IMAGES AND IDENTITIES IN US FOREIGN RELATIONS

Catalog description

This graduate-level reading colloquium will explore the construction of cultural images and national identities in US foreign relations. Course readings and discussions will deal not only with the ways that Americans have “constructed” other nations but also with how other nations have “constructed” the United States. Themes to be explored include the role of intangibles such as culture in the making of policy; the accuracy or inaccuracy of cultural constructs; and the permanency or malleability of cultural ideas.