One of the enduring puzzles of the American Revolution is how American colonists, once loyal to the king and enthusiastically attached to their status as British subjects, could by 1776 stand willing to declare their independence and wage a war to secure it. This five-session seminar uses primary sources to examine the principles and philosophies […]
This seminar will focus on immigration to the West Coast of the United States from the mid-to-late 1800s to the present day. Using a mixture of primary source documents, memoirs, and short fiction, we will study topics such as Chinese immigration and exclusion, Japanese immigration and internment during World War II, refugees from Southeast Asia […]
Beginning with the upheavals of the 1960s, the United States saw a diverse set of groups pushing for social change. These included African Americans, Native Americans, women, and gays and lesbians. This seminar will focus on the legacy of the 1960s, the intersection of personal behavior with political movements and battles won and lost by […]
This seminar will focus on America’s westward expansion and its “Manifest Destiny” to expand from sea to shining sea. This seminar will consider the purposes for westward expansion, Jackson’s Indian Removal Policy and westward expansion’s impact on slavery. This program will be conducted as a discussion, utilizing primary source documents as the only readings, and […]
Great fortunes were made in the late 19th Century and with this growth of industrialism came a desire to expand markets. How did nationalism inform the pro-imperialist arguments of Theodore […]
This seminar will examine how the Constitution seeks to create a limited government, and how that government is supposed to function within defined restraints. The complexity of defining such constraints […]
This seminar offers an overview of the principles of the American Founding and the documents that embody them, especially the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution. These principles will be […]
This seminar explores how three iconic figures in American history—Benjamin Franklin, Mark Twain, and Will Rogers—utilized wit, satire, and humor to navigate and critique pivotal eras of political and social […]
While many Supreme Court cases have shaped American policies and history, this seminar explores cases that focus on the Constitution and Federalism, the Constitution and the Commerce Clause and Civil […]
The Civil Rights Movement in America has endured a difficult and tumultuous path. The Emancipation Proclamation ended the Institution of slavery. The Fourteenth Amendment should have guaranteed freedoms, equality and […]
