printer friendly pageHISTORY 256A: Antebellum America (HISTORY 356A)
In the decades leading up to the American Civil War, the United States underwent profound transformations. Diverse developments - including the expansion of slavery and the increasing power of the cotton kingdom, the rise of the Second Great Awakening and mass politics, the growth of capitalism and its attendant panics, the construction of a series of reform movements, and deep uncertainties and anxieties about the proper role of women and people of color in the still new nation - made the lived experience of the period incredibly tumultuous. In this advanced undergraduate/graduate colloquium, students will explore the social, cultural, religious, political, economic, labor, and gender history and historiography of antebellum America, with a particular focus on how these developments were experienced by ordinary people.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
Instructors:
Twitty, A. (PI)
HISTORY 256E: The American Civil War: The Lived Experience (AFRICAAM 256E, AMSTUD 256E)
What was it like to live in the United States during the Civil War? This course uses the lenses of racial/ethnic identity, gender, class, and geography (among others) to explore the breadth of human experience during this singular moment in American history. It illuminates the varied ways in which Americans, in the Union states and the Confederate states, struggled to move forward and to find meaning in the face of unprecedented division and destruction.
Last offered: Summer 2021
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 256G: Constructing Race and Religion in America (AMSTUD 246, CSRE 246, RELIGST 246)
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.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
Instructors:
Lum, K. (PI)
;
Mueller, J. (PI)
HISTORY 257C: LGBTQ History of the United States (FEMGEN 140D, FEMGEN 240D)
An introductory course that explores LGBT/Queer social, cultural, and political history in the United States. By analyzing primary documents that range from personal accounts (private letters, autobiography, early LGBT magazines, and oral history interviews) to popular culture (postcards, art, political posters, lesbian pulp fiction, and film) to medical, military, and legal papers, students will understand how the categories of gender and sexuality have changed over the past 150 years. This class investigates the relationship among queer, straight and transgender identities. Seminar discussions will question how the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality influenced the construction of these categories.
Last offered: Spring 2021
| UG Reqs: GER:EC-Gender, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 257D: War, Revolution, and Modern American Society
War has fundamentally shaped the ways that Americans think about themselves, their fellow Americans, and the meanings of national citizenship. Whatever the extent of American participation, war has transformed how Americans think about other nations, the environment, technology, and the meaning of death and dying. War has also posed challenges of representation, both for those who fought as well as those who did not. Wars and revolutions abroad have likewise played a part in molding American identity. This course examines how Americans have observed, experienced, and thought about modern war and revolution in history, literature, and popular culture. Course themes will include mobilization, protest and dissent, building empire, gender and masculinity, race and xenophobia, the economics of war, coercion and propaganda, war and the environment, and the changing meanings of death and sacrifice. The course begins with the American Civil War, and takes students through the rise of American
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War has fundamentally shaped the ways that Americans think about themselves, their fellow Americans, and the meanings of national citizenship. Whatever the extent of American participation, war has transformed how Americans think about other nations, the environment, technology, and the meaning of death and dying. War has also posed challenges of representation, both for those who fought as well as those who did not. Wars and revolutions abroad have likewise played a part in molding American identity. This course examines how Americans have observed, experienced, and thought about modern war and revolution in history, literature, and popular culture. Course themes will include mobilization, protest and dissent, building empire, gender and masculinity, race and xenophobia, the economics of war, coercion and propaganda, war and the environment, and the changing meanings of death and sacrifice. The course begins with the American Civil War, and takes students through the rise of American empire, the world wars, the Bolshevik Revolution, the Cold War, Vietnam, and closes with the War on Terror. Students will be introduced to a variety of primary and secondary sources and historical methods directed at probing the paradox of how conflict creates social cohesion, and will be guided by a basic ethical question: how do we live together?
Terms: Sum
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
Instructors:
Clements, A. (PI)
HISTORY 259C: The Civil Rights Movement in American History and Memory (AMSTUD 259C, HISTORY 359C)
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.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
Instructors:
Campbell, J. (PI)
HISTORY 259E: American Interventions, 1898-Present (HISTORY 359E, 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
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
Instructors:
Rakove, R. (PI)
HISTORY 260P: American Protest Movements, Past and Present (AMSTUD 260P, FEMGEN 260P)
(
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
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 261C: Topics in Writing & Rhetoric: Racism, Misogyny, and the Law (CSRE 194KTA, FEMGEN 194, PWR 194KTA)
The gutting of the Voting Rights Act in 2013 by the Supreme Court of the United States led to the consequent disenfranchisement of many voters of color. For many citizens who desire a truly representative government, SCOTUS's decision predicted the collapse of democracy and endorsed White supremacy. In this course, through an examination of jurisprudential racism and misogyny, students will learn to dissect the rhetoric of the U.S. judicial branch and the barriers it constructs to equity and inclusion through caselaw and appellate Opinions. The United States of America long deprived the right to vote to men of color and women of every race, and equal access to justice including at the intersections has been an enduring fight. The history of employment law, criminal justice, access to healthcare, and more includes jurisprudence enforcing racist and misogynist U.S. policies and social dynamics. Students will learn how to read a case, scrutinize court briefings, and contextualize bias as a foundation to erect a more just, equitable, and inclusionary legal system.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 261E: Introduction to Asian American History (AMSTUD 261W, ASNAMST 261)
This course provides an introduction to the field of Asian American history. Tracing this history between the arrival of the first wave of Asian immigrants to the US in the mid-nineteenth century and the present, we foreground the voices and personal histories of seemingly everyday Asian Americans. In the process, the course disrupts totalizing national historical narratives that center the US nation-state and its political leaders as the primary agents of historical change.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
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