Courses
Course I: Declaring Independence, 1620-1865Course I Syllabus
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Course II: Democratic Vistas, 1800-1900Course II Syllabus
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Course III: Re-making America, 1865-1945Course III Syllabus
Course IV: Pursuits of Happiness, 1920-2000Course IV Syllabus
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Students in this course examine technology, the mass market and consumerism, and the increasingly complex relations between identity and material goods. They will also explore the images, institutions, and stories of environmental, feminist, and Civil Rights activists in Cold War culture. Topics and texts include Yosemite National Park, Japanese internment camps, Adrienne Rich's poetry and prose, Freedom Summer, Las Vegas and the Mall of America.
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Burgeoning cities and industrialism, an emerging market economy, changing opportunities for women, an influx of immigrants, and the migration of African-Americans to urban centers all opened questions of freedom of expression, distribution of resources, and American identity. Topics and texts include the Statue of Liberty, the World's Columbian Exposition, the Model T Ford, and the Harlem Renaissance.
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In this century of institutional development, national expansion, and sectional conflict, Americans continued to define a national identity. Students probe the ways in which region, religion, race, ethnicity and gender inform individual and group contributions to the conversation. They also analyze how geographical expansion and ideas of progress influenced different visions and versions of America. Topics and texts include Transcendentalist writers, The Second Great Awakening, Black Elk Speaks, landscape painting and Western photography.
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Spanning two centuries, from the founding of the colonies to the close of the Civil War, this course begins our discussion of questions central to the entire sequence: "What is an American?" and "What does it mean to be free?" Students explore the institutions, images, and stories of Euro-Americans, African-Americans and Native Americans. Topics and texts include the Declaration of Independence and Thomas Jefferson's architecture, the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, and the coming of the Civil War.
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