable trusts 4. Estate and Gift Taxes: - Overview of estate and gift tax laws - Tax planning strategies and exemptions - Generation-skipping transfer tax 5. Charitable Planning: - Charitable giving techniques and strategies - Tax benefits of charitable contributions - Charitable remainder trusts and charitable lead trusts 6. Business Succession Planning: - Planning for the transfer of a business to the next generation - Buy-sell agreements and other business succession strategies - Valuation of closely-held businesses Exam Objectives: The objectives of the HS330 test include: - Assessing the candidate's knowledge and understanding of estate planning concepts, laws, and strategies. - Evaluating the ability to apply estate planning principles to different scenarios. - Demonstrating proficiency in analyzing and solving estate planning problems. Exam Syllabus: The HS330 test syllabus covers a wide range of estate planning topics, including but not limited to: - Basic estate planning concepts and terminology - Property ownership and transfer methods - Wills, trusts, and other estate planning documents - Estate and gift tax laws and strategies - Charitable planning techniques - Business succession planning Note: The specific content and emphasis within each syllabu may vary, and it is recommended to consult the official American College materials or authorized study resources for the most accurate and up-to-date syllabus. | ||||||||
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| American-College HS330 Fundamentals of Estate Planning test https://killexams.com/pass4sure/exam-detail/HS330 Question: 386 All the following items are allowed as a deduction from a decedent's gross estate to determine the decedent's adjusted gross estate EXCEPT: A. Expenses incurred in the presentation of probate assets. B. Payments of estate debts. C. Expenses incurred for the benefit of individual heirs. D. Costs of distributing probate assets to estate beneficiaries. Answer: C Question: 387 All the following statements concerning guardians for minors are correct EXCEPT: A. A guardian named in a deceased parent's will is not necessarily binding on the court. B. A guardian has equitable title to the property he administers for the minor. C. A special guardian can be appointed by the court to protect a minor's rights in a legal proceeding. D. A guardian of the person of a minor may not necessarily be the guardian of the minor's property. Answer: B Question: 388 All the following statements concerning real property ownership by married couples as joint tenants with right of survivorship are correct EXCEPT: A. The deceased spouse's interest in the property qualifies for the marital deduction since it passes outright to the surviving spouse. B. All benefits of ownership remain available to the surviving spouse without interruption during the administration of the deceased spouse's estate. C. Jointly held property between spouses does not pass through the probate estate of the first spouse to die. D. In common-law states the total value of the property receives a stepped-up tax basis in the estate of the first spouse to die. Answer: D Question: 389 All the following statements concerning property ownership by a married couple residing in a community-property state are correct EXCEPT: 130 A. All property that is not separate property is community property. B. Community property loses its identity when a community-property couple moves to a common-law state. C. Property inherited during the marriage is the separate property of the spouse who inherited it. D. Income earned by one spouse becomes community property. Answer: B Question: 390 All the following are grounds for contesting a will EXCEPT: A. The instrument is a forgery. B. The testator executed a later valid will. C. The testator did not have testamentary capacity. D. The widow was bequeathed less than her intestate share. Answer: D Question: 391 All the following powers held by the grantor of an irrevocable trust will cause the trust assets to be brought back into the estate of the grantor EXCEPT the power to A. terminate the trust B. change the trust remainderpersons C. add principal to the trust D. designate who shall enjoy the trust income Answer: C Question: 392 An executor may value assets as of the date of death or the alternate valuation date 6 months after death. Assuming the executor elects the alternate valuation date, all the following statements are correct EXCEPT: A. A property interest that diminishes with the mere passage of time, such as a patent, is includible at the date of death value. B. Property sold by the executor before the alternate valuation date is valued at its sale price. C. Property that has increased in value since the date of death is valued at the alternate valuation date. D. Property distributed under the will within the alternate valuation period is valued at the date of death. 131 Answer: D Question: 393 A father wants to accumulate funds for his 12-year-old son's college education. On the advice of his attorney, the father establishes an IRC Section 2503(c) trust and funds it with annual gifts. All the following statements concerning this arrangement are correct EXCEPT: A. The trust must be irrevocable. B. The father's annual gift tax exclusion must be reduced by any amount used to pay college tuition costs. C. Any accumulated income and all trust principal must be available for distribution to the son when he attains age 21. D. In the event of the son's death prior to age 21, trust assets must either be payable to the son's estate or be subject to a general power of appointment held by the son. Answer: B Question: 394 Generally the courts will accept as the federal estate tax value of a closely held corporate business the price established by a buy-sell agreement if all the following conditions are met EXCEPT: A. The agreement requires the payment of liquidated damages to the survivors if the executor fails to carry out its terms. B. The agreement as to per-share value is fair, adequate, and made at arm's length. C. The agreement requires a deceased shareholder's executor to sell the stock at the