Internal students will be expected to attend two lectures and one tutorial a week.

External students are expected to listen to two lectures through Echo 360, and engage in one forum discussion through iLearn.

I will not keep track of attendance, your participation grade will be earnt through the weekly quiz.

Readings will be made available through iLearn.

 Readings:

• James McPherson, "Antebellum Southern Exceptionalism: A New Look at an Old Question." Civil War History, Vol. 50 Number 4 (2004), pp. 418-433
• The Constitution of The Confederate States of America (1860), online at http://www.civilwarhome.com/csconstitution.htm

Tute Questions:

• What is 'American exceptionalism'?
• Should we consider the North and the South two separate cultural and political entities?
• What are the consequences of doing so?

 Readings:

• David Blight, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (2003), Ch. 8, "The Lost Cause and Causes Not Lost", pp. 255-299.
• Steven Hahn, The Political World or Slavery and Freedom (2009), Ch. 2, “Did we Miss the Greatest Slave Rebellion in Modern History?”, pp. 55-114.

Tute Questions:

• How did white Southerners understand the Civil War in the 1860s and 1870s?
• How did freed slaves understand their role in emancipation?
• How did these conflicting views of citizenship and inclusion in the American nation resolve themselves?
• Why do Americans remember the Civil War the way they do? In what ways does this memory clash with historical evidence?

Readings:

• Frederick Turner, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History”, in The Frontier in American History (1893), pp. 1-38, online at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/22994/22994-h/22994-h.htm#Page_1

·         Richard White, “Frederick Jackson Turner and Buffalo Bill”, in The Frontier in American Culture (1994), pp. 7-67.

Tute Questions:

• According to Turner’s “Frontier Thesis”, how do Americans remember the western frontier?
• In what ways is the Frontier constructed by late 19^th century Americans?
• How do Native Americans fare in the American memory of the late 19^th Century?

Readings:

• Ian Tyrrell, Transnational Nation: United States History in Global Perspective Since 1789 (2007), Ch. 4 "People in Motion: Nineteenth Century Migration Experiences", pp. 52-64.
• Thomas Dublin, Immigrant Voices: New Lives in America 1773-1986 (1993), Ch. 5 “Rose Gollup: From Russia to the Lower East Side in the 1890s”, pp. 146-172.
• Hamilton Holt, The Life Stories of Undistinguished Americans As Told by Themselves (2000), Ch. 4 “The Life Story of a Greek Peddler”, and Ch. 16 “The Life Story of a Chinaman”, pp. 39-48, 174-185.

Tute Questions:

• How does Tyrell characterise the Century of Immigration?
• How did Immigrants experience immigration?
• Was ‘Americanisation’ a process of adaptation or integration?

 Readings:

• “A New Deal for the Arts” website, online at  http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/new_deal_for_the_arts/index.html
• Dorothea Lange’s ‘Migrant Mother’ images, online at http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/128_migm.html
• Lawrence Levine, The Unpredictable Past (1993), Ch. 13 “The Historian and the Icon: Photography and the History of the American People in the 1930s and 1940s”, pp. 256-290
• Erika Doss, “Between Modernity and ‘the Real Thing’: Maynard Dixon’s Mural for the Bureau of Indian Affairs”, in American Art, Vol. 18, No. 3 (2004), pp. 8-31.

Tute Questions:

• In what ways did New Deal Art projects construct America for Americans?
• In what ways can we problematise this narrative?
• How should historians understand the New Deal?

 Readings:

• Peter Schrijvers, The Crash of Ruin: American Combat Soldiers in Europe during World War II (1998), Ch. 9 “The Old World”, pp. 218-248.
• John Dower, War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (1986), Ch. 7 “Yellow, Red, and Black Men”, pp. 147-190.

Tute Questions:

• How did American GIs see Europe in the Second World War?
• How did Americans see Asia in the Second World War?
• What assumptions about America’s place in the world inform their understanding of these places?
• How does the experience of war change Americans’ perceptions of themselves?

 Readings:

• Elaine Tyler-May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era (2008), Ch.1. “Containment at Home: Cold War, Warm Hearth”. pp. 19-37.
• Cohen, Lizabeth, A Consumers' Republic: The Politics of Consumption in Postwar America (2003), Ch. 3 :"Reconversion: The Emergence of a Consumers' Repulic", pp. 112-165

Tute Questions:

• How did Americans understand domesticity in the 1950s?
• Who was the driver of the ‘shift’ to a consumer economy?

