HIST 510 1A / POLSC 510 1A: Great American Texts–Democracy in America

Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America is the best study of America to be written by a foreigner and perhaps the best and most comprehensive study ever of democracy. Tocqueville examines government, religion, manners, the races, private associations, literature, the family, and much else, all the while contrasting democratic America with old aristocratic Europe. His examination forces us to examine our assumption that democracy is the best way to organize society and to think deeply about the relation between equality and human excellence. This course will examine as much of the book as we can, focusing especially on Tocqueville’s account of the love of equality and its implications for the preservation of liberty and human excellence.

Instructor: Natalie F. Taylor (Skidmore College)

Course Materials: Syllabus

HIST 510 1B / POLSC 510 1B: Great American Texts – Abraham Lincoln (2)

Abraham Lincoln wove his words into the fabric of American history. In the twenty-first century, Lincoln’s political language remains more contemporary than all but the most timeless of the political language of the American Founding. This course is a study of selected Lincoln speeches aiming to illuminate Lincoln’s understanding of the relation of the principles of the American Founding to the most pressing issues of his day.

Instructor: Jason W. Stevens (Ashland University)

Course Materials: Syllabus

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HIST 632 1A / POLSC 632 1A: The American Presidency I – Washington to Lincoln (2)

This course is an examination of the political and constitutional development of the office of president from the Founding era through the Civil War. It focuses on how the presidency shaped American political life as the country grew and struggled with rising sectional tensions.

Instructor: Stephen F. Knott (United States Naval War College)

Course Materials: Syllabus

HIST 643 1A / POLSC 643 1A: The Fourth Amendment (2)

This course is an intensive study of the history, politics, and law of the Fourth Amendment. What is an unreasonable search or seizure? When must government get a warrant? Does technology change any of the answers to those questions? To address these issues, we will look at the text and constitutional principles of the Fourth Amendment as well as its historical development, especially through Supreme Court decisions.

Instructor:Jeffrey Sikkenga (Ashland University)

Course Materials: Syllabus

HIST 660 1A / POLSC 660 1A: The Federal System (2)

This course examines the origin and development of the U.S. federal system. Attention will be paid to debates, developments, and U.S. Supreme Court decisions regarding the extent of federal and state authority at pivotal points in American history, including the framing of the U.S. Constitution; state challenges to federal authority in the early republic; expansion of federal power during the New Deal Era and Civil Rights Revolution; and conflicts between state and federal authority in the contemporary era on issues such as marijuana regulation, health policy, and election administration.

Instructor: Eric Sands (Berry College)

Course Materials: Syllabus, Course Pack

HIST AHG 501 2A / POLSC 501 2A: The American Revolution (2)

This course focuses on three topics: political developments in North America and the British empire and the arguments for and against independence, culminating in the Declaration of Independence; the Revolutionary War as a military, social and cultural event in the development of the American nation and state; and the United States under the Articles of Confederation.

Instructor: Todd Estes (Oakland University)

Course Materials: Syllabus

HIST 503 2A / POLSC 503 2A: Sectionalism and Civil War (2)

A study of the sectional conflict beginning with the nullification crisis. The course will not only examine the political, social and economic developments in the period leading to the civil war, but will emphasize the political thought of Abraham Lincoln, Stephen Douglas, and John C. Calhoun.

Instructors: Joseph R. Fornieri (Rochester Institute of Technology) and Susan Hanssen (University of Dallas)

Course Materials: Syllabus

HIST 608 2A / POLSC 608 2A: Civil War and Reconstruction (2)

This course will examine military aspects of the war, as well as political developments during it, including the political history of the Emancipation Proclamation, the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural. The course also examines the post-war Amendments and the Reconstruction era.

Instructor: Jonathan White (Christopher Newport University)

Course Materials: Syllabus

HIST 621 2A / POLSC 621 2A: Race and Equality in America (2)

This course explores the history of black Americans as they strove to secure their dignity as human beings, and rights as American citizens, in the face of racial prejudice. Students will examine the writings of leading black intellectuals and activists about human equality, slavery, self-government, the rule of law, emancipation, colonization, and citizenship. The course will also review laws, constitutional amendments, court cases, and social criticism addressing civil and political rights in America.

Instructor: Lucas E. Morel (Washington & Lee University)

Course Materials: Syllabus

HIST 642 2A / POLSC 642 2A: Political Parties (2)

This course examines the development of American political parties, focusing on the meaning of parties and historic moments in the rise and fall of political parties from the Founding era to the present. Topics may include re-aligning elections, changing coalitions within American parties, and the contemporary Democratic and Republican parties.

Instructors: Eric C. Sands (Berry College) and Abigail Vegter (Berry College)

Course Materials: Syllabus

HIST 680 2HL: Wives, Mothers, Rebels, Others: Women in American History and Literature (2)

This course takes seriously Gerda Lerner’s important observation, “Women have always made history as much as men have, not ‘contributed’ to it, only they did not know what they had made and had no tools to interpret their own experience.” We will examine several key points in American history through the works—and words—of the women who made American history and American literature. On the history side, we will explore movements such as Republican motherhood, abolition, suffrage, temperance, civil rights, and intersectionality. On the literature side, we will examine how these historical events are both facilitated and complicated by women’s writing. Our literary readings will show how a range of styles (sentimental fiction, slave narrative, the Gothic tale and the ghost story; political satire; the bildungsroman, or coming of age novel) can both reinforce and undermine the topics they explore, such as domesticity, liberty, marriage, suffrage, education, and economic independence. Literary writers may include Susanna Rowson, Harriet Jacobs, Edith Wharton, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Anita Loos and Toni Morrison.