price specified in the agreement. D. The agreement requires a shareholder to first offer his stock to the corporation or other shareholders at the specified price if he wishes to sell it during his lifetime. Answer: A Question: 395 The personal representative of a decedent has the duty to file all the following tax returns EXCEPT A. the surviving spouse's income tax return for the year of death B. the estate's income tax return C. the decedent's final income tax return D. the federal estate tax return 132 Answer: A Question: 396 The failure of an individual to have a will can result in all the following EXCEPT: A. The decedent's state of domicile might receive the property left by the decedent. B. Testamentary gifts to charity cannot be made. C. Unnecessary death taxes may be imposed. D. A surviving spouse receives only his or her elective share. Answer: D Question: 397 All the following transfers are subject to the generation-skipping transfer tax (GSTT) EXCEPT: A. A direct cash gift of $50,000 from a grandparent to his grandchild if such grandchild's parents are still alive. B. A direct cash payment of $28,000 from a grandparent to a private prep school to cover the tuition costs for her grandchild. C. A distribution to a grandchild from a sprinkle trust created by a grandparent to benefit both skip and non-skip beneficiaries. D. A termination of a trust at the death of the nonskip life income beneficiary with the remainder distributed solely to skip persons. Answer: B Question: 398 All the following statements concerning a federal estate tax deduction for a bequest or gift to a qualified charity are correct EXCEPT: A. A life insurance policy that was assigned to a charity as a gift less than 3 years prior to the insured's death qualifies for a charitable deduction. B. The amount of a charitable deduction is reduced by any taxes and administrative expenses chargeable against the bequest. C. An estate may deduct the value of the remainder interest in a charitable remainder trust. D. The amount of a charitable deduction may not exceed 50 percent of a decedent's adjusted gross estate. Answer: D Question: 399 133 A person dying without a will loses all the following rights EXCEPT the right to A. name the person to settle the estate B. have assets pass to heirs C. provide property to a charity D. take maximum advantage of the marital deduction Answer: B Question: 400 All the following statements concerning the gift and estate tax chartiable deduction are correct EXCEPT: A. It is possible for a charitable contribution made during the donor lifetime to generate both income and transfer tax deductions for the donor. B. If the donor retains an interest in property contributed to a qualified charity during lifetime, the value of the property may be included in the donor gross estate. C. An estate tax charitable deduction is allowed for the full value of property transferred to a qualified charity but only if the property is included in the donor gross estate. D. A donor is denied a charitable deduction for property that passes to a qualified charity as the result of a qualified disclaimer if the donor original transfer was to a noncharitable donee. Answer: D 134 For More exams visit https://killexams.com/vendors-exam-list Kill your exam at First Attempt....Guaranteed! | ||||||||
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At a time when the world’s challenges and opportunities are increasingly global and the resources supporting study abroad have never been greater, why are so few American students pursuing international education? As we work for a more peaceful future, it’s an important question to address. From "Chinese opium" to Oxycontin, and from cocaine and "crack" to BiDil, drug controversies reflect enduring debates about the role of medicine, the law, the policing of ethnic identity, and racial difference. This course explores the history of controversial substances (prescription medicines, over-the-counter products, black market substances, psychoactive drugs), and how, from cigarettes to alcohol and opium, they become vehicles for heated debates over immigration, identity, cultural and biological difference, criminal character, the line between legality and illegality, and the boundaries of the normal and the pathological. The programs got extraordinary results. Even accounting for selection bias, countless studies have demonstrated their efficacy in reducing the risk of recidivism — by 43 percent according to a report from the RAND Corporation. Still, in 1994, amid a tough-on-crime frenzy, Congress voted to keep people in prison from receiving Pell Grants — saving a mere $35 million per year as those same legislators directed more than $7 billion toward building new prisons. The ban decimated the field nationwide. College-in-prison saves money and reduces crime. That is why the coalition that has come to support it is unusually broad and bipartisan. It includes conservative evangelicals, liberal academics, allies of the Koch and Soros philanthropic networks, leaders in business and education, progressive criminal justice reformers and prominent members of law enforcement. The process of restoring federal funding began under the Obama administration and was completed by President Donald Trump. If you’re confused about why Congress would remove education from departments of “correction,” you’re not alone. Since the late 1990s, despite the loss of Pell Grants, a patchwork of boutique and pilot programs — established by religious communities, advocates, students on college campuses and, most of all, incarcerated people themselves — has grown from a tiny number to dozens in latest years. North Carolina, Ohio and Texas have hosted programs for decades. California and New Jersey have re-established statewide systems. New York has an extraordinary, diverse network of partnerships that replicates the diversity of college across the state. And, inspired by Catholic mission, Holy Cross College and the University of Notre Dame, Boston College and Villanova have led the way in their red, blue and purple home states. At the Bard Prison Initiative, where I work, 20 