American Leisure and Pastimes

Catalog description

What do you do in your free time? This course explores the who, what, where, and how of popular (and unpopular!) pastimes and leisure activities in the United States. We will examine how race, gender, class, and other identities shape individual and collective access and approach to leisure. How do pastimes reflect and create communities? Americans relax and play at individual and group levels, and we will consider the access and meanings that leisure has to diverse groups. This class will use an interdisciplinary model to look at topics such as gaming, cooking, reading, arts, crafts, sports, the outdoors, fashion, collecting, and consumption and their intersection with Americans’ free time. Using leisure as a lens, we will think critically about contemporary political and social issues, as well as some historical legacies.