The content of the 1st semester course on US civilization will be a "panorama" of facets of modern-day culture in the US, including
- geography, both physical and human,
- institutions (lots about institutions), including the tri-partite structure and organization of the federal government, with its "checks and balances" governing the relations between the branches, and federalism, that is, the relations between the federal (also called central or national) government, and those of the states that make up the federation.
- the population, including statistics about the number of people in the US, and also in various states, i.e., population distribution, including racial and ethnic minorities and majorities, as well as gender, religious groups, language groups and so on.
- education, which has always played a role in pinging at least some minorities into the majority, as well as providing a remarkable illustration of federalism, since education is usually regarded as being primarily under the authority of the states, with the federal government playing a supporting role.
- religion is a necessary component of the course, since religion has always played a major role in US politics and culture, despite the separation of church and state that is enshrined in the First Amendment. In fact, religious freedom is itself arguably part of the "civil religion" that contributes to US culture.
In any case, the starting point for each of the major topics discussed will be current events, which provide living and sometimes lively examples of the somewhat abstract questions under discussion.
(Readers will have noticed that I use "America" and "American" sparingly in referring to the United States of America, and prefer to use "US" or "United States". One difficulty is that while there are the adjectives derived from "Canada" ("Canadian") and Bolivia, ("Bolivian"), there are none derived from "United States". I will try to find ways to circumvent this difficulty, but can hardly guarantee success. Nonetheless, I believe it is important to keep in mind that the United States is one of the countries on the American continents, but not the only one, and that people from Canada or Bolivia have as legitimate a claim on the adjective "American" as people from the US.)