percent of bachelor’s degree candidates complete degrees in math and science at the same level as students on campus who come from elite high schools around the world. Incarcerated students majoring in history or literature all write original senior theses that are typically 100 pages in length. Students excel in the fields of public health and the social sciences, and the Debate Union has defeated teams from Cambridge, Morehouse and Harvard, among others. They study Mandarin, German or Spanish, computer science and the arts. After release, alumni have gone on to complete graduate degrees at universities including Columbia, Yale, N.Y.U., Cornell and Georgetown. They now hold decision-making positions in government agencies and major philanthropies, they own businesses and serve their communities, and, among many other roles, they are crucial voices in the effort to reshape our criminal justice system. Within two months of release, our research indicates, 85 percent are employed. This kind of education can exist in prisons nationwide. But to achieve it we must invest. Pell Grants, which average less than $4,500, never covered the cost even for modest programs. Success requires state-level spending, too. Last year New York ended its 26-year ban on state tuition assistance for incarcerated people. Next year, we hope others will follow. If states want less recidivism and better outcomes after prison, they cannot invest in punishment alone. A new report found higher education fails to teach the basics of American history, instead focusing on the moments that divide Americans while spending little time on prosperity and unity. "I think to not study that is to not learn how to be an American. And if you have no basic roots, if you have no sense of identity, you then become sort of like a leaf in the wind," former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is one of the commissioners for the study, said in an interview with Fox News Digital. The other commissioners were former Gov. Scott Walker, R-Wis., and former Gov. Mary Fallin, R-Okla. The report, directed by Arizona State University (ASU) professor Donald T. Critchlow, shows many introductory American history courses at universities across the country are not conveying basic knowledge to their students. Critchlow said that even though the Constitution was being discussed in some classes, it wasn't necessarily being discussed positively. CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY BECOMES SAFE HAVEN FOR JEWISH STUDENTS ESCAPING ANTISEMITISM Sun Devils Stadium Arizona State University Tempe "Only two class periods on average were being given to the study of the Constitution or its ratification. But that doesn't necessarily mean that those class periods were painting the Constitution in the formation of our exceptional nation in a positive way," Critchlow, who directs ASU’s Center of American Institutions, said. "Indeed, many of these courses spent an inordinate amount of time on the Constitution as an exclusionary document. So they pointed to the exclusion of women and Blacks." The year-long research project surveyed syllabi for introductory courses in American history at large and small institutions in public and private schools. These syllabi were available to the public. Per the report, an objective analysis was provided through a survey of 36 syllabi for the first half of the introduction to American history from settlement to 1877, and 39 syllabi for the second half of introduction to American history from 1877 to the present. Syllabi for the first half of the introductory courses were chosen from the top-ranked 150 universities in a 2022 survey by U.S. News & World Report. "For analysis of the second half of introductory courses we expanded our research parameters to include more public universities," the report states. Among the syllabi that were reviewed, only one syllabus mentioned American exceptionalism. Furthermore, research found that very few students learned about Yalta, the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, or the Paris Peace Accords that ended the Vietnam War. Newt Gingrich, former US Speaker of the House attends "Free Iran 2018 - the Alternative" event organized by an exiled Iranian opposition group on June 30, 2018 in Villepinte, north of Paris. (Zakaria Abdelkafi/AFP) Other research findings revealed that the use of identity-focused terms such as White supremacy, diversity, and equity are often incorporated in American history introductory courses. There was an emphasis on identity-focused subjects such as race, gender, sexuality, and sexual identity. "Anti-market bias is expressed through an emphasis on exploitation and oppression of workers, derision of consumerism, and persistence of inequity without an examination of genuine economic data," according to the study. According to a quantitative analysis, 80% of courses spent two class periods or less on the writing, ratification, and content of the Constitution and 11% of classes did not cover the drafting of the Constitution in Philadelphia. Critchlow said the "shocking" findings in the report warrant a reformation of the university system. "I think the report will shock many people just how extensive and distorted American history is being taught today to our college students. And we know why this is important for our nation and for creation of a nation with shared values," Critchlow said. "The more important, the equally important question, what is to be done about it?… So we need a reformation at our universities." JEWISH STUDENTS AT GEORGETOWN LAW FEAR VIOLENCE AMID HEATED RHETORIC FROM CLASSMATES Gingrich said, "Any random stupid idea can seem equally important. And that's the nature of most of our college campuses today." 