Course Catalogue

Humanities and Social Science

1. Broaden students’ understanding of key themes in America’s history that have shaped its development as a nation, through a chronological survey. 2. Provide students with the opportunity to engage with a variety of sources and historiographical perspectives to better understand America’s past 3.Support students’ development of a methodical, analytical, and critical approach to the study of history.

Outline Syllabus:Lectures 1) America Before the United States: The settlement and colonisation of the Americas, 15,000BCE-1735 2) Don't Tread on Me: From Colony to Independence, 1735-1783 3) A More Perfect Union: Creating the United States, 1784 – 1815 4) The Common Man: The Market Revolution and Jacksonian America, 1816 – 1850 5) Three Fifths of a Person: Ante-bellum slavery and the road to the Civil War, 1789 – 1860 6) Drawn with the Sword: The Civil War and Reconstruction, 1861-1877 7) Robber Barons: From Reconstruction to the Gilded Age, 1865 – 1900 8) Melting Pot?: Immigration to the United States, 1783 – 1924 9) Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: The West and Native America, 1865 – 1890 10) How the Other Half Lives: The 'Progressive Era', 1880 – 1914 11) Boomtime: From the Great War to the Crash, 1914 – 1929 12) Fear Itself: The Great Depression and the New Deal, 1929 – 1941 13) Arsenal of Democracy: From World War to Cold War, 1941 – 1950 14) Duck and Cover: Atom Age urban America, 1945 – 1961 15) We Shall Not Be Moved: The Civil Rights Movement and the Great Society, 1954 – 1968 16) Culture Wars!: America in the 1970s, 1969 – 1979 17) Full of Hazards: The 1950s and 60s in American foreign policy 18) Detente and Decline: Foreign Policy in the Long 1970s 19) Morning in America: Ronald Reagan and domestic politics, 1981 – 1989 20) Tear Down This Wall!: U.S. foreign policy, 1979-1991 21) The Unipolar Moment: Bush, Clinton, and the 1990s 22) How did we get where we are? Seminars 1) The Salem Witch Trials 2) Native Americans and the Early Republic 3) Narratives of the Enslaved 4) The Jim Crow South 5) Eugenics and Progressivism 6) The New Deal’s Enduring Resonance 7) Anti-communist Politics 8) The Struggle for Civil Rights 9) Women's’ Rights and the Culture Wars of the 1970s 10) African-Americans and the War on Drugs 11) Contemporary American

Module Overview:
This module will broaden your understanding of key moments in America's history that have shaped its development as a nation. It will also provide you with the opportunity to engage with a variety of sources and historical tools to better understand America's past.

Additional Information:This module allows students to engage with a variety of means of understanding the American nation via its people, political processes and actions abroad. Through a range of case studies and contextual lectures and material students will be introduced to important moments in America's history. It will discuss times which challenged the nation's sense of identity, changed the way it engaged with the world and both unified and divided the people who live within its borders.