HIST 269 - Topics in United States, Latin American or Canadian History

FDR: HU
Credits: 3 in fall or winter; 4 in spring
A course offered from time to time, depending on student interest and staff availability, on a selected topic or problem in United States, Latin American or Canadian history. May be repeated for degree credit if the topics are different.

Spring 2015 topics:

HIST 269-01: The Freedom Ride. (4). An intensive study of the Civil Rights Movement through the lens of the Freedom Riders. This reading- and writing-intensive four-week study includes a two-week tour of major Civil Rights protest sites in the lower Southern United States. (HU) DeLaney.

HIST 269-02: Topic in U.S. History: Morning in America? Society, Culture, and Politics (4). An in-depth analysis of the United States during the Reagan presidency. While the bulk of the course focuses on the 1980s, it also provides an overview of the 1960s and 1970s and culminates with an evaluation of the legacy of the decade in contemporary America. Rather than studying a single theme across a long period of time, this class is designed to provide students with a variety of thematic approaches within a more confined time-period. Accordingly, while the focus is on national politics, we explore the impact of the decade on economic, social, environmental, religious, cultural, diplomatic, and political history. One of the key questions this class attempts to answer through the various thematic approaches is: How conservative were the 1980s? (HU) Michelmore. Spring 2015

Fall 2014 topics:

HIST 269A: The American Century: U.S. History, 1945 to the Present (3). This course explores the history of the United States after World War II – a period sometimes referred to as the “American Century.” Major topics include the Bomb, the rise and fall of American liberalism, the Cold War at home and abroad, suburbanization and the consumer culture, race and civil rights, feminism, anti-feminism, the gay and lesbian liberation movement, Vietnam and foreign policy, the rise of conservatism and neoliberalism, and the challenges of globalization. (HU) Michelmore.

HIST 269B: Afro-Latin America (3). This class examines the intrinsic role that African peoples have played in the historical formation of the geographic and cultural area known as Latin America. We survey the history of African descendant people in the Americas, from the forced migration of the Atlantic slave trade to the Haitian Revolution; from the sugar plantation to the city street; from Brazilian Samba in the 1920s to the emergence of salsa music in Spanish Harlem in the 1970s. Topics include: slavery, the Haitian Revolution and its legacy, debates on “racial democracy,” and the relationship between gender, race, and empire. (HU) Gildner.

HIST 269C: Slavery in the Americas (3). An intensive examination of slavery, abolition movements, and emancipation in North America, the Caribbean and Latin America. Emphasis is on the use of primary sources and class discussion of assigned readings. Writing requirements are lighter for this 269-level as opposed to the 366 course. (HU) Delaney.

Winter 2015 topic:

HIST 269: The American Experience with Guerrilla Warfare and Insurgency (3). Appropriate for juniors and seniors. This course dives headlong into the chaotic, destructive and brutally violent world that has been American involvement with irregular warfare. Over the past 400 years Americans have trained guerrillas, fought as irregulars, and sparked armed insurrections. This course looks at the broad typology of violence known as irregular warfare, including insurrections, violent revolutions, partisan and guerrilla warfare, U.S. Army/Native American conflict and 20th-century insurgency and low-intensity conflict. How do we define guerrilla warfare? Who chooses to become an irregular? Why do they do so? These are just a few questions we will engage. (HU) Myers.