22nd September 1862: Abraham Lincoln (1809 - 1865), the 16th President of the United States of America (1861 - 1865), at the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, which gave enslaved people their freedom. ((Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images) The report featured recommendations from the commissioners based on the findings such as providing transparency in the college curriculum, ending the tenure system for professors, and promoting diverse ideas. One of the recommendations includes state legislators and boards of regents mandating that each academic unit within a college or university post syllabi of courses online. REPORTER CONDEMNS ANTISEMITISM ON COLLEGE CAMPUSES, DEMANDS SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS SPEAK OUT They also recommend that teachers should be evaluated solely on teaching and research outcomes. Gingrich predicted there would be a "deep public desire" to overhaul the university system due to the current political climate on college campuses. He proposed a solution to develop a guideline for parents, students, and the Board of Regents to distinguish between anti-American history departments and American history departments because the objective reality is that a "great number of the dominant force in the academic world today is anti-American and anti-Western civilization." "I think that the reaction to the pro-terrorist activities on the campuses and the degree to which those pro-terrorist activities are being translated into overt anti-Jewish behaviors, including threatening people in a way that literally resembles the Ku Klux Klan in the 1870s. And Jewish Americans I talked to for the first time in their lives are frightened, telling their children don't wear a Star of David on campus. It makes you a target," he said. The U.S. Constitution was ratified by nine of the 13 states, making it binding. (iStock) CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP "I think all of that is going to lead to a public awareness that there is something very sick about our academic system; when you combine the absolute lack of performance in many of our inner city schools with the absolute dishonesty of what's being taught in many of our best universities," Gingrich continued. "I think that there will be a very deep public desire to profoundly overhaul the system and get back to one which is both productive and pro-American." ASU's Center for American Institutions launched in 2022 with a mission to "foster and renew respect for foundational American institutions through undergraduate education and public outreach." For more Culture, Media, Education, Opinion, and channel coverage, visit foxnews.com/media. Discover the historical city of Athens, the beauty of the Mediterranean, and experience the famous hospitality of the Greek people while studying abroad at the American College of Greece. ACG is the oldest American-accredited College in Europe and the largest private, independent, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, co-educational academic institution in Greece. Available Terms
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More than a SeminarSince 2002. We’ve been running NIAHD’s Pre-College Program for more than twenty years, with courses designed by faculty in William & Mary’s History department. Our class subjects are developed to build upon a long tradition of undergraduate excellence and evolve to reflect contemporary research and events. Courses are 3-week, residential experiences that integrate academic instruction and seminar discussion with site-based experiences and conversations with museum professionals. Our approach to teaching history. In the Pre-College Program, we combine public history with social history. That means that our students make daily trips to museums and historic sites to encounter history on a human and concrete scale. Then they combine what they learn from their field experience with seminar readings and faculty-led discussions that connect to larger historical patterns and arguments. We at the National Institute of History & Democracy realize our name in our teaching: American history, and the history of democracy, is the story of many people and kinds of people, and all of these histories belong to everyone. |
Where History HappenedHistoric Williamsburg. Williamsburg was a colonial and then state capital for 80 crucial years, including the period in which Virginians overthrew the British monarchy and declared independence. Pre-College students explore that heritage in-depth with our partners at Colonial Williamsburg, the largest U.S. history museum in the world, steps away from our campus. Hampton Roads and Beyond. Our classes also make use of our proximity to Jamestown, Yorktown, Richmond, the wider Chesapeake region, and sometimes beyond! We use the real places—homes, courthouses, places of worship, sites of landing, battlefields, workplaces, and more—to teach history in a way that closes the gap between present and past using a small fleet of twelve-passenger vans. Our students see much more than Williamsburg while they’re here. |
Hands-on HeritageBeyond the Coursework. Our evening and weekend programs offer further opportunities for talks with historians and community-building. English country dance and Saturday archaeological digs with our partners at the Fairfield Foundation are perennial favorites. We like to say we “see and do and hear and find and make” history, rather than simply learning it (though we do that, too!). |
The Typical NIAHD Pre-College StudentThe Alumni Network. The Pre-College program has more than 2,200 alumni, who’ve come from almost every state and more than a dozen countries around the world. Around a fifth of our alumni have gone on to attend William & Mary. Some of our alumni have found vocations in the cultural heritage professions and work as curators, archaeologists, museum educators, and interpreters. Other alums carry their passion for history into diverse careers using their skills of research, communication, and collaboration. History Enthusiasts, Unite! At the Pre-College level, NIAHD students share a passionate curiosity about history—an excitement about engaging with the past in ways beyond the pages of a textbook. We welcome students every year who feel like they’ve “found their people” with fellow NIAHDers. One of them might be you! |
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A number of surveys have identified a disconnect between higher education and job readiness.
