About the Course

• Vital Statistics:
  
  Time: Tuesday and Thursday, 2:30-4:00
  Location: Eads 204
  
  
• Course Description
  
  This central multidisciplinary course for the Hewlett program in American Culture Studies is taught by faculty members from biology, English literature, and history. The focal point of the course is the 1804-06 "Voyage of Discovery" led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark--an event that dramatically altered the nation's identity, expanding the country's perception of America's enormous diversity and giving special urgency to the issue of how much difference the United States can contain, geographically institutionally, and culturally.
  
  Using selections from the expedition Journals, the course will provide an introduction to the varied, sometimes conflicting, ways that different disciplines examine a problem: history, literature, art, anthropology, economics, political science, and the natural sciences, as well as race and gender theory. Set in its historical context, the expedition invites students to investigate how peoples of vastly differing cultures (then and now) meet and interact; how and why people seek to explore the unknown; how they come to terms with their environment, map it, and use technology to master it; how they seek to understand plant and animal life; how they respond to disease and injury; how they gather and develop "knowledge," and accept or reject information; how leaders assess public needs and define political responsibility.
  
  Students will choose which questions to investigate and help to determine the disciplinary paths to follow in this effort. We will meet for formal lectures and small group discussions, and students will pursue independent research that will lead to writing projects and presentations. The course will also involve field trips to sites along the expeditionary route.
  
  
• About the Instructors
  
  Unlike most other classes, this course involves a team of professors. Indeed, it is not entirely limited to one "course." The materials you study for this class will also provide the basis for assignments in Expository Writing (E Comp 100). Each of the instructors brings his or her own background and specialty to the course. The goal is to expose students to a broad range of topics and approaches. Equally important, students should engage instructors who share their interests.

Peter Kastor followed a path to St. Louis similar to that of Lewis and Clark, but with far less privation. He arrived in 1998 from Albemarle County Virginia, home of Thomas Jefferson as well as both the Lewis and Clark families. He is currently working on a book that examines the struggle to incorporate the people and land the United States acquired through the Louisiana Purchase. Office: 130 Old McMillan Phone: 935-7663 Office Hours: Tuesday and Thursday, 12:00-2:00 E-Mail: pjkastor@artsci.wustl.edu

David Callon ?? E-Mail:djcallon@artsci.wustl.edu

Angelic Zeller-Michaelson ?? E-Mail: azellerm@artsci.wustl.edu