 READ EITHER:

• Manning Marable, Race, Reform, and Rebellion: The Second Reconstruction and Beyond in Black America, 1945-2006 (3^rd Edition, 2007), Ch. 4 “We Shall Overcome, 1960-65”, pp. 59-83
• Bayard Rustin’s “Negro Revolution in 1965” speech (1964) at http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/blackspeech/brustin.html, and
• MLK Jr's Letter from a  Birmingham Jail (1963) at http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html

OR:

• Manning Marable, Race, Reform, and Rebellion: The Second Reconstruction and Beyond in Black America, 1945-2006 (3^rd. Edition, 2007), Ch. 5 “Black Power, 1965-70”, pp. 84-111
• Malcolm X's "Message to the Grassroots" (1963) at http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=1145, and
• Stokely Carmichael’s “From Black Power to Pan-Africanism” (1971) speech, at http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/blackspeech/scarmichael-2.html

Tute Questions (to be answered in debate):

• How do the speeches argue that the black struggle for Civil Rights will be best advanced?
• How does the information presented in Marable contextualise and explain the content of these speeches?
• Why are there such stark differences in outlook within the Civil Rights movement?
• Do you feel that a position of moderation and non-violence or a position of violent separatism is more compelling, and why?

 Readings:

• Documents from Alexander Bloom and Wini Breines (eds), “Takin’ it to the Streets”: A Sixties Reader (3^rd Edition, 2011):

o   The Black Panther Platform: “What We Want, What We Believe” (1966), pp. 131-134.

o   Frances Beal, “Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female” (1969), pp. 442-445.

o   Betty Friedan, “The Problem That Has No Name” (1963), pp. 393-398.

o   Pat Mainardi, “The Politics of housework” (1969), pp. 417-420.

o   Gloria Steinem, What Would It Be Like If Women Win (1970), p. 399-404.

o   Radicalesbians, “The Woman-Identified Woman”, pp. 434-438.

o   SDS, “The Port Huron Statement” (1962), pp. 50-61.

o   Guy Strait, “What is a Hipie?” (1967), pp. 269-270.

o   Helen Swick Perry, “The Human Be-in” (1967), pp. 271-273.

o   “Yippie Manifesto” (1968), pp. 278-280.

o   Jerry Rubin, “Do It!” (1970), pp. 280-283.

o   SDS, “SDS Call for a March on Washington” (1965), pp. 191-192.

o   SNCC, “SNCC POosition paper on Vietnam”, pp. 192-194.

o   Martin Luther King, Jr. “Declaration of Independence from the War on Vietnam” (1967), pp. 194-199.

o   John Kerry, Vietnam Veterans Against The War (1971), pp. 219-222

Tute Questions:

• What did the radical groups that agitated for social change in the 1960s want?
• How did they expect their goals would be achieved?
• How did the radical activists differ from the moderates?
• What role did gender or race play in 1960s activism?
• Why did they all begin to agitate in the 1960s?

Week 10: Reading Week - NO TUTORIAL THIS WEEK

 Readings:

• Documents from Ronald Story and Bruce Laurie (eds), The Rise of Conservatism in America, 1945-2000, (2008):
• Spiro Agnew, “Two Speeches” (1969), pp. 77-80.
• Richard Nixon, “Labor Day Radio Address” (1972), pp. 90-93.
• NRA, “Act Before It Is Too Late” (1974), pp. 94-696
• Phyllis Schlafly Interview with the Washington Star (1976), pp. 103-107.
• Paul Weyrich, Building the Moral Majority (1979), pp. 114-117
• Ronald Reagan, Speech to the National Association of Evangelicals (1983), pp. 126-129.
• Southern Baptist Convention, Resolution on Abortion (1984), pp.132-134.
• Southern Baptist Convention, Resolution on Homosexual Marriage (1996), pp. 153-157.

Tute Questions:

• How did conservatives in America view the 1960s?
• What narrative did they ascribe to the 1960s?
• How did that narrative inform their political actions?
• Was their new conservatism only a reaction to the liberalism of the 1960s?
• Should this neoconservative backlash be described as a revolution or counter-revolution, or as something entirely different?

Readings:

• David Thelen, "History after the 'Enola Gay' Controversy: An Introduction", JAH, 12/95, 82 (3), pp. 1029-1035.
• Katherine Walker, "United, Regardless, and a Bit Regretful: Confederate History Month, the Slavery Apology, and the Failure of Commemoration", American Nineteenth Century History Vol. 9, No. 3, September 2008, pp. 315–338.

Tute Questions:

• Why were both the dropping of the Atomic Bomb and the brief rule of the Confederacy such contested memories in late 20^th Century America?
• Which interest groups make claims to the memory or representation of these events?
• Which groups are silenced by these controversies, and why?
• Are the memories of these different interest groups necessarily incompatible?

Readings:

• This week you are expected to find your own reading. Come to class prepared to share and discuss a representation of an event or moment in American history from popular culture. It could be a clip from a television show or movie, an advertisement, a song, a book, a news clip or clipping – whatever you want. Just make sure that it is relatively modern, short (if it is digital - around 2 minutes), and easily reproduced or shared. The more unit themes your reading engages with, the better.

Tute Questions:

• What issues of memory or representation can you identify in modern American politics?
• What issues around inclusion or exclusion can you see in modern America?
• How is America’s current role in world affairs reflected in its past?
• How are contemporary American politics, society and culture defined by Americans’ engagement with the past?
• What continuities and discontinuities can you identify between American history and America now?