Two-thirds of adults surveyed said colleges are “stuck in the past” and not meeting the needs of today’s students, according to a July 2022 poll by Public Agenda, a nonprofit research organization.
But the responsibility to prepare students lies at the feet of both colleges and employers, a December 2022 report released by Harvard Business School’s Project on Managing the Future of Work and the American Association of Community Colleges found. Employers need to “more actively partner” with education providers to address the skills gap and better meet their hiring needs, the report found.
AMS 201 Introduction to American Studies (4 Credits)
This course provides an introduction to American Studies through the interdisciplinary study of American history, life and culture. Students develop critical tools for analyzing cultural texts (including literature, visual arts, music, fashion, advertising, social media, buildings, objects and bodies) in relation to political, social, economic and environmental contexts. The course examines the influence of race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality and transnationality on conceptions of citizenship, and struggles over what it means to be an “American,” and how this has shaped the distribution of power, resources and wellbeing in the United States. {H}{L}
Spring
AMS 202 Methods in American Studies (4 Credits)
This course introduces some of the exciting and innovative approaches to cultural analysis that have emerged over the last three decades. Students apply these methods to a variety of texts and practices (stories, movies, television shows, music, advertisements, clothes, buildings, laws, markets, bodies) in an effort to acquire the tools to become skillful readers of American culture, and to become more critical and aware as scholars and citizens. Prerequisite: AMS 201 is recommended but not required. {A}{H}
Fall
AMS 205 Introduction to Native American and Indigenous Studies (4 Credits)
This course is designed to introduce students to the interdisciplinary field of Native American and Indigenous Studies. This course looks at the diverse histories of Indigenous nations across North America, as well as histories of shared experiences with ongoing colonialism, legacies of resistance and connections to place. The class focuses on Indigenous perspectives, intellectual traditions and critical interventions across time through the work of historians, anthropologists, philosophers, literary scholars, Indigenous knowledge keepers, poets, writers and activists. This course is required for a Native American and Indigenous Studies focus for American Studies majors. {H}{L}
Fall, Spring, Alternate Years
AMS 215ir subjects in Contemporary Native/Indigenous Studies-Indigenous Climate Resiliency (4 Credits)
It is often noted in mainstream news media that Indigenous peoples are “on the front lines” of the climate crisis, while providing little explanation as to why this is. Narratives of inherent Indigenous vulnerability obscure the ways in which Indigenous communities have mobilized to navigate environmental change, not only in the face of contemporary global warming, but historically, as settler colonial incursions radically transformed landscapes and constrained Indigenous knowledge practices that have provided tools for adaptation for thousands of years. This course considers how Indigenous climate vulnerability is largely a product of settler colonialism—not only a process and system, but also a particular way of understanding and relating to the nonhuman environment. (E) {H}
Fall, Spring, Variable
AMS 220dm Colloquium: subjects in American Studies-Dance, Music, Sex, Romance (4 Credits)
Since the 1950s rock ’n’ roll and other forms of youth-oriented popular music in the U.S. have embodied rebellion. Yet the rebellion that rock and other popular music styles like rap have offered has often been more available to men than women. Similarly, the sexual liberation associated with popular music in the rock and rap eras has been far more open to “straight” desires over “queer.” This course examines how popular music from the 1950s to the present has been shaped by gender and sexuality, and the extent to which the music and its associated cultural practices have allowed artists and audiences to challenge gender and sexual norms, or alternately have served to reinforce those norms albeit with loud guitars and a heavy beat. Enrollment limited to 20. {A}{H}
Fall, Spring, Variable
AMS 225 Colloquium: Corporate Capitalism, Media and Protest in America (4 Credits)
The U.S. Constitution recognizes a free press as the lifeblood of democracy with a mandate to inform citizens and hold the powerful accountable. But there is widespread distrust of the media in American society today. This course analyzes the transformation of the press into a corporate enterprise over the past 150 years, and the opposition this has provoked. Examining key developments (the creation of multinational media conglomerates as well as new digital media alternatives) and focusing on case studies such as Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, and the 2016 Elections, we examine the influence of the media on American political, economic, and cultural life. {H}{S}
Fall, Spring, Variable
AMS 227 Trade and Theft in Early America (4 Credits)
A seventeenth-century engraving imagines an encounter between two men wearing feathers and holding onto the same string of shells: depending on your perspective, this image looks like a scene of trade or one of theft at knife-point. In understanding moments from the past, representation and perspective shape not just interpretation, but sources themselves. Seeing moments as both trade and theft opens them to tellings and analyses from multiple perspectives, exposing overlooked elements and revealing the ways in which histories are made. This course introduces students to Early American history (c1500-1800) through the themes of trade, theft, representation and perspective. {H}{L}
Fall, Spring, Variable
AMS 229 Native New England (4 Credits)
