Why study islands – places that
are often small, remote and seemingly insignificant? This class will highlight
the potential of island studies (nissology) for American history. In the
Western imagination, islands were and still are places of desire and colonial
exploitation. They have been looked at as laboratories of environmental and
social change long before they became the poster child of the effects of global
warming. We will scrutinize the cultural representation of islands from
colonial times to the present, analyze their military functions (military
bases, nuclear testing sites), their place within cities (river islands), look
at islands as border regimes (Angel and Ellis Islands) and as sites of
offshoring and externalizing taxes, leisure and waste.