A&H 185 Introduction to Cultural History and American Studies

Content

This course introduces students to the fundamental skills needed to study history. The focus is on the United States from the Colonial Era through the 1950’s. The approach is cultural and social. This means that we study a wide and rich range of historically significant sources, such as private diaries and letters; published novels and accounts; art, artefacts and material culture like drawings, household appliances and quilts; and old and new media like newspapers and magazines, and internet sites and twitter.

These primary materials, (things produced in the time period studied), help us to get at the lives of ordinary women, men and children, as well as the mundane and extraordinary events that shaped their histories and our present. For example, we study slavery by reading, viewing and listening to 18th and 19th century narratives and quilts woven by slaves; written accounts of European “foreigners” like Alexis de Tocqueville; lectures given by ex-slaves in Europe and within the free United States; and novels like Uncle Tom’s Cabin. We also view Hollywood films like Gone with the Wind, and visit American museums and monuments on the internet, to get a clear sense of the national struggle with the legacy of institutionalized brutality.

Our historical overview also examines topics like colonization, Revolution and Civil War; migration and immigration; urbanization and suburbanization; the “Affluent Twenties” and Great Depression. Class readings and discussions explore the ways new technologies shaped these significant time periods and events. We look, for instance, at how the gun reshaped Native American social and environmental landscapes; how photography conveyed the death and destruction of the Civil War; and how, one hundred years later, television brought foreign and domestic struggles and developments, like Cold War and Civil Rights, into the heart of the American home.

Throughout the term, students look beyond as well as within the United States. They draw from scholarly works in Media and Gender Studies, and Sociology and History, to interpret what they see. By the end of the term, they will have an overview of the American past, and the research and analytical skills to study different perspectives on historical issues, that continue to define contemporary life.

Instructor

Dr. Hans Krabbendam

Track

History - Cultural History and American Studies

Period

Fall / 2011

Required for

This course is required in order to take the following course:

• A&H 287 History of Women and Gender

This course is an alternative requirement for the following courses:

• A&H 275 Emotions. A Social and Cultural History
• A&H 278 History of Empires
• A&H 279 Western Way of War
• SSC 334 Advanced Cultural Studies