In this course we interrogate the space now known as New England by learning about it as a land with histories, peoples and life ways that predate and exceed the former English colonies and current United States. We devote our semester to studying the cultural distinctiveness of the Native peoples of New England, for example, the Mohawk, Mohegan, Abenaki, Wampanoag and Schaghticoke peoples and to understanding the historical processes of encounter, adaptation, resistance and renewal that have characterized Native life in the area for centuries. We explore histories of the pre- and post-contact period through the perspectives of various Native communities, and discuss the legacies of these histories for Native New England today. {H}{L}{S}
Fall, Spring, Alternate Years
AMS 230cc Colloquium: subjects on the Asian-American Experience-Chinese Diasporic Communities in the US and the World (4 Credits)
The course examines the histories of different Chinese diasporic communities in the world, including the United States as they relate to themes of race, empire, ethnicity, gender, globalization, and nationalism. Enrollment limited to 20. (E)
Fall, Spring, Variable
AMS 230ih Colloquium: subjects on the Asian-American Experience-US Imperialism and Hawai'i (4 Credits)
This course examines the history of U.S. occupation of Hawai'i as a case study of U.S. imperialism. The class examines the history of the rise and fall of the Hawaiian Kingdom, the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, the establishment of Hawai'i as a U.S. territory and the current status of Hawai'i as the 50th state in the United States. The class looks at the role of missionaries in introducing capitalist economy in Hawai'i, Native Hawaiian resistance to American annexation, indigenous land struggles as a result of urbanization and U.S. military expansion, Asian settlers in Hawai'i, revitalization of Hawaiian language and contemporary Native Hawaiian sovereignty movements for self-determination. (E) {H}
Fall, Variable
AMS 234 Living on Turtle Island: an Introduction to Indigenous and Settler Studies (4 Credits)
In this course we will focus on situating ourselves on Turtle Island--North America. We will prioritize the Indigenous histories of our shared home, the Northeast, while also considering histories of other peoples and places across the continent. Our aim will be to develop habits of thought to help us move beyond the reflexes and limitations of settler colonialism and to consider indigeneity in our everyday lives. Interdisciplinary readings will foreground indigeneity, race, feminist and decolonial analyses. This course is open to all students. Previous knowledge of Native American or Indigenous subjects is welcome but not assumed. {H}{S}
Fall, Spring, Variable
AMS 235 American Popular Culture (4 Credits)
This course offers an analytical history of American popular culture since 1865. We start from the premise that popular culture, far from being merely a frivolous or debased alternative to high culture, is an important site of popular expression, social instruction and cultural conflict. We examine theoretical texts that help us to read popular culture, even as we study specific artifacts from a variety of pop culture sources, from television shows to Hollywood movies, the pornography industry to spectator sports, and popular music to theme parks. We pay special attention to questions of desire, and to the ways popular culture has mediated and produced pleasure, disgust, fear and satisfaction. Alternating lecture/discussion format. Enrollment limited to 25. {H}{S}
Fall, Spring, Alternate Years
AMS 238 Only Joking: Race, Gender, and Comedy in American Culture (4 Credits)
Comedy has been a primary site for enacting and contesting citizenship in the United States. This course presents a history of comedy from the nineteenth century to the present to analyze the role of humor in shaping racial and gender stereotypes, as well as expressions of solidarity, resistance, and joy among marginalized groups. Case studies include blackface minstrelsy, stand up comedy, sit-coms, satirical news, social media posts, and cancel culture debates. The course applies cultural studies, affect theory, media studies, feminist studies, and critical race studies to analyze the social, political, psychological, and emotional work of comedy. {A}{H}{S}
Fall, Spring, Variable
AMS 239 Colloquium: The Culture Wars (4 Credits)
This course places the “Culture Wars” – U.S. political battles waged over issues such as race, gender, sexuality, the family, abortion, education, guns, climate change and even the “non-partisan” COVID-19 pandemic – into the context of latest U.S. history. The goal of the course is to invite students to think critically about the workings of the Culture Wars within America’s democratic political system and about the impact of the Culture Wars on the broader sweep of life in the U.S. The course pays particular attention to the ways power relationships are manifested, and contested, through the Culture Wars. Enrollment limited to 20. {H}{S}
Fall, Spring, Variable
AMS 240 Colloquium: Introduction to Disability Studies (4 Credits)
This course serves as an introductory exploration of the field of disability studies. It asks: how do we define disability? Who is disabled? And what resources do we need to properly study disability? Together, students investigate: trends in disability activism, histories of medicine and science, conceptions of normal embodiment, the utility of terms like "crippled" or "disabled"and the representation of disability in culture. Enrollment limited to 20. {H}{S}
Fall, Spring, Variable
AMS 245 Feminist & Indigenous Science (4 Credits)
In this course, we will consider such questions as: What do we know and how do we know it? What knowledges count as science? How is knowledge culturally situated? How has science been central to colonialism and capitalism and what would it mean to decolonize science(s)? Is feminist science possible? We will look at key sites and situations in media and popular culture, in science writing, in sociological accounts of science, in creation stories and traditional knowledges in which knowledge around the categories of race, gender, sex, sexuality, sovereignty, and dis/ability are produced, contested and made meaningful. {H}{S}
