41 - 50 of 81 results for: HISTORY

Comparative focus on the demographic, political, social and economic histories of American Indians & Alaska Natives, African Americans, Chinese Americans and Japanese Americans during late 18th and early 20th century California. Topics: relationships with Spanish, Mexican, U.S. Federal, State and local governments; intragroup and intergroup relationships; and differences such as religion, class and gender.

Except for the Bible no text has been the subject of as much modern interpretive scrutiny as the United States Constitution. This course explores both the historical dimensions of its creation as well as the meaning such knowledge should bring to bear on its subsequent interpretation. In light of the modern obsession with the document's "original meaning," this course will explore the intersections of history, law, and textual meaning to probe what an "original" interpretation of the Constitution looks like.

The model minority myth has been used to create a wedge between Asian and Black people in the United States, and masks the histories and lives of itinerant South Asian traders, laborers, and farmers. Beginning in the 1860s, South Asians (mostly male, and often undocumented) traveled to major ports in the US, such as New York City, New Orleans, and the California coast, where they found working-class jobs and married Puerto Rican, African American, Creole, and Mexican women. Some South Asians were double migrants, first brought to British colonies in the Caribbean and South America through indentured servitude, and later migrated to the United States. Their life stories expand to the racial history of the United States by looking beyond a Black/white binary. By juxtaposing immigrant stories with exclusionary US immigration laws, the course touches upon major themes of migration, capitalism, surveillance, race and racism, multiracial couples and communities, resistance, intersectional activism, borderlands and cities in the US, and the formation of national identity. During the quarter, we will seek to connect experiences in the past with contemporary issues of political culture in the United States to engage with the continuing challenge of locating and attaining self-definition, justice, and social progress in a fraught and divided world.

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.

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.

What is capitalism? An economic and social system that maximizes both individual freedom and social good? An exploitative arrangement dependent on the subordination of labor to capital? A natural arrangement guided by a munificent invisible hand? Or a finely tuned mechanism requiring state support? This class offers undergraduate and graduate students a forum to consider these questions by reading selected works by historians, sociologists, economists, and other thinkers. Together we will work our way through primary sources from the twentieth century, using them to examine how capitalism has been understood, conceptualized, defended, and attacked. We will study the history of debates about markets, the state, and social organization, taking capitalism as both an economic system and a culture. Permission number required to enroll. Please contact Professor Burns at jenniferburns@stanford.edu to request permission to enroll in the course.

This course will explore the history of Mexican migrants and Mexican Americans from 1848 to the present.

Students will work with the Stanford Immigration and Asylum Lab to conduct research on conditions in Mexico and Central America to support people seeking U.S. asylum. With the guidance of historians and attorneys, students will analyze publicly available information on violence, corruption, discrimination, and other relevant country conditions to corroborate the lived experiences of asylum-seeking clients. Through collaborations with local nonprofit legal services providers, students will contribute country conditions research for expert testimony to support the asylum cases of people who have fled persecution. Guest lecturers will include legal practitioners, a former immigration judge, and other experts on U.S. asylum and Latin America. Through this work, students will gain critical research skills and an understanding of the U.S. asylum system, its implications in the Americas, and contemporary human security issues in the region, while meaningfully impacting people in need of protection.

This course studies one of the most pressing issues of our day--massive population displacements--from a historical perspective. Our focus will be the Ottoman Empire and its successor states, including Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Israel/Palestine. Questions include the following: When and why did certain ethno-religious groups begin to relocate en masse? To what extent were these departures caused by state policy? In what cases can we apply the term "ethnic cleansing"? How did the movement of people and the idea of the nation influence each other in the modern age?