HISTORY 356G: Constructing Race and Religion in America (AMSTUD 246, CSRE 246, HISTORY 256G, RELIGST 246, RELIGST 346)
This seminar focuses on the interrelationships between social constructions of race and social interpretations of religion in America. How have assumptions about race shaped religious worldviews? How have religious beliefs shaped racial attitudes? How have ideas about religion and race contributed to notions of what it means to be "American"? We will look at primary and secondary sources and at the historical development of ideas and practices over time.
Last offered: Autumn 2020
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 357E: History of Conservatism (HISTORY 257E)
What is conservatism in America? Where did it come from, and where might it be going? Looking at conservatism as a political, social, and intellectual movement, we will consider these questions by reading primary and secondary sources and archival material. Suitable for students of any or no particular political persuasion. No prerequisites or background required, although the reading will be considerable.
Last offered: Summer 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 358A: Back to the Future: Media, Art, and Politics in the 1980s (AMSTUD 128B, COMM 128, COMM 228, COMM 328, HISTORY 258A)
(
COMM 128 is offered for 5 units,
COMM 228 is offered for 4 units.
COMM 328 is offered for 3-5 units.)This seminar covers the intersection of politics, media and art in the U.S. from the end of the Vietnam War in 1975 to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Topics include globalization and financialization; the rise of the New Right; the personalization of media technology, from television to computing; postmodernism and political art; feminism, queer, and sex-positive activism; identity politics and the culture wars. Open to juniors, seniors, and graduate students.
Last offered: Winter 2024
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 358G: The Origins of American Liberalism
In the 1870s, liberalism in America was associated with freedom of contract, small government, and, quite often, restrictions on suffrage. Today, liberalism means nearly the opposite of that. This class examines how factors like war, industrialization, urbanization, immigration, disease, fascism, and economic instability have reshaped liberalism. American liberalism has been labelled protean, flexible, or just imprecise. The goal of this course is to identify some of the strands that hold it together by contextualizing its evolution within social changes that have forced liberals to reevaluate their ideas.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 359C: The Civil Rights Movement in American History and Memory (AMSTUD 259C, HISTORY 259C)
This course examines the origins, conduct, and complex legacy of the Civil Rights Movement, as well as the continuing struggle over how the movement should be remembered and represented. Topics examined include: the NAACP legal campaign against segregation; the Montgomery Bus Boycott; the career of Martin Luther King, Jr.; the birth of the student movement; the 1964 Mississippi Summer Project; the rise of Black Power; Black political movements in the urban North; and the persistence of racial inequality in post-Jim Crow America.
Last offered: Spring 2024
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 359E: American Interventions, 1898-Present (HISTORY 259E, INTNLREL 168A)
This class seeks to examine the modern American experience with limited wars, beginning with distant and yet pertinent cases, and culminating in the war in Iraq. Although this class will examine war as a consequence of foreign policy, it will not focus primarily on presidential decision making. Rather, it will place wartime policy in a broader frame, considering it alongside popular and media perceptions of the war, the efforts of antiwar movements, civil-military relations, civil reconstruction efforts, and conditions on the battlefield. We will also examine, when possible, the postwar experience. Non-matriculating students are asked to consult the instructor before enrolling in the course.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
Instructors:
Rakove, R. (PI)
HISTORY 360: Black Women, Trauma, and the Art of Resistance (AMSTUD 260, FEMGEN 260, HISTORY 260)
This course explores how Black women have experienced, remembered, and recovered from trauma. Drawing on historical texts, works in psychology, legal records, medical literature, diaries, novels, poetry, plays, songs, and films, we will consider how Black women recorded, passed down, and inherited stories about traumatic events. We begin in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with Black women's experiences on slave ships and during slavery, we discuss intergenerational trauma, and we conclude by examining the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on Black women's lives. We pay considerable attention to how Black women relied on the arts to speak the unspeakable. The class will centrally address healing, recovery, and resistance. We will read texts by writers, activists, legal scholars, and artists including Harriet Jacobs, Ida B. Wells, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, Toni Morrison, Ntozake Shange, bell hooks, Saidiya Hartman, Kimberle Crenshaw, and Jesmyn Ward.
Last offered: Winter 2025
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 360P: American Protest Movements, Past and Present (FEMGEN 360P)
(
History 260P is an undergraduate course offered for 5 units;
History 360P is a graduate course offered for 4-5 units.) Societal change comes only when individuals and groups speak out, perseverantly, against prevailing norms. This course examines the overlapping histories of three nineteenth-century protest movements: antislavery, womens rights, and temperance. It focuses on the arguments and tactics used by these movements to persuade Americans to oppose the status quo, and it examines the points of agreement and disagreement that arose within and among these movements. Ultimately, the course connects these past protest movements to more recent analogs, such as Black Lives Matter, ERA ratification, and marijuana legalization. Throughout the course, race, gender, and class serve as central analytical themes.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 361: Topics in US History: African American History inText and Context
This interdisciplinary colloquium offers students an opportunity not only to read and discuss some of the canonical works in African American Studies, but also to place them within their historical contexts. Authors include Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, Nella Larsen, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison. The course, which can be taken for either three or five units, is intended for graduate students, though advanced undergraduates may enroll with the instructor's permission.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
Instructors:
Campbell, J. (PI)
HISTORY 361D: History of Civil Rights Law
(Same as
LAW 7838.) This is a seminar that will examine canonical civil rights law using history. We will investigate the historical context behind the enactment of particular laws and judicial decisions. We will also discuss the meaning and implications of the term "civil rights law." Readings will include cases, law review articles, primary sources, and history articles. Topics will include segregation, abortion, workers' rights, and disability. 14th Amendment is not a prerequisite for the seminar. Requirements for the course include regular class participation and, at the students' election, either response papers or a historiographical essay. Elements used in grading: Attendance, Class Participation, Written Assignments, Final Paper. CONSENT APPLICATION: To apply for this course, students must complete and submit a Consent Application Form available on the SLS website (Click Courses at the bottom of the homepage and then click Consent of Instructor Forms). See Consent Application Form for instructions and submission deadline.
Last offered: Spring 2024
| Units: 5