Spring 2002 Syllabus: for reference only
Students will be expected to attend each seminar, to
do the reading, and to participate fully in seminar discussions. While
Clemens and Martin will help to direct the discussion, this will be a
seminar primarily driven by the collective: that is, all of us. In other
words, active engagement is absolutely imperative.
To enhance the quality of our discussions, each week the seminar members must read the book in a timely manner. By the Tuesday evening before class (no later than 9 p.m.), each member is to submit for circulation to the e-mail list 2/3 substantial questions to lay on the table for discussion. These questions will help guide our discussions.
In addition to active participation in seminar discussions every week, each participant will be asked to give an oral critique of a recommended text during a session. This brief oral report (roughly 10 mintues) should stress the text's historiographical importance. These texts will be decided upon in consultation with the group, notably the instructors. Choose a text to report on that both interests you and on which you will want to write a critique. Feel free to suggest potential texts for reports to the group. We will propose texts to get us started with these critiques. In the past, a concise, one page, printed summary of the report - passed out right before giving the in-class report - has proven to be very helpful for the group. The oral component of the seminar (roughly a third of the grade) consists, then, of two parts: strong participation in discussion each week, and an oral report on a recommended text.
There will be three (3) papers. One will be a 5 page critical review (roughly 15%) of the text chosen for one's oral critique. This paper will be an essay built essentially upon the oral presentation. Of course this essay will be polished for its written presentation; a mere transcription of the oral presentation will not suffice. This paper is due the week after one's oral critique.
The second and third papers (roughly 25% each) will be historiographical essays (12-15 pp. each ) on topics of your own choosing. Observe the following guidelines. First, between them these two papers should demonstrate: (1) different topical/thematic emphases; and, (2) significant chronological coverage reaching across the latter third of the nineteen century as well as the twentieth century. This can be accomplished in various ways. We suggest doing one paper rooted in the nineteenth-century ( i.e., Reconstruction) and another rooted in the twentieth-century (i.e., the Modern Welfare State). Or, you might do two thematic/conceptual papers (i.e., Middle Class Formation, Gender Politics, War and Society) both of which deal substantially with developments in each century. Second, you must critically analyze the best as well as the most recent work on a topic and place your assessment of that work within the historical debate(s) surrounding that topic. Third, it's a good idea to discuss each of your major paper topics with one or both of us. We will both read all papers and offer consensus evaluations of all oral as well as written work. The first historiographical essay will be due on February 28; the second on April 25.
SCHEDULE
January 22: The Philosophy and Practice of History
Peter Novick, That Noble Dream
January 29: Emancipation, Civil War, and Their Aftermath
Eric Foner, Reconstruction
February 5: The West
William Cronon, Nature's Metropolis
February 12: War, Diplomacy, and Gender
Kristin Hoganson, Fighting for American Manhood
February 19: Atlantic Crossings
Roger Daniels, Atlantic Crossings
February 26: Race and Working Class Agency
Tera Hunter, To 'Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women's Lives and Labors after the Civil War; and,
Robin D. G. Kelley, Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression
March 5: Identity and Migration/Immigration
George Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American
MARCH 5: FIRST HISTORIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY DUE
March 12: Gay History and Culture
George Chauncey, Gay New York
March 19: Labor
Liz Cohen, Making a New Deal
March 26: SPRING BREAK
April 2: The New Deal Era
Steve Fraser and Gary Gerstle, The Rise and Fall of the New Deal Order
April 9: World War II
John Dower, War Without Mercy
April 16: McCarthyism and Beyond
Ellen Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism; and,
another text TBA
To enhance the quality of our discussions, each week the seminar members must read the book in a timely manner. By the Tuesday evening before class (no later than 9 p.m.), each member is to submit for circulation to the e-mail list 2/3 substantial questions to lay on the table for discussion. These questions will help guide our discussions.
In addition to active participation in seminar discussions every week, each participant will be asked to give an oral critique of a recommended text during a session. This brief oral report (roughly 10 mintues) should stress the text's historiographical importance. These texts will be decided upon in consultation with the group, notably the instructors. Choose a text to report on that both interests you and on which you will want to write a critique. Feel free to suggest potential texts for reports to the group. We will propose texts to get us started with these critiques. In the past, a concise, one page, printed summary of the report - passed out right before giving the in-class report - has proven to be very helpful for the group. The oral component of the seminar (roughly a third of the grade) consists, then, of two parts: strong participation in discussion each week, and an oral report on a recommended text.
There will be three (3) papers. One will be a 5 page critical review (roughly 15%) of the text chosen for one's oral critique. This paper will be an essay built essentially upon the oral presentation. Of course this essay will be polished for its written presentation; a mere transcription of the oral presentation will not suffice. This paper is due the week after one's oral critique.
The second and third papers (roughly 25% each) will be historiographical essays (12-15 pp. each ) on topics of your own choosing. Observe the following guidelines. First, between them these two papers should demonstrate: (1) different topical/thematic emphases; and, (2) significant chronological coverage reaching across the latter third of the nineteen century as well as the twentieth century. This can be accomplished in various ways. We suggest doing one paper rooted in the nineteenth-century ( i.e., Reconstruction) and another rooted in the twentieth-century (i.e., the Modern Welfare State). Or, you might do two thematic/conceptual papers (i.e., Middle Class Formation, Gender Politics, War and Society) both of which deal substantially with developments in each century. Second, you must critically analyze the best as well as the most recent work on a topic and place your assessment of that work within the historical debate(s) surrounding that topic. Third, it's a good idea to discuss each of your major paper topics with one or both of us. We will both read all papers and offer consensus evaluations of all oral as well as written work. The first historiographical essay will be due on February 28; the second on April 25.
SCHEDULE
January 22: The Philosophy and Practice of History
Peter Novick, That Noble Dream
January 29: Emancipation, Civil War, and Their Aftermath
Eric Foner, Reconstruction
February 5: The West
William Cronon, Nature's Metropolis
February 12: War, Diplomacy, and Gender
Kristin Hoganson, Fighting for American Manhood
February 19: Atlantic Crossings
Roger Daniels, Atlantic Crossings
February 26: Race and Working Class Agency
Tera Hunter, To 'Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women's Lives and Labors after the Civil War; and,
Robin D. G. Kelley, Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression
March 5: Identity and Migration/Immigration
George Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American
MARCH 5: FIRST HISTORIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY DUE
March 12: Gay History and Culture
George Chauncey, Gay New York
March 19: Labor
Liz Cohen, Making a New Deal
March 26: SPRING BREAK
April 2: The New Deal Era
Steve Fraser and Gary Gerstle, The Rise and Fall of the New Deal Order
April 9: World War II
John Dower, War Without Mercy
April 16: McCarthyism and Beyond
Ellen Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism; and,
another text TBA
April 23: Cold War and the American
Century
Marc Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European
Settlement, 1945-1963
April 30: The City
Thomas Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality
in Postwar Detroit
April 30: SECOND HISTORIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY DUE
May 7: Cultural Wars
Edward Linenthal and Tom Engelhardt, eds., History Wars: The Enola
Gay and Other Battles for the American Past
