Master of Arts Programs for History Teachers
Summer 2026 - Ashland Campus
Session 1 – June 21 to June 26
| HIST 507 1A / POLSC 507 1A: Lincoln (2) This course provides an in-depth study of Abraham Lincoln’s political thought and action. Students will study Lincoln’s most important speeches, as well as study various aspects of his political leadership, including his role as the leader of the Republican party and as commander in chief. The course will also provide opportunities for students to analyze Lincoln’s rhetoric and political argumentation. Instructor: Dan Monroe (Millikin University) Course Materials: |
| HIST 624 1A / POLSC 624 1A: The American Western (2) This course is an intensive study of several classic American Westerns, in both print and film. The American Western reflects something fundamental about both the American mind and the American regime. The Western’s emphasis on courage and self-reliance, for example, arises from that same American character that forms the basis of self-government. The American Western also raises important questions central to American political life, among which are the meaning of justice, equality, and liberty. This course will also address the question of how American politics both influences and is influenced by literature in the Western genre. Instructor: Christopher Burkett (Ashland University) Course Materials: Syllabus Course Pack |
| HIST 641 1A / POLSC 641 1A: The Supreme Court (2) The course is an intensive study of the highest court in the federal judiciary, focusing on the place of the Supreme Court in the American constitutional order. Areas of study may include the relationship between the Court and the other branches of the federal government as well as the states; the Court’s power of judicial review; and judicial politics and statesmanship. We will examine these kinds of issues by investigating how the Court has interpreted the Constitution in some of its most historic decisions. Instructor: Jeffrey Sikkenga (Ashland University) Course Materials: Syllabus Course Pack |
| HIST 643 1A / POLSC 643 1A: Federalism, the Separation of Powers, and the Constitution (2) This course will focus on how the American judiciary as understood the Constitution’s two great institutional structures. First, it will explore the concept and practice of separation of powers into legislative, executive, and judicial branches. Second, the course will take up issues related to federalism whereby the powers of government are divided between states and a national government. While we will bring in other documents, the main focus will be on judicial opinions given by the Supreme Court. Instructor: Adam Carrington (Ashland University) Course Materials: |
| HIST 660 1A / POLSC 660 1A: The United States and the Holocaust (2) TBD Instructor: Stephen F. Knott (United States Naval War College) Course Materials: |
Session 2 – June 28 to July 3
| 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. Instructor: Jason W. Stevens (Ashland University) Course Materials: |
| HIST 506 2A / POLSC 506 2A: 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: Emily Krichbaum (The National Women’s History Museum) Course Materials: |
| HIST 632 2A / POLSC 632 2A: The American Presidency I – Washington to Lincoln (2) This course is an examination of the political and 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: J. David Alvis (Wofford College) Course Materials: |
| 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. Instructor: Eric C. Sands (Berry College) Course Materials: |
| HIST 643 2B / POLSC 643 2B: Administrative Power and Law (2) This class will examine the constitutional and legal questions surrounding the emergence of the administrative state, which is the primary way that public policy is made in contemporary America. We will examine how Congress grants authority to agencies, who oversees those agencies, how those agencies make and implement rules, and how federal courts review the rules and policies that agencies make. Specifically, we will examine legal controversies surrounding the nondelegation doctrine, appointment and removal of agency heads, and how the Administrative Procedure Act governs the administrative state. Instructor: Joseph Postell (Hillsdale College) Course Materials: |
Session 3 – July 5 to July 10
| 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: Adam Seagrave (Arizona State University) Course Materials: |
| HIST 510 3A / POLSC 510 3A: Great American Texts – Democracy in America (2) 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: Elizabeth S. Amato (Gardner-Webb University) Course Materials: |
| HIST 605 3A / POLSC 605 3A: 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: Daniel K. Williams (Ashland University) Course Materials: |
| HIST 608 3A / POLSC 608 3A: 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: Robert Colby (University of Mississippi) Course Materials: |
| HIST 610 3A / POLSC 610 3A: 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. Instructor: Eric Pullin (Carthage College) Course Materials: |
Session 4 – July 12 to July 17
| HIST 501 4A / POLSC 501 4A: 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: Robert M.S. McDonald (United States Military Academy) Course Materials: Syllabus Course Pack |
| 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: Jason Jividen (Saint Vincent College) Course Materials: |
| HIST 614 4A / POLSC 614 4A: 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. Instructor: Vincent Cannato (University of Massachusetts, Boston) Course Materials: |
| HIST 631 4A / POLSC 631 4A: American Political Rhetoric (2) This course examines the principles and practice of American political rhetoric through the careful reading of the speeches of its leading statesmen. Instructor: Elizabeth L’Arrivee (Rosary College) Course Materials: |
| HIST 633 4A / POLSC 633 4A: The American Presidency II – Andrew 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: Joseph Griffith (Ashland University) Course Materials: |
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