Instructors: Elizabeth Amato (Gardner-Webb University) and Kathleen Pfeiffer (Oakland University)

Course Materials: Syllabus

HIST 502 3A / POLSC 502 3A: The American Founding (2)

This course is an intensive study of the constitutional convention, the struggle over ratification of the Constitution, and the creation of the Bill of Rights. It will include a close examination of the Federalist Papers and the antifederalist papers.

Instructor: Jason Jividen (Saint Vincent College)

Course Materials: Syllabus

HIST 506 3A / POLSC 506 3A: The Rise of Modern America, 1914-1945 (2)

With the exception of the Civil War era, it is difficult to find another thirty-year period in U.S. history during which the nation underwent such dramatic change. In 1914 the United States was no more than a regional power, with a primarily rural demography and a relatively unobtrusive federal government. Thanks to the experience of two world wars, a major cultural conflict (the 1920s), and a disastrous economic crisis the country was transformed into the global economic and military power that it remains to this day. This course will examine the cultural, economic, military, and diplomatic events and trends of the period 1914-1945.

Instructor: Jennifer D. Keene (Chapman University)

Course Materials: Syllabus

HIST 604 3A / POLSC 604 3A: The Early Republic (2)

Having adopted a form of government, the Americans had to make it work. This course examines their efforts to do so, as the Republic took shape amidst foreign dangers, political conflict, westward expansion and religious revivals.

Instructor: Robert M.S. McDonald (United States Military Academy)

Course Materials: Syllabus

HIST 614 3A / POLSC 614 3A: Contemporary America, 1974 to present (2)

Examines the United States from the end of Watergate to the present, with emphasis on the rise of the new conservatism, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the search for a new foreign policy. The social, economic, political, and diplomatic development of the country is stressed with a thematic emphasis.

Instructors: David F. Krugler (University of Wisconsin-Platteville) and Charissa Threat (Chapman University)

Course Materials: Syllabus

HIST 680 3HL: Violence in American History and Literature (2)

Violence has been a constant of American life since the first encounter. From early Native-American captivity narratives, vigilantism to lynching, from agrarian violence to urban riots and labor conflict, the course examines the causes of the mayhem including ethnic and religious hatred as well as race and gender prejudice. Topics are developed and analyzed that receive only cursory treatment in survey courses. Topics may include domestic violence, westerns, revenge, “justified” violence, and the literary depiction of violence. Authors may include William Faulkner, Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, Louise Erdrich, Eudora Welty, Audrey Lorde, Stephen Crane, and Herman Melville.

Instructor: Suzanne Hunter Brown (Dartmouth College) and Dan Monroe (Millikin University)

Course Materials: Syllabus

HIST 505 4A / POLSC 505 4A: The Progressive Era (2)

The transition to an industrial economy posed many problems for the United States. This course examines those problems and the responses to them that came to be known as progressivism. The course includes the study of World War I as a manifestation of progressive principles. The course emphasizes the political thought of Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and their political expression of progressive principles.

Instructor: John Moser (Ashland University)

Course Materials: Syllabus

HIST 605 4A / POLSC 605 4A: The Age of Enterprise (2)

In the last decades of the 19th century, the United States took decisive steps away from its rural, agrarian past toward its industrial future, assuming its place among world powers. This course examines that movement, covering such topics as business-labor relations, political corruption, immigration, imperialism, the New South, and segregation and racism.

Instructor: William Atto (University of Dallas) and Brent J. Aucoin (The College at Southeastern)

Course Materials: Syllabus, Course Packet

HIST 610 4A / POLSC 610 4A: American Foreign Policy (2)

Students examine events and issues in the foreign policy of the American republic. Topics include the major schools of thought and approaches, the connection between domestic and foreign politics, and the connection between the principles of the American regime and its foreign policy. Course may be taken twice with the permission of the program Chair.

Instructor: Christopher Burkett (Ashland University)

Course Materials: Syllabus

HIST 633 4A / POLSC 633 4A: The American Presidency II–Johnson to the present (2)

This course is an examination of the political and constitutional development of the office of president from Reconstruction to the present. It focuses on how changing conceptions of the presidency have shaped American political life in the 19th and 20th centuries, especially as America has become a global power.

Instructors: Jeremy D. Bailey (University of Oklahoma) and Marc K. Landy (Boston College)

Course Materials: Syllabus

HIST 644 4A / POLSC 644 4A: The Congress (2)

This course focuses on the legislative branch of the U.S. government. It examines topics such as the constitutional powers of Congress, the relations between Congress and the other branches of the federal government and the states, and the changing structure and internal politics of Congress.

Instructor: Andrew Busch (Claremont McKenna College)

Course Materials: Syllabus