How have different Americans imagined what it means to be American? What ideas about national membership, diversity, and character have shaped their conceptions of Americanness? How have they used the law to define who belongs within the nation and who does not? This course explores how Americans have answered these questions in both the past and the present. This course is taught by a cultural historian and a non-lawyer. It will mix legal issues such as citizenship rules and Indian policy with a wide array of political and cultural materials, including political journalism, film, fiction, and contemporary Websites. Our assumption will be that there is no ‘right’ answer to the question, “What Is An American?” Rather we will track conflicts among different visions of Americanness—including some that are disturbingly exclusionary—and pay particular attention to the ways in which the law institutionalizes those visions.