Fall, Spring, Variable
AMS 267/ SWG 267 Colloquium: Queer Ecologies: Race, Queerness, Disability and Environmental Justice (4 Credits)
Offered as AMS 267 and SWG 267. What is learned by practicing Queer Ecologies alongside Butler’s Lilith’s Brood, or Over the Hedge as environmental racism? The class considers what it means to have a racialized and sexualized identity shaped by relationships with environments. How is nature gendered, racialized and sexualized? Why? How are analytics of power mobilized around, or in opposition to, nature? How are conceptions of “disability” and “health” taken up in environmental justice movements? Students investigate the discursive and practical connections made between marginalized peoples and nature, and chart the knowledge gained by queering our conceptions of nature and the natural. Enrollment limited to 20. (E) {H}{S}
Fall, Spring, Variable
AMS 302 Seminar: The Material Culture of New England, 1630–1860 (4 Credits)
This course examines the material culture of everyday life in New England from the earliest colonial settlements to the Victorian era. It introduces students to the growing body of material culture studies and the ways in which historic landscapes, architecture, furniture, textiles, metalwork, ceramics, foodways and domestic environments are interpreted as cultural documents and as historical evidence. Offered on-site at Historic Deerfield (with transportation available from the Smith campus), the course offers students a unique opportunity to study the museum’s world-famous collections in a hands-on, interactive setting with curators and historians. Utilizing the disciplines of history, art and architectural history, anthropology, and archaeology, students explore the relationships between objects and ideas and the ways in which items of material culture both individually and collectively convey patterns of everyday life. Enrollment limited to 12. Juniors and seniors only. Instructor permission required. {A}{H}
Spring
AMS 340cc Seminar: Capstone in American Studies-Culture and Crisis (4 Credits)
According to a growing number of social theorists, and pretty much everybody else, this is an age of crisis. One of the critical tasks is to develop interdisciplinary tools to analyze how environmental conditions, economic systems, technological developments and political ideologies have sent humans on a path of catastrophes: climate change, resource exhaustion, inequality, social fragmentation and political repression. This course examines how these conditions have shaped American culture (asking why news broadcasts, the entertainment industry and social media respond to crises with distraction, disinformation, fear-mongering and scapegoating), and explore efforts of artists and activists to theorize and devise creative and just alternatives in visual arts, fiction, essays, comedy, movies and music. American Studies Majors only. Enrollment limited to 12. Juniors and seniors only. Instructor permission required. {H}{S}
Fall, Spring, Variable
AMS 340nd Seminar: Topics-Capstone in American Studies-New Directions in American Studies (4 Credits)
This seminar engages new scholarship in American Studies, with a focus on critical disability studies, critical race studies, queer ecologies, and feminist science & technology studies. This course presents an occasion to rethink approaches to interdisciplinarity, intersectionality, ethnic studies, and media & cultural studies. Likely texts include works by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Theri A. Pickens, Sami Schalk, Harlan Weaver, Cutcha Risling Baldy, Aurora Levins Morales, Ron Chew, La Marr Jurelle Bruce, Moya Bailey, Candace Fujikane, Sylvia Wynter, and M. Remi Yergeau. Limited to American Studies Majors. Enrollment limited to 12. Juniors and seniors only. Instructor permission required. {H}{S}
Fall, Spring, Variable
AMS 351np/ ENG 384np Seminar: subjects in Writing about American Society-Creative Nonfiction Writing through Photography (4 Credits)
Offered as AMS 351np and ENG 384np. A creative nonfiction writing workshop where students Strengthen their writing using photography as muse, guide, foil and inspiration. Students write long, creative nonfiction pieces about current issues in American life using photography as a method for inspiring, analyzing and improving the prose. Students take photos, report and write, applying principles of photography such as point of view, depth of field, focus, flatness and timing to help with the essentials of narrative prose. Stories range from blog posts to profiles to fully realized long form, magazine-style, nonfiction articles. This is not a photography course, and if students' photography improves as a result, that is a happy accident. No prior experience with photography required. Enrollment limited to 12. Juniors and seniors only. Writing demo and instructor permission required. {A}{L}{S}
Fall, Spring, Variable
AMS 355 Seminar: Tiny Homes in America: Salvaging the Material (4 Credits)
This seminar combines historical, theoretical, and material cultural sources about housing justice, and housing injustice, in the United States. A significant component of the course involves teaching students how to build a tiny house, while critically considering scholarly and popular cultural sources engaging the present, past, and (potential) future roles of small homes in America. In the class, we will pay particular attention to cultural-historical trends in home size and location as a way to better understand race, class, disability, settler colonialism, gender, age, sexuality, “the urban,” nature, sustainability, nation, and other analytics key to cutting-edge American Studies scholarship. Enrollment limited to 10. Juniors and seniors only. Instructor permission required. (E) {A}{S}
Fall, Spring, Variable
AMS 400 Special Studies (1-4 Credits)
Admission by permission of the instructor and the program director.
