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 2014 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: Digital America: A Brief History of the Computer and Modern U.S. Information Society (4). This sprint of a class looks at the birth of the digital computer, traces electronic data processing from the days of mainframes through personal computers and the emergence of today’s digital “cloud,” and interrogates precisely what a modern “information society” in the United States looks like. Equal parts technology, business, politics, culture, and social theory, the class looks at “information” and how it is has been collected, managed, manipulated, and experienced in America over the past seven decades. (HU) McGee. Spring 2014

Winter 2014 Topics:

HIST-269-01: Modern U.S. Business History, Late 19th Century to the Present (3). This seminar in the history of capitalism in the United States focuses on the institutions, individuals, and practices that transformed commerce and industry through waves of industrial, management, post-industrial, and information revolutions. We place this transformation within broader political, social, and cultural context. Topics include entrepreneurship; the rise of new models of firms and corporations; the shifting relationship between state and market; the ways in which businesses and businessmen are portrayed by popular culture; and the often-surprising influences of new technologies, the natural environment, emerging social movements, conflicts over labor and state regulation, shifting political ideologies, and evolution in social thought about the broader place of business in American society. (HU) McGee.

HIST-269-02: Blacks in the Age of Jim Crow (3). This course is an intensive examination of southern race relations from 1890 through 1965 which focuses on racial injustice and poverty; black education and entrepreneurship; and the quest for Civil Rights and the white backlash that it provoked. It also focuses on white demagogues and liberals as well as black leaders. (HU) DeLaney.

HIST-269-03: Evolution of American Warfare (3). This course examines U.S. military history from the colonial period to the post-9/11 American military experience. Since this is a period of more than four hundred years, the class necessarily limits its focus to major topics and central questions facing the men and women who have fought in American wars. We trace the course of American military history by focusing on three themes: the early development of American military institutions, the evolution of military policy toward civilian populations, and the changing face of battle in which Americans have fought. (HU) Myers.

Fall 2013 Topic:

HIST 269-01: Cancelled

HIST 269-02: Experiencing the American Century: The United States 1945 to Present (3). Prerequisite: Open to any senior, junior or sophomore, and first years who have credit in Hist 107 and 108. A survey of American political, cultural, and social history from 1945 to the present. Explores major events, periods, trends, personages, and concepts associated with the period, and students analyze these themes in broader context. Students engage the historical method and communicate structured arguments effectively (in both written and oral form) using secondary literature and primary documents. (HU) McGee.