3.0

credits

Average Course Rating

American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it” - James Baldwin, black American author and activist, 1963. In this course, we will strive to understand some of that long, large, various, beautiful, and terrible history. This course offers a chronological survey of histories of the United States, from Reconstruction to the 21st century. Throughout, we will explore the connection between historical events and cultural history. We will pay particular attention to the development and dissemination of mass media and mass culture, whether film, radio, television, print media, or the internet. Students will demonstrate their understandings in a midterm essay and a final essay, and they will create a creative performance project exploring an era, issue, or persona relating to the course.