Fall, Spring
AMS 410 Tutorial on Research Methods at the Smithsonian (4 Credits)
Individual supervision by a Smithsonian staff member. Given in Washington, D.C. {H}{S}
Fall
AMS 412 Research Project at the Smithsonian Institution (8 Credits)
Tutorial supervision by Smithsonian staff members. Given in Washington, D.C. {H}{S}
Fall
AMS 431 Honors Project (8 Credits)
Fall, Spring
AMS 351np/ ENG 384np Seminar: subjects in Writing about American Society-Creative Nonfiction Writing through Photography (4 Credits)
Offered as AMS 351np and ENG 384np. A creative nonfiction writing workshop where students Strengthen their writing using photography as muse, guide, foil and inspiration. Students write long, creative nonfiction pieces about current issues in American life using photography as a method for inspiring, analyzing and improving the prose. Students take photos, report and write, applying principles of photography such as point of view, depth of field, focus, flatness and timing to help with the essentials of narrative prose. Stories range from blog posts to profiles to fully realized long form, magazine-style, nonfiction articles. This is not a photography course, and if students' photography improves as a result, that is a happy accident. No prior experience with photography required. Enrollment limited to 12. Juniors and seniors only. Writing demo and instructor permission required. {A}{L}{S}
Fall, Spring, Variable
ARX 340 Seminar: Taking the Archives Public (4 Credits)
This seminar brings together a cohort of archives concentrators and other advanced students to explore contemporary issues at the intersection of archives and public history. The readings focus on case studies and the challenges in preservation, access and interpretation of archival materials. The class analyzes how these materials become part of a meaningful and usable past for general audiences while taking into account the dynamics of national and collective identity formation, trauma, memorialization, social justice, and the changing digital landscape in the fields of public history and cultural heritage work. Enrollment limited to 15. Juniors and seniors only. {H}
Spring
FYS 188 Indigenous Peoples and the Environment: Myth and Reality (4 Credits)
This course examines the stereotype of the “ecological Indian”—a racial trope that has perpetuated the idea that Native North Americans are naturally closer to nature or are natural conservationists. The class looks at how this stereotype has shaped non-Native ideas about Indigenous peoples in what is now the United States and has affected Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination. This course also examines the varied ways Indigenous peoples have thought about ecological relationships and the strategies they developed to live in relation with the environment. The class critically examines the relationship between settler colonialism and the environment and considers contemporary and historical case studies in which Indigenous peoples have fought to protect and care for their lands and waters in the face of the ongoing violence of settler colonialism. Enrollment limited to 16 first-years. WI {H}
Fall, Variable
JUD 260 Colloquium: Yiddish Literature and Culture (4 Credits)
Why did Yiddish, the everyday language of Jews in east Europe and beyond, so often find itself at the bloody crossroads of art and politics? From dybbuks and shlemiels to radicals and revolutionaries, the course explores Yiddish stories, drama, and film as sites for social activism, ethnic and gender performance, and artistic experimentation in Europe, the Soviet Union, and the Americas. How did post-Holocaust engagements with Yiddish memorialize a lost civilization and forge an imagined homeland defined by language and culture rather than borders? All texts in translation. No prerequisites. Enrollment limited to 18. {L}
Fall, Spring, Alternate Years
THE 213 American Theatre and Drama (4 Credits)
This course discusses issues relevant to theatre history and practices, as well as dramatic literature, theories and criticism in 18th-, 19th- 20th- and 21st centuries United States of America, including African American, Native American, Hispanic American and Latinx, Asian American, LGBTQ+, the American musical, political, feminist and contemporary theatre and performance. Lectures, discussions and presentations are complemented by video screenings of latest productions of some of the plays under discussion. {A}{H}{L}
Spring
