AMST 215 Final, Fall 2005

AMST 215 Introduction to American Studies Final Exam Please answer 3 of the following questions. 1. Melani McAlister used five snapshots to highlight the U.S. encounter with the Middle East since 9-11. Because these images were capable of conveying multiple meanings, they served as appropriate foci around which to discuss the range of activities, attitudes and meanings various people have seen in public events, and to suggest what they have missed. Your task is to choose a sixth image that McAlister might have chosen but did not, to analyze its multiple meanings, and hence to shed light on the complex encounters between the U.S. and the Middle East since 9-11. 2. How does an understanding of AUB upon Lebanon and the wider region, and its status today? What has been the role of specific events, intentions, and unintended consequences? What would its founders think of AUB today? a simple, unitary vision of identity. What are the similarities and differences in their arguments? 4. For Gilroy, in what sense does Israel present a cautionary example for the separatist dreams of Afrocentrists? 5. W. E. B. Dubois often spoke of the double consciousness of the American Negro at once American and Black, aware of American ideals but excluded within the country. How did this perspective allow Dubois to analyze the violence of World War I in an innovative way? For Amy Kaplan, what were the benefits and limitations of his perspective?