New job

If you check my Facebook updates, you might have heard that I have a new job...sort of...or at least I have signed a contract and will start working once the gov't approves my Visa. I'm scheduled to start in March which should give me plenty of time to prep, go to Singapore twice (since the current Visa is expiring and the work Visa isn't ready and I'll have to go out once it is), finally move all the way into the new house, learn my way around a crazy busy city and sleep.

But like all new jobs, I have no idea what I'm actually doing. There are supposed to be two components to what I'll be teaching: literature and American studies. There's no problem with the literature part - I could and have taught that in my sleep (my spologies to any of you who were my Eureka students). I enjoy it, especially the theory. My resourses for good texts may be a bit limited here but I can creatively work around that.

I really don't have the first clue about American studies. I haven't really paid much attention to America for the last several years and was never cool so I don't have any idea about pop culture unless Relevant wrote about it (and by that time, everyone in America had moved on to something new already).

Multiculturalism in America? Thematic Film studies? American Intellectual History? Theory of Culture? Method of Cultural Research?

So who/what should I be reading? I'll be heading to Singapore this weekend where bookstores abound so any ideas would really be appreciated.