Emphasizes the encounter between the two hemispheres and the emergence of colonial societies from this meeting of Native American, European, and African cultures. Special attention will be paid to the atypical experience of British North America. Beginning with an examination of the origins of the political, social, and economic divisions between North and South, the course examines the outbreak of conflict, the transformations brought by war, and the difficult process of reconstructing the Union. The course emphasizes the complex relationships between military action and social change, the extraordinary social and political revolutions that accompanied emancipation, and the emergence of new ideas of citizenship and nationhood following the conflict. Focuses on the interaction of economics and ideology, relationships between production, reproduction, and sexuality in defining women's status, development of female culture and feminism, and the role of race, class, and ethnicity in shaping women's experience.
Assignments stress primary sources as well as scholarly studies, films, and recordings.
This course examines variations and commonalities in the experiences of those who have voluntarily emigrated to the United States since the mid 19th century. The focus of the course is on the lives of immigrants themselves, but it also examines US immigration from the standpoint of those already settled in the United States and from the standpoint of popular culture and public policy. Examines the development of feudalism, the resurgence of economic and urban institutions, changing educational and cultural forms, and the molding of ecclesiastical and political ideas and structures. Not offered, 1999-00. Option of doing some reading in French and German.